BRANCACCIO: Welcome.
Coming to you from a random strip here in fast food nation. It's our gift to you during these often dark, ugly times: No not the "gorgeous" landscape. We have a story about the economics of today that does not end terribly — social action gone right.
You see, the food in places like this isn't just fast, it's cheap. The prices are possible, in part, because of the contributions of some of the lowest paid laborers in our society: farm workers.
Give me just a few moments of your time, and I'll show you how one extra U.S. cent, a single penny, per pound of tomatoes harvested for fast food joints like these can transform lives.
Karla Murthy produced our report.
This part of Florida has a name that rhymes with broccoli…
but Immokalee's thing is tomatoes, endless fields of tomatoes. And if you move in closer — farmworkers. Many are here in search of a better life — travelling from faraway Mexico, Guatemala, Haiti.
Lucas Benitez once made that journey. At 17, he came here from Mexico expecting hard work but decent pay. The hard work was here, but on the pay, Benitez found something very different:
Not only were the wages barely enough to live on, many workers lived in a climate of intimidation, fear and violence.
LUCAS BENITEZ (TRANSLATION) :
You know when you are in a desert and you need water, you are going to look for water. But if you don't find it, you're going to die. And this is how it was in Immokalee, like a desert of justice.
BRANCACCIO: But Benitez would eventually find what he sees as justice — thanks to this organization that he helped put together twelve years ago, The Coalition of Immokalee Workers.
It's still not clear what gave these workers the nerve to push back. But fight they did. And what they wanted was clear:
to work without fear of being beaten. And to get just a few pennies more for the tomatoes they pick. Even so, it's been a long, uphill battle. One that brought them face to face with the largest fast food company in the world. And their fight could have effects way beyond the fields of Immokalee.
It's so charming picking a few tomatoes off your backyard vine. But try doing it every workday and see how your back feels. Lucas Benitez knows just how hard it is.
LUCAS BENITEZ (TRANSLATION): These buckets weigh 32 pounds, and they weigh 32 pounds all day long. You have to run 100 or 150 feet to where you take the buckets. And this is in temperatures that are in the 90s, and sometimes it's even hotter than 90. But you have to keep running the whole day.
BRANCACCIO: See how they're cranking? These guys are paid by the bucket. Fill 125 in one day — you'll earn about 50 bucks. Keep up that pace the whole season, and you'll make about $7,500. Such wages make these farm laborers some of the poorest workers in the nation.
It's a rough way to barely make a living — but it was even worse before the Coalition got started. In the past, Immokalee was notorious among workers for the way some labor contractors, bosses, brutalized their crews.
LUCAS BENITEZ (TRANSLATION):
We lived in a climate of fear. The bosses felt like they were kings or that they were gods over all the workers. And there were cases of physical violence while you were working, it was very normal. A lot of times when someone wanted water, the boss didn't want them to have any. They'd say, "You came here to work, you didn't come here to drink water."
BRANCACCIO: And it was a drink of water, and all that followed, that would eventually change these workers lives.
In 1996, a 17 year old boy was brutally beaten by his boss for stopping to drink. The injustice ignited the Coalition and the workers turned out in force — 500 members marched to the contractors house, carrying the boys bloody shirt.
With no union to protect them, and afraid any authorities they went to might deport them — the workers realized that any change would have to come from them.
The next day, not a soul turned up to work in that contractor's fields. That day turned into weeks —the message was clear.
LUCAS BENITEZ (TRANSLATION):
This was what changed the balance of power. The bosses no longer would be confronted with one worker, but instead they would have to confront the entire group.
BRANCACCIO: But the coalition has also been fighting for a different kind of justice - economic justice. Tomato pickers had not gotten a real raise in 30 years. Not for lack of trying: the coalition repeatedly pressured local growers for a raise to no avail.
LUCAS BENITEZ (TRANSLATION):
For years we directly confronted the growers. But we realized that confronting them directly really wasn't the most intelligent tactic.
BRANCACCIO: The growers argued they couldn't afford to pay better wages. They said they were being squeezed by higher-ups in the food chain...or make that the supply chain. At the top are the corporate giants like Yum! Brands, the world's largest fast food company. You may not know the corporate name, but you know its brands: Taco Bell, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Long John Silvers, Pizza Hut, even those A & W places. A company like Yum! buys a vast amount of tomatoes and the growers are desperate for their business.
NOELLE DAMICO:
They purchase at such large volumes, they can say, "We want to purchase at this cost." And growers, in this instance, want to be responsive. They want these contracts,
BRANCACCIO: Reverend Noelle Damico runs an effort for the Presbyterian Church USA called "The Campaign for Fair Food" and has worked closely with the Coalition.
NOELLE DAMICO:
While the prices on many other inputs, whether that's pesticides, or tractors, go up, the one place that growers can contain cost is by holding down the cost of labor.
LUCAS BENITEZ (TRANSLATION):
We knew the fast food industry was involved in this business and that they are demanding the products at a low price. The only people who pay the price for these cheap products are us, the workers.
BRANCACCIO: The Coalition wanted to talk to one of these buyers and appeal to them for help. But the problem was, they had no way of connecting the tomatoes they picked to any specific company. Contracts between buyers and growers are considered competitive information, and kept secret.
But in 1999, the Coalition got a break: an article appeared in this industry journal that briefly mentioned a long-term contract between Yum's subsidiary, Taco Bell, and the Six L's Packing Company - one of the growers in Immokalee that workers say was paying low wages.
NOELLE DAMICO:
And when the workers saw this connection, they said, "Maybe if we go to Taco Bell, they'll say, 'Certainly, we don't wanna be purchasing tomatoes that-- from suppliers that are exploiting workers. Surely we don't want to be making our profits this way.'"
BRANCACCIO: But really, how could a small group of farmworkers from South Florida get the ear of a big company like Taco Bell?
The Coalition wrote Taco Bell a letter asking for a meeting, but heard nothing. They wrote again, same result. The Coalition realized it was going to take more than a letter to get Taco Bell's attention.
They declared a nationwide boycott of Taco Bell in early 2001.
LUCAS BENITEZ (TRANSLATION):
For years we've had our hand in the industry, but we were always invisible. Nobody saw us. So we decided to put our mark and our fight in front of these restaurant chains, and we began with Taco Bell.
BRANCACCIO: Workers from Immokalee hit the road. Leaving the fields (and their paychecks) behind. They staged protests at Taco Bell restaurants in various cities, trying to persuade customers that the cheap food they were enjoying came at a brutal cost.
The Coalition wanted Taco Bell to do two main things: first, to use its influence over growers to enforce humane working conditions in the fields. And second, they wanted a raise. One penny more for each pound of tomatoes Taco Bell buys. That sounds like practically nothing, but that one penny per pound could double a workers daily wage. The estimated cost to Taco Bell? About $100,000 more a year…a drop in the bucket for a company its size.
After one year of the boycott, Taco Bell seemed to take notice. In 2002, the company met with the Coalition and heard their demands, promising to get back to them soon. But months went by - and again - no response.
What was Taco Bell thinking at the time? We asked company officials for an interview numerous times, but they declined.
SIMON BILLENNESS:
Initially I think they were very defensive. They, you know, originally resisted the pressure.
BRANCACCIO: Simon Billenness was watching the company closely for Oxfam America, an advocacy group that, among other things, pushes for socially responsible behavior at large corporations like Yum.
SIMON BILLENNESS:
I mean, I think they were trying to find out whether this was just a nuisance or whether this campaign really had legs.
BRANCACCIO: Plenty of boycotts do fade away, but not this one. The longer the coalition stuck it out, the more people rallied behind their cause… students started their own campaign called "Boot the Bell" - to kick Taco Bell products, sponsorships and restaurants off their campuses.
SEAN SELLERS:
It was absolutely crucial. I mean, for this boycott to work, there would-- from the beginning, students had to be involved.
BRANCACCIO: Sean Sellers was a sophomore at the University of Texas when he first got involved in the Taco Bell boycott. He says schools were crucial because these students weren't just a rowdy bunch of protesters, they're also Taco Bell's target customer.
SEAN SELLERS:
Taco Bell, they're gonna have to listen to what their target market says. And, if their target market is kicking them off campus after campus after campus, they're gonna have to deal with the issue at the end of the day.
BRANCACCIO: But there was more, religious groups were also getting involved. As the boycott picked up steam support among churches blossomed — from locals like this one church near Immokalee to some of the biggest religious organizations in the country.
So how did Taco Bell respond to the increasing pressure? The company handed out this flyer at its restaurants:
"The Immokalee tomato pickers are not employees Of Taco Bell. We would never interfere with the policies or procedures of other companies that are completely unrelated to Taco Bell."
But Simon Billenness says Taco Bell interferes with their suppliers all the time.
SIMON BILLENNESS:
I mean a company like Yum! Brands has tremendous power over their suppliers. The only problem here was Yum brands was unwilling to use that power.
BRANCACCIO: He says that in everything from quality control to delivery schedules, companies like Yum! often dictate suppliers' policies.
SIMON BILLENNESS:
In fact, Yum! Brands at the beginning of this campaign already had a code of conduct for its suppliers on how they should treat farm animals.
DAVID BRANCACCIO:
The animals, but not the workers.
SIMON BILLENNESS:
The animals. So it only made sense that if they could do this for farm animals they could also set conditions for the respect and the rights of farm workers.
BRANCACCIO:
But from Taco Bell? Silence. The Coalition was getting desperate. By spring of 2003, having sacrificed countless days of pay, now they would sacrifice food.
On the front step of Taco Bell's corporate headquarters in Irvine, California, 50 workers, with some students and church members went on a hunger strike. It lasted 10 days. Reverend Noelle Damico believes this was what finally brought the company out.
NOELLE DAMICO:
The Taco Bell executives and employees needed to drive by these workers every single day. I still say that what the company had to take away from that was that the workers and their allies were determined. That these were not fly by night people. That they were people of dignity. That they took this with the utmost seriousness.I think that was a turning point.
BRANCACCIO: Eight weeks later, the first glimpse of hope. Yum began negotiations. But they dragged on for the next two years without any resolution.
Meanwhile, the boycott surged on. By 2005, 300 schools were running 'Boot the Bell' campaigns. Over 20 had already been successful and the media had latched onto the workers story.
Simon Billenness calls it a 'perfect storm of pressure' - one that hit the company where it really hurts: its brand.
SIMON BILLENNESS:
Instead of the standard association of Taco Bell with a, you know, a quirky talking Chihuahua, they associated Taco Bell with farm workers, you know, virtually enslaved in the fields working under terrible conditions. I mean that really uncools any brand.
DAVID BRANCACCIO:
So the company with a valuable brand does not want you thinking 'exploited worker' whenever you see its logo.
SIMON BILLENNESS:
Exactly. And if they feel that for any reason their customers are getting, you know, point five percent less enthused about Taco Bell, then they're gonna move to repair that damage right away.
BRANCACCIO: Just weeks ago, it finally happened. Yum Vice President Jonathan Blum stood on stage with Lucas Benitez and declared that his company and the workers in Florida were bound together.
JONATHAN BLUM:
Taco Bell has taken a leadership role in social responsibility today by helping the CIW improve the working and pay conditions for farm workers on the tomato fields in Florida.
BRANCACCIO: The boycott of Taco Bell was over.
The company agreed to all the Coalition's demands. They would enforce human rights standards in the fields - holding suppliers accountable for the treatment of their workers - and, they would pay one penny more per pound of tomatoes, directly to the workers themselves.
NOELLE DAMICO:
The agreement that the Coalition of Immokalee Workers reached with Yum Brands, it's precedent setting. Never before in history has a fast food company paid money back down their supply chain so that it would address the worker's sub poverty wages.
BRANCACCIO: What Yum! did is groundbreaking. Still, the agreement affects just a fraction of farmworkers. Taco Bell buys less than 1 percent of all the tomatoes sold in Florida. So the Coalition is again going up the food chain — starting over like they did four years ago: writing letters. This time, to subway, Burger King and McDonalds.
LUCAS BENITEZ (TRANSLATION):
The moment comes when the company realizes that what the workers are asking for really isn't out of this world. It's a reasonable thing. It's a just thing. It's only one cent more per pound, 32 cents more for a bucket of tomatoes. It's not a lot, but it gives us a chance at a better life.
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