You say tomato, I say slave labor

My last post points to the issue of sweatshops overseas, but as this article on the Florida fruit-picking industry shows, the U.S. has exploitation problems of its own.

Toward the end of the story, the reporter mentions a campaign waged by the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, a local advocacy group, to get major buyers to pay a penny extra per pound of tomatoes in order to improve the lot of the workers. McDonald’s and Yum Brands (which owns such chains as KFC, Pizza Hut, and Taco Bell) have agreed to the plan, but Burger King refuses, using the familiar old “we don’t employ them, so they’re not our problem” rationale.

It’s a pretty tired excuse in a day and age when corporations are increasingly expected to take responsibility for the unethical practices of their suppliers by getting them to either change their evil ways or say adios to all those fat purchase orders.

Still, I wasn’t particularly surprised. But I was shocked to read that Whole Foods Market “has been discovered stocking tomatoes from one of the most notorious Florida sweatshop producers” and that it, like Burger King, had also refused to pay the extra penny per pound.

Clearly, more investigation is warranted.