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- Commentary: Just a Penny More
- From
- Dick Meister
Few workers are as badly treated as those in southern Florida who harvest the tomatoes that are essential to the hugely profitable fast-food industry. A nationwide boycott against Taco Bell and the threat of a boycott of McDonald's has won agreements that nearly doubled the workers' pay and proimised them decent working conditions. Now the coalition of student and labor activists, religious, political and union leaders and others that won the agreements has launched a drive to get the rest of the country's fast-food chains to also sign agreements.
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Piece Description
Few workers are as badly treated as those in southern Florida who harvest the tomatoes that are essential to the hugely profitable fast-food industry. A nationwide boycott against Taco Bell and the threat of a boycott of McDonald's has won agreements that nearly doubled the workers' pay and proimised them decent working conditions. Now the coalition of student and labor activists, religious, political and union leaders and others that won the agreements has launched a drive to get the rest of the country's fast-food chains to also sign agreements.
Broadcast History
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Transcript
Taco Bell did it. McDonald?s did it. Now it?s time for the country?s other fast-food chains to join the drive to guarantee decent pay and decent working conditions to the tomato pickers whose back-breaking work is essential to the hugely profitable fast-food industry.
The pickers work in southern Florida, where more than half of the country?s tomatoes are grown. Most of them are undocumented Latinos who have had little choice but to accept the miserable conditions imposed on them.
They work under the blazing sun in open-air sweatshops ? usually from sunrise to sunset ? for up to seven days a week. For all that, they rarely get more than $10,000 a year. And they have no paid holidays or vacations ? no overtime pay ? no health insurance ? no sick leave, pensions or other benefits ? no union rights.
Most of them are forced to live in dilapidated trailers or other substan...
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Timing and Cues
INTRO: Commentator Dick Meister says a major drive is under way to win decent treatment for some of the country's most mistreated workers.
OUTRO: Dick Meister is a veteran labor journalist.
