A black eye for the University

The announcement last month that Taco Bell was considered a leading candidate to take over some of the empty space in the Moravian Cafes was greeted with enthusiasm, and rightly so: Penn found what would seem to be the ideal tenant -- an establishment which would provide cheap food fast and which would come to campus with name recognition already solidly established.

But, despite appearances, Taco Bell is the wrong choice for Penn.

Florida's tomato industry, which supplies Taco Bell, has been the site of some of the worst working conditions in recent American history. Wages haven't changed since the 1970s -- workers are paid 40 to 50 cents for every 32-pound bucket of tomatoes they fill. If wages had kept pace with inflation, that rate should be 90 cents today. As it stands now, a worker must pick over a ton and a half of tomatoes in an eight-hour day just to earn the federally mandated minimum wage. Workers have no job security, no benefits and no overtime pay. In 2002, three men were convicted of actually enslaving 700 workers, beating and threatening with death those who disobeyed.

"Farm workers have always had the worst working conditions and the worst wages of anyone in the American labor force," says Mary Summers, a lecturer in Penn's Political Science Department who teaches a class called "The Politics of Food." "There have been brief periods in which farm workers succeed in raising their wages, but they've never succeeded in even getting them to poverty levels."

Since 1993, the Coalition of Immo-kalee Workers, a group representing migrant agricultural workers, has been trying to do something to change that. In 2001, the group called for a boycott of Taco Bell. Since then, Taco Bells have either closed or been prevented from opening at 21 colleges.

Taco Bell is not solely responsible for the conditions of the workers who pick its tomatoes, but it is part of the world's largest restaurant company, Yum! Brands, and as such it wields a large amount of influence over its suppliers. It has used that power in the past to keep prices down. But it can also be used for good -- McDonald's, for example, used the enormous weight of its purchasing power to force the slaughterhouses that supply their restaurants to make their facilities safer, cleaner and more humane. Taco Bell has the same opportunity. By paying a penny more per pound for its tomatoes and demanding that its suppliers pay that extra penny to their workers, Taco Bell could nearly double the wages of the pickers and set a new standard for the industry.

A typical Taco Bell meal contains nowhere near a pound of tomatoes: The extra cost to the company, or consumers, would be a mere fraction of a cent. But the company has steadfastly refused to take any unilateral action to fix the situation or even guarantee that it would not purchase from any suppliers who used forced labor.

"When you hear about people being forced to work against their will, being held at gunpoint, being pistol-whipped, you have two choices," says Sean Sellers, who, as National co-Coordinator of the Student/Farmworker Alliance, has lived in Immokalee with the workers since last summer. "You can look the other way and pretend nothing's going on, or you can do something about it." Penn, unfortunately, is taking the second path. By doing so, the University would send a powerful message condoning mistreatment and outright abuse.

In her inaugural speech, new University President Amy Gutmann talked about a "Penn Compact." Her vision, she said, was that Penn would "advance the central values of democracy: life, liberty, opportunity and mutual respect." But, not five months after that speech, Penn began to consider bringing Taco Bell to campus.

Penn cannot fix the problem on its own, but it could very well make it worse. Taco Bell would no doubt be successful in the Moravian Cafes, a profitable choice for the University, but if Penn is serious about working to advance democracy and serious about working for the benefit of all, it needs to start now. If Gutmann meant it when she said that "universities have a responsibility to use knowledge to serve humanity," then she needs to show us now by taking a stand and saying, once and for all, that this university should not make its money on the backs of the poor and disenfranchised.

Alex Koppelman is a senior individualized major in the College from Baltimore and former editor-in-chief of 34th Street Magazine. Rock the Casbah appears on Thursdays.

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