May 29, 2007
by Evan Silverstein

LOUISVILLE – Taco Bell parent company, Yum! Brands Inc., recently announced that it has expanded its agreement with a group of church-backed tomato pickers to cover all of its restaurant chains: Pizza Hut, KFC, Long John Silver's and A&W All-American Food Restaurants.

Under a previous agreement reached with the Florida-based Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) in March 2005, Taco Bell agreed to pay a penny more per pound for its tomatoes, an increase passed along to the farmworkers.

The agreement also established a first-ever enforceable Code of Conduct for agricultural suppliers in the fast-food industry, including the naming of the CIW, a worker-based organization, as an investigative body for monitoring worker complaints.

Fast-food giant McDonald's Corp. also agreed to a similar deal with the CIW last month.

Though the expanded program was started several months ago, Yum!, which is based in Louisville, officially announced the change at its shareholders meeting on May 17.

The Rev. Clifton Kirkpatrick, stated clerk of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) – which was an instrumental supporter of the CIW during a nearly four-year boycott of Taco Bell – hailed Yum!'s wider program.

"Yum! Brands' decision is a welcome development and sends a strong, positive message to the rest of the fast-food industry about the importance of ensuring the human rights of farmworkers in corporate supply chains."

Farmworkers are paid about 40 cents per 32-pound bucket. The extra penny a pound would nearly double their pay to about 72 cents a bucket.

Lucas Benitez, a co-founder of the coalition, said that he was happy with Yum!'s decision. "It's another step in our campaign," he told The Associated Press.

"We hope Burger King will join next," Benitez added, a reference to the group's latest campaign to get Burger King to boost what it pays for its tomatoes.

Burger King has said it cannot control or track what its suppliers pay their workers.

The Rev. Noelle Damico, the PC(USA)'s associate for Fair Food and coordinator of the denomination's Campaign for Fair Food, commended Yum! Brands and lifted up the decision as an example of good stewardship.

"The Presbyterian Church teaches that we are responsible to determine the economy, to make it the kind of system which most nearly protects the dignity of persons created in the image of God and allows all to share in the goodness of God's creation," she said. "Yum! Brands' and CIW's pioneering work and the company's recent decision, remind us that we have both the power and the duty to do business in ways that ensures human well-being."

Presbyterian News Service