UCLA needs to boot the Bell

Many students are wondering why Taco Bell is still on campus
even though they did not respect the Associated Students of
UCLA’s request to conduct a third-party investigation into
the working conditions of Florida farmworkers, and even though the
ASUCLA Food Services Committee has recommended, now for the second
time, that the ASUCLA board of directors not renew the Taco Bell
contract.

As a student who has been involved in this struggle for almost
four years, perhaps I can shed some light on the issue. Yum! Brands
Inc. (Taco Bell’s parent company) has recently made it clear
that they do indeed care very deeply about farmworker poverty and
human rights abuses, but say they are simply powerless to change
the policies of the farmworkers’ actual employers ““ the
growers.

Taco Bell claims that they simply don’t buy enough
tomatoes to have any purchasing power over the growers. Basically,
they would like us to believe that Yum! Brands Inc. ““ the
largest restaurant company in the world in terms of system units
““ is unable to affect the policies of the tomato growers in
their supply chain.

We do not have any way of knowing for sure exactly how much
purchasing power they have regarding Florida tomatoes because they
have thus far refused to actually open their books and reveal the
specifics of the supply chain, instead releasing misleading figures
and statements.

But what is known clearly shows that Yum! Brands Inc. operates
by using their purchasing power to ensure low prices for their
supplies, including tomatoes. As the Yum! Brands Inc. purchasing
agency, the Unified Foodservice Purchasing Co-op puts it, “We
obtain low prices by making volume purchase commitments and
assuming other procurement functions and risks that reduce
suppliers’ costs.”

We will continue to ask Yum! Brands Inc. to use this power that
they clearly have to positively influence the lives of impoverished
farmworkers.

This is not a call for charity from Taco Bell. Yum! Brands Inc.
and other large companies are directly responsible for the
conditions that these workers face because they exert tremendous
downward pressure on tomato growers, keeping their prices low and
thereby forcing them to cut costs. The workers are the first to
feel the effects of these cuts as growers cut their real wages,
deny them benefits of any sort, and according to The New Yorker
magazine, enslave them in work camps to pick tomatoes and citrus
fruits by attacking those attempting to leave with guns.

What we are asking is for Taco Bell to take responsibility for
the negative effects that their race to the bottom has on
people’s lives.

Taco Bell says that they care about the plight of these
farmworkers. However, the history of this conflict suggests that
they merely want the issue to go away. Before the national boycott
was called in 2001, farmworker advocacy groups contacted Taco Bell
repeatedly to ask for their help. Nobody was surprised when the
multinational Mexican food chain completely ignored them.

After the boycott had been going on for several months, and Taco
Bell could no longer afford to ignore them, they changed their
tactic to a denial of allegations of low wages. After numerous
respectable sources began to document the mistreatment of tomato
pickers, including National Geographic (Sept. 2003) and The New
Yorker magazine (April 2003), Taco Bell could no longer deny that
some Florida pickers were experiencing modern-day slavery.

So they switched their stance again, saying that the company was
simply not responsible for the actions of its suppliers. This
didn’t cut it either, and now they have once again changed
their response by saying that they are powerless to influence the
practices of their suppliers.

Every step of the way Taco Bell has stood in the way of justice
for farmworkers. It’s time for them to finally take
responsibility. And UCLA can help make this happen sooner.

Some people believe that UCLA would lose any influence it has on
Taco Bell if the restaurant is removed. They maintain that ASUCLA
could provide Taco Bell with incentives to clean up the abuses in
its supply chain.

It would be nice if Taco Bell actually cared enough about its
UCLA franchise for this to work, but as Jonathan Blum, the senior
vice president of Yum! Brands public affairs, said at the last
ASUCLA board of directors meeting in September, Yum! Brands Inc. is
a multibillion dollar corporation while UCLA is just one
school.

He made it very clear that UCLA has no power in determining Yum!
Brands Inc. policy. The logical conclusion, then, would be that
Taco Bell will only respond to mounting pressure from the national
boycott and student campaign in which at least 19 schools across
the country have said no to Taco Bell restaurants and products.

Thus the choice for ASUCLA remains clear: They will have far
more impact on Taco Bell by becoming the 20th school to boot the
Bell.

Lam is a fourth-year anthropology student and a member of
the Social Justice Alliance.