Posted on 06/06/2009 7:48:28 AM PDT by JoeProBono
Two Florida farms have decided to participate in a deal to increase the wages of the state's tomato pickers in an agreement with a farmworker advocacy group and upscale Whole Foods Market, the grocery chain announced Thursday. The Coalition of Immokalee Workers and Whole Foods said the farms will pay pickers 1 cent more per pound of tomatoes sold to the Austin, Texas, based company. Whole Foods will foot the bill. Florida provides most of the nation's domestic winter tomato crop. Florida workers earn about 47 cents per 32-pound bucket. That can mean an average of about $12 an hour during the picking season for the hardest workers, usually immigrants who receive no health insurance nor overtime.
(Excerpt) Read more at google.com ...
As a kid, I used to get three cents a pound to pick up pecans.
Ha! When I was a kid, I had to pick the dandelions out of our lawn- and I didn’t get paid a cent!
Good for them. If Whole Foods thinks they can afford it, more power to them.
If their tomatoes are more expensive as a result, consumers (for now) still have a choice.
No doubt, however, that the Obama Administration has designs on increasing the degree of centralized planning in the food industry. I could definitely see them forcing legislation to provide (much higher) living standards to the “hard-working families who put our food on the table every day”.
Too important to leave it to the greedy capitalists, doncha know.
Florida export tomatoes are terrible. They are all hard with a ‘foamy” texture and very little taste.
Too bad those outside of Florida don’t get the chance to try our “Big Ugly” tomatoes. They’re expensive, but they really are the best tomatoes I’ve ever had.
Lettuce pick more tomatoes tomato, or we’ll join the onion!
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I think you should write children’s books, you’re just that good with words.
The author should (and could) have written about the situation in a positive manner, i.e.,
Headline: "2 Florida farms agree to share more profits with tomato pickers"
Article: Two Florida farms decided to forgo an increase in their profits by passing along the increase to the tomato pickers working on their farms. Farm owner Morris Goodguy said ...
It’s sad isn’t it, that the media keeps trying to mask the fact that there would be no tomatoes to pick (and thus no tomato pickers being paid at all), if the farmers hadn’t invested the time, funds, and resources in their farms.
I guess they think the pickers would have been hired by other pickers.
The farmer didn’t forego anything. The extra money is being paid by the retailer, Whole Foods.
Hey CTOCS.
Apparently I didn’t clearly convey that I was picking on the media writer and his/her approach to reporting.
I would argue that the headline “2 Florida farms agree to pay tomato pickers more” is intended to convey that these two Florida farmers weren’t paying “enough” to the pickers, and that the remainder of the Florida farmers (however many that might be) still aren’t.
It is my experience that the meme “farmers bad, workers good but not paid well” must be in the media handbook.
The fact that Whole Foods is paying these two farmers more for their tomatoes (than their cost to bring them to market) means that the two farmers will realize an increase in “profit”, which they agreed with Whole Foods to pass through to the tomato pickers, via increased wages.
Nothing wrong with the agreement, or the farmer’s actions, but why on earth couldn’t the media posit the situation as a positive story (i.e., my previous example)?
I suggest it is because it doesn’t fit their meme, or their agenda.
Hope this helps you better understand my previous post.
BTW, read your bio, thanks for your service to the country, and have a good weekend.
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