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blue bits. red rocks.
Thursday 31 January 2008

The Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) – a community-based worker organization – has “exposed a half-dozen slavery cases” that helped trigger the freeing of more than 1,000 workers, and also advocated for better wages, living conditions, respect from the industry, and an end to indentured servitude. CIW recently scored critical victories in negotiating a penny-per-pound surcharge – so workers would now receive about 77 cents per 32-pound bucket – with McDonald’s and Yum! Brands (owner of Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, KFC). The corporations – not the tomato growers – would pay the 40 percent salary increase. Astonishingly, Burger King has refused to go along with the deal (tell Burger King to pony up) – it would cost them less than $300,000 annually and the corporation took in $2.23 billion in revenues in 2007. Not to mention three private equity firms control most of Burger King’s stock, including Goldman Sachs. In 2006 Goldman Sachs’ top 12 execs took home bonuses exceeding $200 million – “more than twice as much money as all of the roughly 10,000 tomato pickers in southern Florida earned that year,” according to Schlosser.) Even more outrageous is the response of the Florida Tomato Growers Exchange, representing 90 percent of the state’s growers. The group has said it will fine any member $100,000 for accepting the extra penny per pound for worker wages. Slavery in the Union

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