One penny per pound
The next time you eat a Burger King Whopper, think about the effort your local Burger King's corporate owners are putting into destroying an effort by a small Florida farm workers union to be paid one penny more per pound for the tomatoes they pick.
CIW, or the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, will march on Burger King's corporate headquarters in Miami this Friday to demand that the fast-food giant agree to stop fighting the modest piece-rate increases already approved by McDonald's and Taco Bell, which is part of Yum Brands. Burger King's unhappiness with the union effort has led the Florida Tomato Growers Exchange to threaten fines of $100,000 to any grower who sells tomatoes to Taco Bell or McDonald's under the agreement.
Anti-trust violation? The law is complex, but some legal minds think so. While the CIW represents only a fraction of Florida tomato pickers, the agreements are expected to affect many unorganized pickers as well. While a penny per pound sounds like nothing, it would raise picker wages from about $10,000 to $11,000 per year--that's below the poverty line--to about $19,000. It seems the least that Burger King can do.
And not eating at Burger King again until they do seems the least I can do.