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Tomato growers' group relents on imposing fine for giving pickers raise (Ft. Myers News-Press)

By Amy Bennett Williams

The Florida Tomato Growers Exchange is backing off from its threat to impose $100,000 fines on members who participate in a penny-per-pound pay raise for tomato harvesters. Since last November, that threat has stalled the distribution of the increase - paid by fast food companies and not growers - from reaching pickers.

Reggie Brown, the exchange's executive vice president, told The News-Press on Thursday that the change was in response to the "inordinate and inappropriate focus on the fine issue by the media. We thought it better to take that issue off the table."

That doesn't mean the exchange, to which some 90 percent of the state' s tomato growers belong, supports the increase. On the contrary, Brown said, the group is still so troubled by legal questions about the raise that it continues to advise members to not participate, Brown said.

McDonald's and Yum Brands, the world's biggest fast-food chain and restaurant company, respectively, have agreed to the raise, although Burger King has so far refused.

Yum, parent company of Taco Bell, Pizza Hut and more, signed on in 2005; McDonald's in 2007.

Workers received the extra money for two seasons, but then the threatened fines from the exchange stalled payouts. Both companies have been honoring the agreement with the raise amount collecting in escrow.

They say they will continue to honor the agreement.

"It's the right thing to do, and we encourage others to follow our lead," said Taco Bell spokesman Rob Poetsch. "While we continue to set aside monies for the affected workers, we're disappointed that the intended recipients are being penalized."

Now that the threat of fines is gone, members and supporters of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers are wondering what it might mean.

"If the (threats of fines) are in fact being lifted, that would be good news," said coalition co-founder Lucas Benitez. "We hope our agreements with Yum and McDonald's will be allowed to again function as they had in the past and workers received a fairer wage."

Yet, in his testimony at the same hearings, Brown told Senators: "Given the fact that the growers are not mandated to participate in the extra penny program, and based on the facts as we know them, it would not be rational, reasonable or in the best interest of the growers to join the program."