Burger King Locked in Dispute with Farm Workers
The Bryant Park Project, May 8, 2008 · Burger King is embroiled in a labor dispute with tomato pickers in Florida, and now a Burger King executive has been tied to e-mail spreading misinformation about the workers' cause, says Amy Bennett Williams of the Fort Myers News-Press.

At issue is a one-cent-a-pound increase in the rate paid to Florida tomato-pickers, which could amount to as much as $20 extra daily for the workers, Williams says. She says that would be a big deal for laborers who typically earn about $60 a day, and that it could cost as little as $250,000 extra a year for Burger King.

"When you consider that Burger King has about $11 billion in annual sales and $2.2 billion in corporate earnings last year, the numbers don't seem like a huge challenge," Williams says

Critics of the rate increase suggest that the extra money will go to growers, not workers. In addition, Williams says, Burger King is concerned that if the increase goes through, it could violate anti-trust rules — an argument that she says legal scholars have repudiated.

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