Why Am I Not Surprised? Burger King Edition
May 16th, 2008 by SocProf and tagged Fair Trade, Free Trade, Human Rights, Labor, Mass Violence, Migration, Surveillance, Trafficking
From the Independent,
“Activists have outed a corporate dirty tricks operation tied to Burger King aimed at discrediting efforts to improve the often horrific conditions of migrant workers in Florida’s tomato fields.
It emerged yesterday that a top Burger King official is being investigated for using his young daughter’s online alias to make derogatory comments about the farm worker group, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, which is asking the fast food chain to raise tomato pickers’ pay by a cent for every pound picked.
Burger King’s vice president Steven Grover was fingered as the source of venomous online attacks on student activists. “Senior management of the company had no knowledge of Grover’s postings,” Burger King spokeswoman Denise Wilson said. “We are conducting an internal investigation, and appropriate disciplinary action will be taken.”
The farm workers coalition discovered that abusive emails and comments under the names “activist2008″ actually originated at the Miami headquarters of Burger King. The e-mail Internet protocol addresses are the same as Burger King’s.”
Hmm… using your daughter’s online account to accuse activists of being in it for the money, now, that’s courageous and brave. Here is the hilarious (and pathetic) part though:
“Mr Grover has not commented on the episode, but Burger King said “comments attributed to Steve Grover do not reflect Burger King’s desire to find a way to assure decent wages and modern working conditions for the tomato harvesters.”"
Well, of course it does not. but that’s not all. Apparently, a security firm has been discovered trying to infiltrate a students’ group supporting the rights of migrant workers. The firm was paid by corporate spies.
“The attempted infiltration of the activists by paid corporate spies was noticed when Cara Shaffer, who described herself as a college student said she wanted to start an activist group at a Virginia university. The activists quickly discovered that she actually heads a company named Diplomatic Tactical Services. She now refuses to discuss her attempted involvement with the farmworker group. A Burger King spokesperson said he “knows nothing about any Burger King effort to spy” on the student group.”
Man, so many coincidences and things happening that BK knows nothing about! Of course, there are no such things as coincidences in such matters. These incidents are coming to light as the US Senate is investigating working conditions of migrant workers, especially tomato pickers, whose wages have not increased since 1978. Many work in quasi-slavery and they get regularly harassed, beaten, abused and intimidated. And many are held in debt bondage, which is the most common contemporary form of slavery.
“Detective Frost said the conditions of some workers in Florida were equivalent as human trafficking. The large tomato producers shield themselves from prosecution by hiring subcontractors, who are responsible for human trafficking, he testified.”
Subcontracting has become the habitual alibi for corporations who don’t want to be bothered with working conditions, fair wages and environmental regulations. If something bad happens, they can always blame the subcontractor and claim no knowledge. Subcontracting provides (more or less) plausible deniability.
The tomato growers, unsurprisingly deny all that. To listen to them, one would think that everything is peachy. However, I would bet that BK is not the only one engaging in such dirty tricks.
And just to piss off the big bad corporations, just click on the logo above and read on these workers conditions and what can be done.
Posted in Economy, Fair Trade, Human Rights, Indigenous Populations, Labor, Mass Violence, Migration, Slavery, Surveillance, Trafficking |
