The Coalition of Immokalee Workers, a farmworker-led organization based in southwest Florida, together with its youth and student allies, has successfully won binding agreements with Yum Brands (Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, etc.) and McDonald's to help increase wages and improve working conditions for tomato pickers in Florida. Today, in the wake of these agreements, we stand on the threshold of a more modern, more humane agricultural industry in Florida. Yet, facing this historic opportunity to take responsibility for the human rights crisis in its tomato supply chain -- a crisis that its high-volume tomato purchasing practices directly contribute to -- Burger King has instead chosen to lie, stall, and give comfort to tomato growers in Florida that are trying to resist these urgently-needed changes. Please email and fax decision-makers at Burger King and Goldman, Sachs & Co. (an investment firm that owns a sizable chunk of BK stocks) today to demand BK stop encouraging the growers' resistance and instead use their influence, as Yum and McDonald's have, to stand with Florida's tomato pickers in their fight for fundamental human rights in the fields.

Dear [ Decision Maker ] ,

Despite what some Florida tomato growers want the public to believe, there is, today, a human rights crisis in the fields. This crisis is marked by stagnant, sub-poverty wages, the denial of fundamental labor rights, dangerous and abusive working conditions, and, in the most extreme cases, conditions of modern-day slavery. This crisis has been thoroughly documented by Burger King's hometown newspaper, the Miami Herald, in its 2003 series "Fields of Desperation - Destitute Farmworkers Exploited," and in a similarly hard-hitting series published in the Palm Beach Post entitled "Modern-day Slavery - Still Harvesting Shame." Both of these series should have been required reading for your Miami-based executives and should have lead to honest efforts on your company's part to reach out to the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) to work together to eliminate these shameful conditions.

Instead, all you have shown thus far is disdain and contempt for the CIW, the organization that just this month was awarded the prestigious 2007 Anti-Slavery International Award for its courageous, decade-long fight to end modern-day slavery.

I may be part of your target youth/student demographic, but I am also part of a national movement of students and young people across the US who have stood by the CIW and have taken action to bring Taco Bell and McDonald's to the negotiating table. Today you have the opportunity to do the right thing and work with the CIW to address the inhumane conditions in Florida's fields. Every day your company continues to stand in the path of progress is another day you send an unmistakable message to millions of young consumers across this country: Burger King just doesn't care about human rights.

Make no mistake, future generations will judge you and your corporation when they look back at your decision to associate yourself with the growers'lobby and its defense of an archaic and unconscionable status quo when presented with a clear opportunity to be on the side of progress and fairness. It is now more important than ever that Burger King join with Yum and McDonald's in support of human rights for farmworkers and stop hiding behind the growers' lobby's opposition to justify its inaction.

Sincerely,

Campaign Launched:
November 08, 2007