News

Restaurants urged to increase pickers' wages

January 11, 2007

LOUISVILLE,Ky.— Rev. Clifton Kirkpatrick, stated clerk of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA), has challenged Burger King to work with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers to address wages and working conditions in tomato fields. The CIW, with support from PCUSA, also is calling on McDonald's and Chipotle Mexican Grill to improve wages and working conditions, according to a news release.

Kirkpatrick said in a Jan. 10 statement to Burger King that workers who pick tomatoes in Florida for Burger King continue to face poverty wages and exploitative working conditions.

The CIW, a Florida-based group of farmworkers, sponsored a nearly four-year national boycott of Taco Bell that led to an agreement that improved farm-worker wages and established a code of conduct for Florida agricultural suppliers. The boycott ended in March 2005.