03-10-05 Slavery

Boy, here's a real accomplishment in human rights to set your sights on.

In a very liberal story in the OC register, (liberal in the sense that they even covered a worker related issue), Michael Peltier quotes ex-president Jimmy Carter as follows: "I am pleased Taco Bell has taken a leadership role to help reform working conditions for Florida farmworkers and has committed to use its power to effect positive human-rights change."

Wow, Taco Bell getting props from a former Democratic President for their "leadership role" in "positive human rights change". Sounds heavy, doesn't it?

Here's what really happened. The Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW), , a worker's rights group based in Florida, where slavery still exists among immagrant farm workers (No, I'm not kidding, federal courts have actualy issued convicions for slavery in recent years), called for a boycott over four years ago. They did four years worth of hunger strikes, protests, marches, media pressure, and organization. They actuall convinced 20 US universities to end franchise agreemenmts with Taco Bell before Taco Bell finally gave in yesterday.

So, what did Taco Bell give in to? Here's the deal. Taco Bell agreed to pay ONE FRICKIN' PENNY more on every pound of tomotoes. Now, before you go off and call big daddy Taco Bell a cheap bastard, consider that Taco Bell, by it's own estimates, buys about 10,000,000 pounds of tomatoes every year. So, this move is going to cost Taco Bell a whopping $100,000.

According to the CIW, many of the several thousand workers in Florida are earning less than $7,500 a year. $7,500 bucks a year to live in Florida and send money home after you pay off the cyote that brought you here. Can you imagine?

Now, Assuming that this extra $100,000, that Taco Bell resisted for four long years while these people worked for slave wages, is going to be evenly distributed among 1,000 workers (that's the OC Register estimate), these workers will now be making.... let's see..... $7,500 + $100 = $7,600 per year. Wow.

Two words: STILL SLAVERY!

I mean, this is a joke, right? President Carter is sucking Taco Bell's dick because they gave their slaves a 1% raise?

Of course, the libertarian / free market folks would commonly reply that in the free market, the agreement to work for money must not be regulated, and that the worker will simply refuse to work if the price of labor drops too low. That may be true. But, I would warn that you take heed. Yum Foods, a company that reported $4.5 billion dollars of profit on $9 billion dollars of revenue last year, is endorsing the idea that the value of human labor can be as low as $20 a day. Oh wait.... make that $20.20 a day.