Florida Workers Bring Protest to Taco Bell’s Door

A cross-country caravan of Florida tomato field workers upset with Taco Bell, a major tomato buyer, for not helping in their struggle for better wages arrived at its destination Monday: Taco Bell corporate headquarters in Irvine.

The farm workers were greeted enthusiastically by local supporters in a street rally outside the 12-story, glass-walled headquarters building. Their reception by Taco Bell officials was cordial but far less than what the visitors had hoped it would be.

Basically, Taco Bell told them it wasn’t the company’s fight.

“This is a labor dispute between the workers and their employer, the Six L Packing Co.,” said Jonathan Blum, senior vice president for public affairs for Tricon Global Restaurants Inc., Taco Bell’s parent company. “We don’t intervene in any company’s labor dispute.”

The workers and church officials supporting them had a different view.

“Taco Bell just can’t say, ‘It’s not our issue.’ It’s certainly an issue to their customers,” said the Rev. Noelle Damico of the Washington, D.C.-based United Church of Christ’s National Office for Justice and Peace.

Others have succeeded recently in pushing fast-food companies to make changes.

For example, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals pressured McDonald’s, Burger King and Wendy’s to strengthen supervision of their suppliers to ensure better treatment of cows and chickens before and during slaughter.

The two-bus caravan left Florida three weeks ago and stopped at several cities where it has support groups. Monday, they were greeted by nearly 500 supporters at Santa Ana Memorial Park. With a police escort, the crowd walked behind a flatbed truck, singing and chanting slogans during the two-mile trek from Santa Ana to Irvine.

The 65 Florida workers from the caravan led the parade. For Hernael Alvarado, who has picked tomatoes for 10 years, it was a special way to spend his 40th birthday.

“The work is hard, the day is long,” he said, “all for 40 cents a bucket.”

Alvarado wore a cardboard hat with the image of a tomato, and banged a stick against the bottom of a plastic tomato bucket.

The pickers and packers are part of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, which organized the caravan. Lucas Benitez, an organizer, said workers are paid 40 cents for each 30-gallon bucket. Few workers can pick more than 150 buckets a day, which is $60 a day. Florida supplies most of the nation’s tomatoes during the winter. The state’s tomato industry has a crop value of about $500 million.

Among those walking with the workers were members of Local Union 652, a construction laborers’ union.

“Many of our members know what it’s like to work for the kind of wages these farm workers have to feed their families on,” said Rudy Ruvalcava, union spokesman. “We just want to show our support.”

At Taco Bell, 80 security guards hired for the day ringed the headquarters grounds.

“We did that at the police’s suggestion,” Tricon’s Blum said. “Our primary objective was just to make sure that no one got hurt.”

The farm workers and their supporters are trying to raise public awareness for their national boycott of Taco Bell’s 7,000 fast-food restaurants. The boycott was a factor in Taco Bell’s recent decision to meet with Six L to discuss the dispute.

“We only told the packing company that because it was affecting our company, we hoped it would do what it could to resolve the labor issue,” Blum said. “But we are not intervening.”

Blum said Taco Bell does not buy tomatoes from Six L but from a broker, which purchases from several companies, including Six L.

Taco Bell did meet with organizers of Monday’s rally, but Blum said it was a courtesy visit because the group had come all the way from Florida.