Local groups allied with a farmworker alliance based in Immokalee, Fla., staged a protest Saturday outside the Chipotle restaurant on 16th and Blake streets, just blocks from the company headquarters. The Coalition of Immokalee Workers has targeted fast-food chains in its quest to raise wages and improve working conditions for migrant farm laborers who harvest tomatoes in south Florida.

“We think ‘food with integrity’ is a great idea,” said Jordan Garcia, of Coloradoans for Immigrant Rights, a member organization of the Denver Fair Food Committee. “The reason we have chosen Chipotle is because they have said very clearly that they believe in honest food.”

Chipotle, which at one point purchased about 20 percent of its tomato supply from Florida for 12 weeks a year, has responded to the CIW claims of farmworker abuse by ceasing to buy Florida tomatoes. But that’s not acceptable for those who want to see the company incorporate the fight against farmworker exploitation into its mission of “food with integrity.”

“We’re asking Chipotle to take a stand,” said Seth Donovan of Prax(us), an anti-human trafficking organization in Denver and ally of the CIW. “Fast-food chains have such huge buying power, they are in a position to pressure farmers to raise wages and protect workers.”

The CIW negotiated hard-fought penny-per-pound deals with McDonald’s Corp., and Taco Bell owner Yum Brands, Inc. – agreements that, if adopted industrywide, would essentially double wages for farmworkers. But those deals are in danger of collapsing under pressure from Miami-based Burger King, which has refused to sign on, and a tomato growers group that is threatening $100,000 fines against any farmer that participates. A spokesman for the Florida Tomato Growers Exchange called the penny-per-pound deals “un-American” because they allowed a third party to set wages. The growers also claim the deals are in violation of anti-trust laws but have so far offered no specifics.

Given the precarious future of these deals, Colorado organizers say it’s more important than ever that Chipotle, with its focus on humanely raised livestock and organic produce, become an industry leader in the struggle to improve the lives of farmworkers. Chipotle spokesperson Chris Arnold did not return repeated calls for comment. In a short e-mail Arnold wrote, “We certainly respect their right to protest, but we don’t buy any Florida tomatoes at all. We are reviewing practices among Florida tomato growers, but don’t have any plans in place to begin buying Florida tomatoes.” Arnold did not specify where Chipotle purchases its tomatoes. Florida supplies roughly 80 percent of the nation’s fresh tomatoes between November and February.

Farmworker advocates say Chipotle’s move does nothing to address the problem as the sub-poverty wages and abuse suffered by Florida pickers are well-documented and endemic throughout the tomato growing industry.

Migrant laborers – many of them illegal immigrants – have long been among the nation’s most impoverished and most exploited workers. Over the past 10 years, the Justice Department has prosecuted six cases of farmworker slavery in Florida. There, the backbreaking job of harvesting tomatoes takes place in hot, pesticide-laced fields, where the workers must stoop to pick and haul tomatoes for 10 to 12 hours a day. They earn a piece-rate of about 45 cents for every 32-pound bucket. That can mean up to $10 an hour for those who can fill more than 200 buckets a day – 6,400 pounds of tomatoes. But the work is not guaranteed, and tomato pickers get no health insurance and receive no overtime pay.

“Chipotle preaches ‘food with integrity,’ but if they’re not going to step up and protect the rights of human beings, I don’t see much integrity in that at all,” said Scott Kwasny, executive director of Colorado Jobs with Justice. His comment was in reference to Chipotle’s well-publicized efforts to buy all its pork and some of its chicken and beef from “free range” farms, seen as more humane, where the animals are allowed to roam rather than kept in small cages.

Sarah Gill, a Denver resident who came out for Saturday’s protest downtown, also said she’d like to see Chipotle’s practices fall in line with its rhetoric.

“If you say you care, I want to hold you accountable.”

The nationwide reach of Florida tomatoes, which dominate supplies during the winter months, is the reason activists are staging protests across the country this fall to demand improved wages and conditions for Florida farmworkers who harvest the tomatoes we all eat.

About 25 people gathered Monday outside a Burger King restaurant in Denver in support of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW), an organization of Florida farmworkers that has called on the fast-food giant to address allegations of substandard wages and working conditions in its tomato supply chain.

“It’s some of the most difficult and dangerous work in the U.S.,” said Robert McGoey, a member of the Student/Farmworker Alliance, which is a member organization of the Alliance for Fair Food,a coalition formed to support the CIW. “Farmworkers are out in the hot fields all day hauling heavy containers in fields that are covered with pesticides. It’s dirty, dangerous work that just isn’t respected.”

The Denver protest was part of a nationwide campaign by the CIW and the Alliance for Fair Food to call attention to the plight of Florida farmworkers and to pressure Burger King to use its purchasing power to ensure the rights of low-wage laborers at the bottom of its supply chain.

“It’s the purchasers that have a lot of power in the marketplace,” said McGoey. “They are the ones who can dictate prices.”

Both Burger King Corp. and the Florida Tomato Growers Exchange have vigorously defended themselves against the allegations of worker abuse and exploitation in the tomato supply chain.

On the main page of its website, the Florida Tomato Growers Exchange states that the average hourly wage for a Florida tomato harvester is more than $12, well above the federal minimum wage. 

Burger King spokesperson Keva Silversmith said the company enforces a “robust member code of conduct,” which requires all suppliers to be in full compliance with federal, state and local laws.

“The dispute about wages needs to take place between the employer and the employee, and Burger King is not a party to that dispute,” Silversmith said. “There’s a belief that Burger King is a direct employer of the tomato harvesters, which we are not.”

The CIW wants Burger King to agree to pay one penny more per pound of tomatoes as a surcharge to help farmworkers. The coalition came to a similar agreement with McDonald’s, but citing legal concerns, the Florida Tomato Growers Exchange recently backed out of the “penny-per-pound” agreement, raising questions over the future of the hard-fought CIW accords with McDonald’s and Yum Brands Inc. 

The decision by the Florida tomato producers to eliminate the penny-per-pound extra pay to workers makes corporate cooperation on issues of farmworker rights all the more important, McGoey said. 

“It points to the need for more companies, such as Burger King to say that they are going to support the human rights of the workers in their supply chain,” he said. “Purchasers need to stand up for workers’ rights.”

In February, after negotiations with CIW representatives, Burger King decided not to enter into a penny-per-pound agreement with tomato harvesters, instead offering to recruit Immokalee farm workers for full-time jobs in Burger King restaurants. The Alliance for Fair Food called the offer “insulting.” Burger King is not reconsidering, however.

“The bottom line is that if the Florida Tomato Growers are not going to participate in the penny-per-pound program, we have no way of identifying who the harvesters are, much less figure out how to get them additional money,” said Silversmith. The CIW has never provided the corporation with specific locations where worker abuse occurs, Silversmith added. “Here at Burger King we are ready to jump in our cars today to investigate allegations of slavery or severe worker misconduct in Immokalee.”

But McGoey insists that the abuse of farmworkers is widespread in Florida.  “We can’t pinpoint a specific supplier to Burger King because their supply chain isn’t transparent.”