All week long, Brave New Films, SEIU and manyprogressivebloggers have been holding Burger King's feet to the deep fryer. Together we exposed Burger King's horrendous working conditions; launched a contest asking people to Have It Their Way with Goldman Sachs (Burger King's top shareholder) for squandering $6.5 billion of the bailout on bonuses while average BK workers earn less than the federal poverty line; and staged peaceful demonstrations at Burger Kings across the country protesting the fast-food chain's low wages, lack of healthcare, and lobbying against unionization legislation. So what was Burger King's response? They served up this flamebroiled pile of garbage yesterday:
"Burger King Corp. (BKC) believes unions serve a purpose in some workplaces and a number of its guests, vendors and franchisees have positive union membership experiences. BKC is not anti-union. BKC and its franchisees serve a diverse consumer base and, therefore, aim to remain neutral on political issues."
Neutral on political issues, eh? If that's the case, why did Burger King spend $319,648 between 2006 and 2008 lobbying against pro-labor laws like the Employee Free Choice Act? Why did Goldman Sachs spend $15,849,000 in 2008 alone lobbying against the Employee Free Choice? And why, as SEIU's Michael Whitney noted, has Burger King fought this legislation through their involvement with the National Retail Federation, which stands firmly behind an anti-union group called the Coalition for a Democratic Workplace?
Tom Tancredo insisted in last week's CNN YouTube debate that it's a myth that illegal aliens are doing the jobs that Americans don't want to do.
But how many Americans would be willing to work 10 to12 hours a day picking tomatoes, at a pay rate of 45 cents for each 32 pound bucket, with no overtime, no health insurance, no sick days, no holidays, no nuthin'?
It's a rotten way to make a living, and, thanks to Burger King, it's about to get even worse. Tomato pickers hadn't received a real wage increase for decades until 2005, when the Coalition of Immokalee Workers negotiated a penny-per-pound surcharge from some of the fast food chains-first, Taco Bell, followed by McDonald's.
A penny a pound may sound like chump change, but as Eric Schlosser noted in an op-ed last week in the New York Times, the migrant workers who harvest Florida's tomatoes pick an average of two tons of tomatoes daily. That's about 4,000 pounds, so that extra penny per pound can mean an extra $40 or so a day.
