Farmworkers strike a blow for America

COURTESY PHOTO Way to go Immokalee farmworkers.

The grassroots Coalition of Immokalee Workers won another major victory this month. This time over a corporate giant bent on crushing them. McDonalds USA finally agreed - after an unfavorable ruling from the Security and Exchange Commission - to help tomato pickers get an additional 1-penny per pound of picked fruit.

Big, bad McDonalds, armed with its high-priced lawyers, tried to exclude a shareholder resolution submitted by friends of the farmworkers from its 2007 proxy statement. The resolution, called "Human Rights Standards," urged directors to treat workers, including those in the supply chain, fairly.

The SEC said 'not so fast' to McDonalds attempt to have the resolution scrubbed. Days later McDonalds was ready to sing Kum ba yah.

It's funny how fast corporate America becomes a good citizen when federal regulators get involved.

It happened here in Fort Myers in the 1990s. Lee County commissioners initially denied a farmworker village in Bonita Springs after residents and a major developer complained only to reverse themselves when the Justice Department paid them a call.

In the McDonald's case, its tomato suppliers - mostly from Southwest Florida - paid workers about 40 cents for a 32-pound bucket of tomatoes. With the new agreement, they will about get 72 cents.

The Immokalee workers waged a two-year campaign to get McDonalds - the nation's largest restaurant chain - to pay more for tomatoes and improve working conditions.

And they did it without heavy-handed lawyers (although there are two pretty talented lawyers on the Coalition's staff), much money or the courts.

Courage and commitment is all Lucas Benitez and the rest Immokalee workers needed, because they're right. Farmworkers deserve better.

So, look out Burger King, you're next.

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