Burger King The Worst of The Bad

Burger King pushing the low wages of migrant farm workers even lower.

Fast food restaurants in general have a well deserved reputation as not being a good place to work if you want to earn a decent living. They also contribute to keeping wages low by demanding that their suppliers supply the products they need at the lowest possible price. Burger King has earned the dubious distinction of being the worst of all the fast food chains when it comes to suppressing wages for farm workers in the United States.

The migrant farm workers who harvest tomatoes in Florida work 10 to 12 hours a day, picking tomatoes by hand, earning a piece-rate of about 45 cents for every 32-pound bucket. For their efforts, many of them are about to get a 40 per cent pay cut.

Florida's tomato growers are under constant pressure to reduce operating costs, in part by keeping migrant farm workers' wages as low as possible. Most of this pressure comes from the largest purchaser of Florida tomatoes - fast food chains needing millions of pounds of cheap tomatoes as a garnish for their hamburgers, tacos and salads.

In 2005, Florida tomato pickers gained their first significant pay raise in nearly 30 years when Taco Bell ended a consumer boycott by agreeing to pay an extra penny per pound for its tomatoes, with the extra cent going directly to the farm workers. That would increase what the workers receive for a 32-pound bucket to about 77 cents, a 32 cent increase. In 2006, McDonald's agreed to a similar arrangement. But Burger King refuses to pay the extra penny. Its refusal has encouraged tomato growers to cancel the deals already struck with Taco Bell and McDonald's.

In November, the group that represents 90 percent of the state's growers, announced that it will not allow any of its members to collect the extra penny for farm workers. The group has threatened a fine of $100,000 for any grower who accepts an extra penny per pound for migrant wages.

Burger King has justified its behavior by claiming that it has no control over the labor practices of its suppliers. But the company has adopted a far more activist approach when the issue is the well-being of livestock. In March, 2007, Burger King announced strict new rules on how its meatpacking suppliers should treat chickens and hogs. When it comes to its policies for how migrant farm workers should be treated, Burger King suggested that if the farm workers want more money, they should apply for jobs at Burger King restaurants.

There's absolutely no doubt Burger King could afford to pay an extra penny for tomatoes and provide a decent wage to migrant workers. In 2006, the bonuses of the top 12 executives at the company that controls Burger King exceeded $200 million - more than twice as much money as all of the roughly 10,000 tomato pickers in southern Florida earned that year.

Knowledge of Burger King's attitude towards farm workers does nothing to increase a person's appetite for the hamburgers they serve.