Stop the Servitude

Farm workers who pick tomatoes for the fast-food industry are among this country’s most exploited workers. Please sign our petition, which calls on Burger King and other food industry leaders to work with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) to establish and enforce a human rights-based code of conduct, including zero tolerance for forced labor, to ensure fair and safe working conditions. Please sign the petition today: Click here

In the tomato fields of south Florida, modern-day servitude still thrives.

Farm workers who pick tomatoes for the fast-food industry are among this country’s most exploited workers. They sometimes are held against their will, beaten and forced to work for little or no pay. Thousands more are trying to survive with poverty wages, no overtime pay, no sick leave and no freedom to join unions for a better life.

Click here to sign the petition to eliminate modern-day servitude in America’s produce fields.

The tomato workers are demanding that Burger King and food industry leaders work with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) to improve the wages and conditions for the workers who pick tomatoes and join an industry-wide effort to eliminate human rights abuses from Florida’s fields.

Last April, the CIW won a groundbreaking agreement with McDonald’s, the world’s largest restaurant chain. The fast-food giant agreed to pay a penny more per pound to workers harvesting tomatoes, which means the workers get 72 cents to 77 cents for every 32-pound bucket of tomatoes they pick, up from 40 cents to 45 cents.

But Burger King, the world’s second-largest hamburger chain, has rejected working with the CIW to improve farm workers’ wages and conditions.

Instead, it has joined with extreme conservatives and the Florida Tomato Growers Exchange to fight the agreements. In fact, to discourage the growers from paying a mere penny more per pound, the growers exchange has threatened to impose a $100,000 fine on any grower who participates in the agreements.

AFL-CIO President John Sweeney, who signed the petition, told a Capitol Hill rally:

I come here with a message for every woman and man who picks tomatoes: You are not alone. We know about your courage, we’re proud of you for standing up for what’s right. Your struggle is our struggle. Your dream is our dream. Your goal is our goal. And we’re going to be right beside you until the morning arrives when you win what you deserve, when you have better pay and decent conditions, when you and your hard work are respected and honored, when justice is finally done!

Members of Congress, including Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) and Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio), also have signed the petition.

You can sign the petition by clicking here.

In January, federal officials in south Florida arrested six people, charging them with conspiring to make money off workers from Mexico and Guatemala, forging documents and committing identity theft. The six are connected to a business operation in Immokalee, Fla., allegedly created to hold workers in involuntary servitude and peonage.

The campaign is entering its final month. We need your support to make it a success now more than ever.

Take a moment today to add your name to the growing list of petition signers, and forward the petition on to your family, friends and co-workers so that they may sign it as well.

With each signature, our message to Burger King and other food industry leaders that they must take responsibility for the human rights crisis in America’s fields grows even stronger.

To learn more, please read the Ft. Myers News-Press article, “Group Accused of Keeping, Beating, Stealing from Immokalee Laborers” (1/18/08), or the Miami Herald piece, “How About a Side Order of Human Rights?” (12/16/07).