Fair Food Austin: BK 'spygate' scandal widens, implicates CEO

May 7, 2008

BK 'spygate' scandal widens, implicates CEO

With a powerful new op/ed published in today's New York Times, entitled "Burger With a Side of Spies," award-winning investigative author Eric Schlosser takes the spreading "spygate" scandal to a new level, documenting the fast-food giants efforts to infiltrate the Student/Farmworker Alliance.

This comes just three weeks after a report in the Ft. Myers News-Press broke the story of a multi-faceted "dirty tricks" campaign aimed at discrediting the CIW through an anonymous, bogus blogger campaign of emails and internet postings questioning the CIW's integrity and calling the Immokalee farmworkers' organization the "lowest form of life" and "bloodsuckers," among other things. That smear campaign has since been tied to Burger King Vice President Steven Grover (above right, "Burger King VP puts self on grill; Daughter says dad wrote anti-coalition postings," 4/28/08). Stay tuned for more news in this rapidly developing story!

Who We Are

Since 2001, Fair Food Austin has organized with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) for fair wages and dignified working conditions in the U.S. agricultural industry. The CIW is a farmworker organization headquartered in Immokalee, Florida with over 4,000 members. The CIW has aided in the prosecution by the Department of Justice of six slavery operations and the liberation of well over 1,000 workers.

We use creative methods to educate consumers about the human rights crisis farmworkers face and to promote the Campaign for Fair Food. The campaign requires large food corporations -- from Taco Bell to Whole Foods -- to demand more humane labor standards from their Florida tomato suppliers, to pay a premium price for more fairly produced tomatoes, and to buy only from growers who meet those higher standards.

Brutal conditions in Florida's fields may seem distant to consumers deep in the heart of Texas, but many of the restaurant and supermarket chains that have helped create this crisis are present in our community and buy Florida tomatoes at some point during the year. Human rights are universal, and by working together, farmworkers and consumers can create a better world.