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[edit] Criticisms

Yum! has been involved in disputes over Workers' Rights:

• In early 2001, 400 Florida farm workers, claiming they were underpaid, picketed and urged a national boycott of Taco Bell, although the company does not directly employ them. The farm workers said they were frustrated trying to deal with their employers and felt that the chain's target market of 18 to 24 year olds would be sympathetic to their cause. Workers are paid 40 to 45 cents for every 32 pounds of tomatoes they pick for Taco Bell and other companies. The US Department of Labor reports that farm workers average $7,500 a year on average and receive no benefits.

• In February 2003 about 60 tomato pickers from Florida picketed the Irvine headquarters of Taco Bell and began a hunger strike, protesting low wages and a lack of paid overtime and health benefits from the companies that sell tomatoes to Taco Bell. The Coalition of Immokalee Workers has asked Taco Bell to pressure growers into improving working conditions and to pay growers an extra penny for each pound of tomatoes it buys in order to boost pickers' wages. Currently, the laborers say that they earn between $7,000 and $7,500 a year and a penny increase would nearly double their earnings. However Taco Bell said the labor dispute is between the workers and their employers, calling the protesters efforts "misdirected." A spokesperson for Taco Bell said, "They do not work for Taco Bell" and that the company bought only 2.8 million pounds of tomatoes from one Florida grower, which accounted for less than 1% of the tomatoes distributed by the company.

• In May 2001 Pizza Hut paid $10 million to settle a class-action lawsuit filed against the company for failing to produce overtime pay. The suit was filed by salaried workers who claimed they were misclassified as exempt from time-and-a-half overtime wages.

• In February 2000, Taco Bell agreed to pay $9 million to settle a class-action lawsuit filed by 3,000 California employees who stated that they were not paid overtime.Source: Christian Science Monitor, Feb. 2001, et al.

• KFC and Pizza Hut were among six food franchises that were found under-paying workers and hiring minors, according to a report by a Korean government department. The ministry investigated the fast-food sector in July and discovered that more than 14,000 part-time workers were not being paid properly for over-time work. The fast-food chains have been ordered to repay almost $2 million in wages. Overall, the ministry’s report said KFC was the worst offender, with payment with-held from 5,119 of its employees. Also, the investigation revealed that there were thousands of cases of under-age employment--under 15 years old-- and of forcing part-time employees to work longer than the maximum seven hours a day. Source: Ethical Corporation

Kentucky Fried Chicken, owned by Yum!, has been criticized for its Animal Welfare Practices:

• As of December 2003, KFC refused to respond to PETA’s requests that the company produce proof it has reduced the cruel treatment of animals by their suppliers. PETA began its "Kentucky Fried Cruelty" campaign against KFC after McDonald’s, Burger King, and Wendy’s agreed to adopt new measures for the treatment of animals raised by their suppliers. PETA’s shareholder resolution with Yum! Brands calls upon the company to issue a report detailing exactly how its animal-welfare practices conform to its stated goal to only deal with suppliers who "provide an environment that is free from cruelty, abuse and neglect."

• In December 2003, members of PETA protested the abusive treatment of chickens by KFC’s suppliers at the Yum! Brands’ 2003 Conference for Investors and Analysts. Although PETA had registered legitimately for the conference as a shareholder (PETA has purchased Yum! stock), PETA was denied entrance to the conference.

• In July 2003, PETA filed a complaint in California Superior Court to seek an injunction against KFC and its parent company, Yum! For making false statements about its animal welfare practices in advertisements and and on the company's website. According to PETA, these statemetns mislead consumers and are "unlawfully deceptive." PETA claims KFC abuses the more than 700 million chickens raised and slaughtered for its operations each year.

• In July 2004 an undercover Peta activist, who worked in Pilgrim Pride slaughterhouse for 8 months, released a video documenting mass cruelty by Pilgrim's workers against chickens in slaughterhouses, including stamping on live birds and throwing them against walls. Pilgrim Pride is a major supplier of chickens to KFC. Peta say their agent witnessed "hundreds" of acts of cruelty. The company responded by releasing the following statement: "KFC is appalled by the actions of Pilgrim's Pride employees at this one facility". The company has sent its own inspector to the plant, and asked Pilgrim's Pride to fire some 11 workers, which it did. KFC has also asked the supplier to install security cameras to monitor the plant in future. KFC also said it "sent a letter to all suppliers to make sure they continue to follow the industry's animal welfare guidelines." Source: PETA/Ethical Corporation

• In March 2001, a guilty verdict was handed down in a class action lawsuit filed by thousands of current and former Taco Bell Corp. employees in Oregon who claimed that they were encouraged to doctor their time cards so that store managers could meet productivity deadlines and get bonuses. According to an attorney for the plaintiffs damages and penalties could be in the millions of dollars. An attorney for Taco Bell said that when the company was made aware of the situation it fired several managers. Taco Bell is considering appealing the decision. Source: Los Angeles Times, March 13, 2001

• In October 2003, a former manager for Tricon's (now Yum!) business analyst group, was indicted on charges that he made trades in Tricon stock options while in possession of confidential financial information on the company. Source: Associated Press, October 6, 2003

• In light of the EPA’s on-going investigation of the PFOA family of manufacturing chemicals which are known to contain the questionably hazardous chemical C-8, in July 2003, the Environmental Working Group asked popular fast food companies to disclose whether the food packaging products they use contained a chemical coating made of fluorinated telomers. DuPont, the first manufacturer of Teflon, which is produced with C-8 claims the chemical is not harmful to humans, but it has been found to cause reproductive and developmental problems in laboratory animals. Yum! declined to reply to EWG inquiries about the contents of its fast food packaging wrappers. Source: The Environmental Working Group, July 26, 2003

[edit] Praise

• In May 2004 at its annual meeting Yum! Announced a proposal to work with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers if they cancelled their 3-year boycott of the company's Taco Bell stores. The Coalition represents tomato workers in the Immokalee region of Florida who work for a number of tomato grower companies, some of which supply Taco Bell. The Coalition has been demanding that Taco Bell force its suppliers to pay workers an additional penny per pound of tomatoes picked. Yum!'s CEO David Novak stated "if the CIW ended its boycott, the company is prepared to support an industry-wide solution, such as a penny a pound surcharge applied to all purchasers of Florida tomatoes, not just Taco Bell." Under this proposal, Taco Bell would be willing to be the first company to sign up for the surcharge, if it was applied universally to all purchasers. "We think that’s only fair, since everyone who buys Florida tomatoes should be part of the solution and Taco Bell shouldn’t be put in a competitive disadvantage," Novak said. Source: CSRWire.com

• In March 2005 Taco Bell announced it will pay an extra penny for each pound of tomatoes it buys under an agreement with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW), a group of mostly Latino laborers from the tomato-growing region around Immokalee, Fla. that had been protesting the fast food chain for three years. The coalition ran a three-year campaign called the "Taco Bell Truth Tour," asking people to stay away from Taco Bell and other restaurants run Yum! Brands, its parent company, until the company pressured tomato growers to provide better wages and living conditions for farm workers. A spokesperson for the CIW said farm workers earn about $7,500 a year, without health insurance or paid vacations. The extra penny added per pound picked will boost the pay of the roughly 1,000 farm workers employed by Taco Bell suppliers. "It would mean almost reaching the poverty level," the spokesperson said.

The agreement between Taco Bell and the CIW also includes a code of conduct for the restaurant chain's suppliers. The code bans indentured labor, in which workers are brought to Florida and must work off the debt and open themselves to periodic, unannounced inspections. The agreement also sets up a process for workers to file complaints about their pay or treatment that would be jointly investigated by the coalition and Yum. Yum also agreed to help the coalition set up a strategy to lobby the Florida Legislature for laws requiring better working conditions. Source: Associated Press, March 9, 2005

• In May 2003 Kentucky Fried Chicken announced new standards to ensure humane treatment for its birds from hatchery to slaughterhouse. The company also asked the federal government to review changes in the slaughtering processing, inquiring if gassing the birds would be safe for slaughterhouse workers and consumers. In January 2003 People For the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) initiated a boycott against Kentucky Fried Chicken in an attempt to improve the lives and deaths of 700 million chickens who become the fast food chain's fried meals every year. According to PETA, chickens used by KFC are crammed into sheds that stink of ammonia fumes from accumulated waste and each bird lives in the amount of space equivalent to a standard sheet of paper. Additionally the chickens routinely suffer broken bones from being bred to be top heavy, from being handled roughly by workers and from being shackled upside down at slaughterhouses. Chickens are often still fully conscious as their throats are cut or when they are dumped into tanks of scalding hot water to remove their feathers. PETA said it began the campaign after being assured by Yum Brands in May 2002 that it intended to "raise the bar" on animal welfare. In January 2003 PETA claimed that KFC "has done nothing to address some of the most egregious animal cruelty in the chicken industry." (see related alert items) Source: PETA/Atlanta Journal Constitution, May 3, 2003

• Yum brands ranked 15th on Fortune magazine’s list of "50 Best Companies for Minorities" in 2004. The company was cited for having more minority managers than any other company on the list- 43% of managers are minorities. Source: Fortune

[edit] Brands & Subsidiaries

A&W, KFC, Long John Silver's, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell