McDonald's, Florida tomato pickers reach agreement

Published: 2007-04-10

ATLANTA (CNS) -- McDonald's Corp. has reached an agreement with a Florida farmworker organization to pay a penny per pound more for tomatoes to increase wages and to improve working conditions for the workers who pick them. The Coalition of Immokalee Workers and McDonald's April 9 announced that they also would work together to develop a new code of conduct for tomato growers and increase farmworkers' participation in monitoring compliance. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and various religious orders and church organizations had been among supporters of the campaign to get an agreement with McDonald's. Signed in Atlanta, the agreement puts an end to a two-year campaign by the Coalition of Immokalee Workers to pressure McDonald's to pay more for the 15 million tomatoes it uses annually in U.S. restaurants. McDonald's reportedly buys fewer than 1.5 percent of Florida's tomatoes. Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter and the Carter Center he heads helped broker the agreement, as he did with a similar agreement two years ago between the coalition and Yum Foods, the owner of Taco Bell and KFC restaurants.

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