Taco Bell boycott called by farm workers

By Virmarie Ruiz

New York, New York, Sep 4 (IPS)— Tomato pickers, whose pay is a mere fraction of the US minimum wage, are targeting the global fast food chain Taco Bell in a bid to pressure the company to use its influence to better their working and living conditions.

Members of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers are employed by Six- L’s Packing Co., Inc., the largest producer of tomatoes in Florida and a supplier for Taco Bell.

Unsuccessful in their efforts to negotiate with Six-L’s, the coalition hopes to embarrass the fast food chain into supporting their demands for a wage increase.

A boycott of Taco Bell has been going on in Florida since April. The coalition says the campaign will be stepped up with a national tour of protests in front of Taco Bell restaurants starting Sep. 13.

Taco Bell says it has no responsibility for the laborers’ complaints.

“Our policy is not to interfere with other companies’ labor disputes,” says Taco Bell spokesperson Laurie Gannon. “We don’t set prices for labor. This is not about Taco Bell. I have no idea about their labor issues. It is unfortunate. But they are targeting Taco Bell because we’re nationally (recognized). We don’t set prices for labor and tomatoes.”

Matt Leber, a community organizer working with the Coalition, disagrees. “Taco Bell is creating a demand for unskilled labor. It can be a leader. Taco Bell can really dictate how workers are being paid by saying, ‘We will only give out our contracts to companies who pay a living wage’.”

Taco Bell is part of the world’s biggest conglomerate of chain restaurants, which includes Kentucky Fried Chicken and Pizza Hut. In 1999, Taco Bell alone reported 5.2 billion dollars in sales. Taco Bell’s parent corporation, Tricon Global Inc., earned 22 billion dollars that year.

The Immokalee workers’ wages have remained stagnant since 1978. They are paid 40 to 45 cents for every 32 pounds of tomatoes they pick. At this rate, a worker must pick two tons of tomatoes to earn 50 dollars a day.

The workers say they have no benefits, no insurance, no vacations, and no overtime pay. Their average income is 7,500 to 9,000 dollars per year.

In January 2000, the coalition sent Taco Bell a letter asking to meet management and seeking support to negotiate an increase in their wages. After a year, a second letter was sent. When there was still no response, the boycott began Apr. 1 this year.

Taco Bell pays 34 cents for every pound of tomatoes it buys. The coalition’s request is that the company pay Six-L’s an extra cent for every pound. It estimates that this will raise their wages from 40-45 cents to 75-80 cents.

Lucas Benitez, co-director of the Coalition of Immokalee workers, says, “Six-L’s provides tomatoes around the year for a cheap price. [But Taco Bell gets this] cheap price thanks to the exploitation of farm workers.”

Coalition members are primarily of Hispanic, Haitian, and Mayan Indian descent and many are undocumented workers, making it even more difficult for them to enforce their rights.

The boycott campaign has spread to college campuses, including the University of Florida, the University of Wisconsin, and Notre Dame University, where students have taken part in rallies. Protests have been held in cities including Los Angeles, California; Miami and Orlando, Florida; and Auburn, Alabama.

The ‘Taco Bell Truth Tour’ is the centerpiece of the boycott campaign. The Sep. 13-24 tour will start in Immokalee, Florida and travel through seven cities across the country. It culminates at Taco Bell headquarters in Irvine, California, after stopping in eight cities across the country.

Participants will include farm workers, labor leaders, the clergy, and student groups, says Dana Silverman, an organizer with United for a Fair Economy, a group that supports and publicizes economic justice campaigns nationwide.

“Right now there’s a situation where service sector and other workers are being pushed into lower and lower jobs,” Silverman says. Farm workers are legally entitled to engage in collective bargaining with their employers, she notes, but are exempted from many other federal labor protections.

“Since Taco Bell subcontracts out to other companies, they can say they have no responsibility for wages or working conditions,” she adds. “But if they are the ones buying, (they should) pay a living wage.”

The US Department of Labor reported earlier this year that three out five farm worker households in the United States live in poverty, and that half of all farm workers earn less than 7,500 dollars per year.

US energy plan spells danger for Colombian labor

By David Bacon

Washington, DC, Sept. 10 (IPS)— The George W. Bush administration’s proposed energy policy is bringing to light an economic reason for the United States’ growing involvement in Colombia’s civil war. It is not drugs, but coal.

The US House of Representatives approved the energy policy before taking its August recess. The policy now faces Senate debate. It envisions greater reliance on coal, the most widely used fuel in US power plants. Colombia is a major source of that coal.

Despite its civil war, Colombia is the world’s fourth-largest coal exporter. It shipped 30 million tons in 2000, worth 794 million dollars, making coal the country’s third-largest source of export earnings.

By many accounts, Colombia is one of the most dangerous places to be a trade unionist. More than 40 union leaders have been slain so far this year. Last year, 129 were assassinated. Colombia’s non-governmental National Labor School reports that 1,500 union officials have been killed in the past decade. Hector Fajardo, general secretary of Colombia’s largest union federation, the Unified Confederation of Workers (CUT), says 3,800 trade unionists have been killed since 1986.

US labor organizations increasingly point to a network of administration policies that they say contribute to the targeting of Colombian unionists.

Plan Colombia, for instance, provides more than one billion dollars in US aid to Colombia’s military. Officially, the program supports anti-narcotics activities. However, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have documented that aid provided by Plan Colombia is used to support right-wing paramilitary groups. Trade union leaders have been among their primary targets.

The Bush administration’s energy plan has drawn similar concern.

The plan calls for 1,300-1,900 new electrical generating stations over the next 20 years. Most will run on fossil fuels, so a vast increase in coal consumption is virtually certain. The US market for Colombian coal could mushroom.

The document also promotes a broad policy agenda designed to increase US and foreign investment in industries such as Colombia’s coal sector. Such policies have provoked a wave of resistance by Colombian workers. Their strikes and demonstrations have been met with violent repression.

The Cerrejon Norte mine, formerly state-owned, is now operated as a joint venture between the government and US-based Exxon Corp., a unit of ExxonMobil. In 2000, it produced 18.4 million tons of coal — half of Colombia’s total output. Half of this went to Exxon, which sold 17 percent of it to two southeast US utilities.

The Colombian army provides security for the mine and has a history of involvement in labor disputes. In the early 1990s, tanks occupied Cerrejon Norte after the government ordered the military to break a miners’ strike. Other US energy corporations, like Occidental Petroleum, also depend on the Colombian army to provide security in their oil fields.

US labor groups, long suspicious of their foreign counterparts, now say human rights abuses abroad have a direct impact on US workers and union members: In Colombia and elsewhere, a low-wage workforce whose labor rights are attacked and leaders murdered gives US companies a low-cost advantage in moving production there.

After developing Cerrejon Norte in the mid-1980s, Exxon began cutting its US coal production and reduced its US coal-mining workforce to 321 people, from 1,600. Its Colombian operation now accounts for over half the company’s coal production worldwide. Other companies have followed suit.

Increased foreign investment has done nothing for the longevity of Colombian union officials.

The AUC, a paramilitary group, had issued death threats against union leaders at Loma, accusing them of collaborating with the country’s main leftist guerrilla group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), says Ken Zinn, North American coordinator for the International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers’ Unions.

“In the conflict, a lot of assumptions are made quickly,” says Rafael Albuquerque, who represents the International Labor Organization in Colombia, “One of those assumptions is that many union leaders support the guerrillas.”

Roberto Molino of the Colombian Commission of Jurists adds that, “in the case of the paramilitaries, you cannot underestimate the collaboration of government forces.”

Last year, five million tons of Colombian coal entered the US state of Alabama, Drummond’s home base. Alabama exported 13 million tons of coal in 1996, mostly from Drummond mines. Last year’s exports totaled only three million tons. At the Loma mine, production rose four million tons in 2000, to a total of 11.8 million. The company expects to sell 15 million tons next year, and 25 million tons by 2006. US jobs have been cut.

Drummond transferred operations to Colombia “knowing that country’s hostile political climate and egregious human rights violations,’’ says United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) Vice-President Jerry Jones.

For Drummond, the transfer has resulted in substantial savings on labor costs. A union miner in Alabama earns 3,060 dollars per month, plus benefits. At Loma, workers earn between $477 and $955 per month.