The pristine reputation of America’s corporate officers may have just received its first black eye. According to the News-Press of Fort Myers, Florida, Burger King vice president Stephen Grover has been pounding the Internet’s virtual turf, raging against the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, which has the temerity to ask Burger King to “improve tomato harvesters’ working conditions and pay a penny more a pound for tomatoes, which could add about $20 to a daily wage of $50, workers say.”
The brewing miniscandal stems not merely from Grover’s unproven and possibly libelous comments (“The CIW is an attack organization lining the leaders pockets … They make up issues and collect money from dupes that believe their story. To [sic] bad the people protesting don’t have a clue regarding the facts. A bunch of fools!”), but from the fact that he used his own middle-school-age daughter’s screen name in order to post them behind a limited and ultimately ineffective mask of anonymity.
Yum! brands and McDonald’s have both agreed to a deal with the coalition to improve working conditions for pickers; Grover’s online shenanigans may force Burger King into—God forbid—slightly improving the lives of the people who pick the chain’s produce.
Sarcasm is anger’s ugly cousin . . . pristine reputation of America’s corporate officers indeed. I do hope everybody gets what is fair . . but I’ve no idea what that is in this case. Is $50 per day fair in terms of whatever minimum wage there is where the tomatoes are picked?
for working conditions see e. schlosser article in nyt:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/29/opinion/29schlosser.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
mitt romney’s company owns about 20% of BK– so this issue came up a ways back on the republican campaign trail, but it’s been going on for years. . .
Sarcasm aside, he isn’t the first exec to be caught out posting under a false name – Whole Foods CEO John Mackey did the same thing:
http://www.smartmoney.com/bn/smw/index.cfm?story=20070712105705
http://valleywag.com/tech/john-mackey/whole-foods-ceo-proud-to-be-an-internet-blowhard-277793.php
Sigh. If only I was a highly paid corporate executive being paid hundreds of dollars an hour to write this…
Goodness forbid that anyone but those in the top corner office should get a raise these days.
Alacrity is often a fine thing, but careful reading can be useful.
The workers are in Florida, being paid in US dollars, and paying US prices in dollars. The $50 is roughly what a worker can make in a day, given the current rate per pound for the tomatoes they pick.
Taco Bell was boycotted a few years ago for the same thing.
ciao