About 1,000 people marched on Burger King headquarters on behalf of migrant farm workers. Photo by George Barreiro/firedogphoto.com

Father Roger Holoubek held up a “Justice Now” sign and a handheld drum noisemaker with two small balls attached to strings. The klak-klak-klak sound created when Holoubek twisted the stick at the base of the small device was all but drowned out by a voice amplified on the speakers demanding fair wages.

“Un centavo mas! One cent more!” chanted a man standing on a long flatbed truck filled with demonstrators and electronic speakers.

Holoubek, a pastor for St. Maurice Catholic Church in Dania Beach, was one of 1,000 protesters who marched nine miles and stood under the hot sun Friday in front of Burger King corporate headquarters in Doral, hoping to be heard. His efforts, and those of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW), were intended to help migrant farm workers get a one-cent-per-pound raise for picking tomatoes and to improve their working conditions.

The CIW, an organization of mainly Latino, Haitian and Mayan Indian immigrants working in low-wage jobs throughout the state of Florida, organized the rally, alongside such organizations as Farmworkers Alliance and Interfaith Action, to pressure Burger King into raising the wages of farm workers.

Migrant workers who collect tomatoes for farms that supply Burger King typically earn 45 cents per 32-pound bucket — or roughly 1.3 cents per pound. It has been 30 years since those workers received a raise.

“These people have to walk 100 feet to dump a bucket of tomatoes, which weighs 32 pounds, into a truck,” Holoubek said. “They do it 125 times a day for only $50.”

After a 9-mile march that began at the downtown Miami offices of Goldman Sachs, one of three multibillion-dollar private equity firms that own a substantial share of Burger King stock, protestors blocked roadways in front of BK headquarters.

Signs were held up to attract the attention of company executives, such as “Honk for a living wage,” “BK’s Creed: Royal Greed,” “How hard do you work for your $50?” and “All religions believe in justice.”

Demonstrators even held up a human-sized poster board of the fast food burger chain’s smiling king character. The words “Exploitation King” were written across, instead of the normal “Burger King” logo. Many of the protestors wore shirts mimicking the poster.

Thelma Tucker, a member of a Unitarian church in South Miami, said she has seen the struggle that the farm workers face. As a retired registered nurse for the Miami-Dade Health Department, she used to treat farm workers for dehydration.

“The idea of not taking a lunch break, a break for the bathroom or a drink of water is horrible,” Tucker said. “They need to hydrate themselves. It’s important for their health.”

Dehydration isn’t the only problem workers face, Holoubek said. They also receive no health benefits, live 14 people to a single trailer and frequently get abused by growers. “I’ve seen it with my own eyes,” he said.

Sometimes workers have even consumed pesticides because they eat fast during their shifts because of a lack of time, he said.

“Burger King needs to address this labor abuse,” Holoubek said.

Leno Rose-Avila, executive director of South Florida Interfaith Worker Justice, said he was a farm worker for nine years.

“What we see here is a fight and spiritual struggle for human rights,” he said.

As the crowd cheered, different speakers waited to take the microphone. Kerry Kennedy, the late Robert Kennedy’s daughter, yelled, “The Immokalee farm workers are the hands that made [our food]. Thank you God, for the hands who are held in slavery; still they pick our food. Thank you God, for hands who show up for work at 4 a.m., but can’t actually begin being paid for work until the dew has dried around 10 a.m.; still they picked our food. Thank you God for those whose leaders the local police jailed on trumped-up charges; still they picked our food.”

“Everyone has a human right to just working conditions, including fair wages and a decent living for workers and their families,” said Kennedy, who stood as a motivational speaker on behalf of the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Center for Human Rights and the Fair Food Alliance. “Today, the average farm worker in Immokalee earns sub-poverty wages, a yearly income of less than $7,500.”

The message that the Rev. Kent Siladi of the United Church of Christ sent to Burger King executives was more blunt: “We want it our way!”

Old worn shoes were placed along a sidewalk adjacent to the Burger King building to symbolize workers who were in the field harvesting tomatoes instead of at the rally. “Doubt our poverty? Walk in our shoes,” stated another sign.

Besides several hundred union members, religious groups and migrant workers, there were also student activists at the rally.

Laura Garcia, member of United Students Against Sweatshops’ Florida International University chapter, said executives need to give realistic answers.

“In the past they have given us ridiculous answers like ‘we’ll train and employ all workers in our restaurants,’” Garcia said. “But they ignore the fact that someone still has to pick the tomatoes. Tomatoes just don’t fall out of the sky.”

Garcia also said that minimum wage is still not a living wage. “Even people earning minimum wage are struggling to survive in this city,” she said.

Yaniv Kleinman, another FIU student and fellow activist, said the students believe in establishing solidarity links with workers.

“Our own privilege allows us in this rich country to help those who are exploited, oppressed and dominated,” he said.

The CIW is no stranger to picketing restaurants on behalf of farm workers. The organization promoted a boycott against Yum! Brands, which owns such fast food restaurants as Kentucky Fried Chicken and Taco Bell, until an agreement was reached in 2005 that the chain would only buy tomatoes from farms that pay more than 2.3 cents per pound. A similar agreement was reached with McDonald’s in April, whereby the chain agreed to pay farm workers 77 cents per bucket.

Though no representatives for Burger King addressed the crowd on Friday, a publicist for Burger King did e-mail a statement.

“The CIW’s ‘penny-per-pound’ slogan is a PR catchphrase that fails to provide any solutions for the real issues facing farm workers,” BK officials said. “The CIW has done nothing to explain how companies like YUM!, McDonalds and Burger King can overcome the legal and technical hurdles associated with the money transfer scheme, and how this additional money, spread over thousands of workers, would meaningfully increase workers’ hourly wages.”

Though the cost of giving workers a penny more per pound would be $250,000 a year, according to the CIW, Burger King has insisted it doesn’t directly employ farm workers who collect tomatoes for the chain. Still, the company said the company has and will continue to address labor abuse issues.