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Student gets hot about Chipotle’s labor practices

By Emile Hallez
ehallez@mscd.edu

Patrick Kelsall doesn’t live in Immokalee, Fla. In fact, the 21-year-old sociology major doesn’t live anywhere near it.

But from more than 2,000 miles away, Kelsall, a senior at the University of Colorado at Boulder, feels a sense of solidarity with the region’s scores of impoverished tomato pickers.

In the fields of southwest Florida, workers spend long days working for little pay.

Most take home about 45 cents for each bucket of tomatoes they can gather. That amounts to about $10,000 per year, says the Student/ Farmworker Alliance, an activist group of which Kelsall is a member.

While working with an ant sweatshop group in college, he met another member of SFA and learned about the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, a collective composed mostly of immigrants who have low-wage jobs in Florida.

“I kind of see this as a way to get plugged into a larger movement,” Kelsall said. “I don’t live in Immokalee … but I see (similar) issues around me in my community. It’s a vehicle for me to learn about how communities can organize for their empowerment.

” Because large corporations and fast food chains either own the tomato fields or influence the region’s labor practices through bulk-buying power, SFA and other groups are organizing nationwide campaigns against Burger King and Chipotle.

The hope is that through organized demonstrations and boycotts, the standard of living for Immokalee’s workers will be raised.

Just raising the amount Chipotle pays per pound of tomatoes by a penny would have an impact on the welfare of tomato pickers, Kelsall said. “That would go directly to the workers,” he said.

And at noon on April 2 anyone near the Chipotle headquarters at 1543 Wazee St. will be likely to hear the message: The burrito giant doesn’t do enough for the hands that pick the salsa ingredients.

The demonstration is one of several scheduled in Colorado during SFA’s national Student/Labor Week of Action, March 28 through April 4.

“Chipotle Mexican Grill promotes themselves as a leader in socially responsible purchasing practices,” said Robert McGoey, an SFA member who was introduced to the tomato workers’ struggle while he worked at an internship in Immokalee.

“They’re unwilling to discuss the issue of the rights of the farm workers.”

Also planned during the Student/ Labor Week of Action is a protest at a local Burger King. The SFA has launched a national campaign against the chain of hamburger restaurants.

The group’s website offers printable “profit king” masks and criminal wanted posters mocking Burger King’s crowned mascot.

But despite the passion of SFA’s demands for worker rights, Burger King denies its agricultural providers are in bad hands.

The average tomato picker in Florida takes home $12.50 per hour, said Burger King CEO, John Chidsey, in a speech on Oct. 3, 2007 at his alma mater, Davidson College, in North Carolina.

That amounts to a higher hourly wage than that earned by most fast food workers, he said.

By contrast, the Department of Labor lists yearly wages for agricultural workers, such as tomato pickers, at about $17,000. And because tomato pickers are initially given tokens they exchange for daily pay, a reliable hourly rate is impossible for the workers to count, the SFA stated. Workers may be unable to pick the fruits during rainstorms or when, for other reasons, the fields may not be ready.

If Burger King eventually submits to SFA and CIW campaigns, it won’t be the first fast-food giant to do so — a successful boycott of Taco Bell took a grudging four years to reach fruition, but the company is now working with CIW to expand workers’ rights.

And though progress has been made with the success of that campaign, McGoey cautions that there is a long way to go.

“Ninety percent of the tomatoes grown in the U.S. during the winter months come from Florida,” McGoey said. “The goal isn’t consumer purity, as it is political solidarity.”

While the U.S. tomato supply comes largely from Florida, Mexico is also relied upon as an exporter.

“Florida and Mexico historically compete for the U.S. winter and early spring market,” reads a statement from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

“Imports from Mexico tend to peak in the winter when southern Florida is the predominant U.S. producer. Florida tomatoes then dominate the market during the spring as Mexican production seasonally declines.”

Because it is impossible for consumers to avoid buying tomatoes specifically grown in Florida, McGoey said, supporting change for the farm workers is the best way for the average person to help them.

“We believe that the struggle of farm workers is a struggle for our freedom too. … Just as fast food industries objectify youth,” McGoey said.

“These same companies view workers as machines that they use to harvest the cheap products that they put into their tacos and burritos.”