Super Size company, Happy Meal wages

The next time you find yourself in line at McDonald’s chew on this:

Tell McDonald’s to Ensure Fair Wages for Farm Workers

There is, today, a human rights crisis in America’s fields. Farm workers at the bottom of the fast food industry supply chain toil from dawn to dusk in exhausting and hazardous working conditions. Yet at the end of the day, it is a wage insufficient to provide food and shelter for their families.

Farm workers for Florida-based tomato companies earn 40-45 cents for every 32-lb bucket picked. At that piece rate, a worker must pick 2 TONS of tomatoes in a single day to earn $50. They work 10-12 hour days without the right to overtime pay for overtime work, the right to organize, health insurance, or benefits of any kind. In the most extreme conditions, farm workers are held captive and forced to work against their will in modern-day slavery. The Coalition of Immokalee Workers, a Florida farm worker organization, has uncovered and assisted the FBI and U.S. Department of Justice in successfully prosecuting five slavery rings since 1997, freeing more than 1,000 workers. Our faith compels us to speak out against such gross economic injustice and look for change.

The chief offender in all of this is – you guessed it – our old friend Ronald. According to an article from Sojouners: “As a major buyer of Florida tomatoes, McDonald’s high-volume, low-cost purchasing practices place downward pressure on farm worker wages, putting corporate profits before human dignity.”

We often raise our voices against the oppression of workers in third-world countries, but rarely do we consider the offenses within our own borders.

Fortunately, in this case at least, there is something you can do. You can raise your voice by sending an email to Bob Langert, Director of Social Responsibility for McDonald’s and Jim Skinner, CEO, by submitting this form.

If you work forty hours a week in the United States, the world’s richest nation, the reward for your labor ought to be a liveable wage. Consider the words of the prophet Malachi:

“Then I will draw near to you for judgment; and I will be a swift witness … against those who oppress the wage earner in his wages, the widow and the orphan, and those who turn aside the alien and do not fear Me,” says the LORD of hosts. – Malachi 3:5