Margaret BauerIn 2003, David C. Novak, CEO, President, and Chairman for Yum! Brands Inc., which owns fast food establishments Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, A&W Restaurant, Long John Silvers, and KFC, made over $3 million. However, the people-and they are people-who pick the tomatoes that go in his Taco Bell chalupas are paid $.0136 per pound of tomatoes that they pick. You read that correctly: a penny and another fraction is what they get for every pound. This results in a compensation rate of about $50 for two tons of picked tomatoes, which is what they pick in an average work day.
Fifty dollars over an eight hour work day comes out to $6.25 an hour, above the minimum wage of $5.15. The problem with this logic is that these people don’t work eight hours a day. They wake up at 4:30 so that they catch buses out to the fields by 5:30. They won’t be back before 5:30 p.m.; this is no nine to five job. Their real hourly pay is closer to $4.50 than minimum wage. Their bosses get away with this by editing the time cards to be in line with their earnings rather than their hours. There is little political will to combat this and other abuses because most of the workers are not naturalized.
But because the law refuses to meet its responsibility, we consumers must correct the wrong we see. In response to the unacceptable treatment of workers, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers came into existence to improve the quality of their lives. The Coalition has celebrated great successes in the past, including ending the practice of beating workers and uncovering slave labor rings. Now the coalition is pressing Taco Bell to pay growers enough money so that they can pay the workers one more penny per pound of tomatoes. This is a significant amount from the workers’ perspective; it would nearly double their pay. It would bring them up to a living wage, around $90 a day.
When you consider this from a business perspective, it seems like nearly doubling some expense would be too great a fiscal burden to bear. But when that percentage is so small and insignificant to begin with, doubling it makes little difference to the corporation. Last year, in an effort to end the CIW’s nationally coordinated assault, Mr. Novak sent the Coalition a check for about $110,000 that Yum said would cover the one penny increase per pound the workers were requesting. Of course, the CIW had no means to distribute the money properly, so they sent it back and fought on for the wage increase.
But this act provides helpful information. Knowing how valuable the increase would be to the workers, we must wonder how important it is to the company. They reported global profits of $1.059 billion. That $110,000 would be just .01% of those profits. That small a change in profits could never affect the company in any appreciable manner. It wouldn’t change their economic outlook or the company’s image in the corporate world. They would never lose a share sale because that money was spent.
Cut Novak’s annual pay by 3.6 percent. Or cut Yum’s top executives’ pay by just a single percent. That is enough to pay for decent food, shelter and basic healthcare for CIW workers. The benefits seem to drastically outweigh the costs considering how much business they are losing. More than 20 Taco Bell restaurants have been closed by the efforts of this coalition, and they only seem to be accelerating. Certainly, the profits from those 20 installments could cover the raise for the workers. What about the next 20 places the Coalition closes? This is not going to work out well for Mr. Novak unless he decides to cooperate. It may be the only way he can get his hands on that next million.
Whether or not Taco Bell stays on the Washington University campus will be determined very soon because their contract is almost up. A committee from the Student Union will survey the desires of the student body and report the results to the Director of Operations at Bon App‚tit, Steve Hoffner. Hoffner has made it very clear that he has no concern for the Immokalee workers and will only act in response to the will of the students. The Student Worker Alliance is hopeful that the student body will reject Taco Bell and the shameful labor practices it supports.