CWA 1180 - Solidarity Works

Burger King Exec Uses Daughter's Online ID To Chide Immokalee Coalition

By Amy Bennett Williams
News-Press.com (Florida)
April 28, 2008

As the Coalition of Immokalee Workers prepares to
deliver more than 60,000 petitions to Burger King
headquarters in Miami today, the daughter of Burger
King's vice-president Stephen Grover confirmed her
father is responsible for online postings vilifying the
coalition.

The Immokalee-based group is asking Burger King to
improve tomato harvesters' working conditions and pay a
penny more a pound for tomatoes, which could add about
$20 to a daily wage of $50, workers say.

McDonald's and Yum! Brands, the world's biggest fast-
food chain and restaurant company, respectively, have
agreed to the raise. Yum! signed on in 2005; McDonald's
in 2007. So far, Burger King has refused, while
publicly saying it wants to work with the coalition to
improve labor conditions.

Yet often during the past year, when articles or videos
about the coalition were posted on YouTube and various
Internet news sites, someone using the online names
activist2008 or surfxaholic36 would attach comments
coalition member Greg Asbed has called 'libelous.'

This one, from surfxaholic36, is representative: 'The
CIW is an attack organization lining the leaders
pockets . They make up issues and collect money from
dupes that believe their story. To (sic) bad the people
protesting don't have a clue regarding the facts. A
bunch of fools!'

A father's posts

Although Shannon Grover also uses the name
surfxaholic36 - mostly on social networking sites - she
said the anti-coalition posts are her father's alone.

'I don't really know much about the coalition and
Burger

King stuff,' she said, reached by phone at the family's
Miramar home Friday. 'That was my dad. My dad used to
go online with that name and write about them.'

Asked if she'd ever written about the coalition online,
she was adamant: 'No, that was my Dad. That was him.'

Steven Grover did not return calls to his home or
office, nor did Burger King spokesman Keva Silversmith
respond to calls and a request to speak to Burger King
CEO John Chidsey.

'This is truly disturbing,' said coalition member
Gerardo Reyes. 'It's one thing to imagine that there's
some kind of anonymous Internet stalker out there
obsessively tracking every story about the CIW, posting
these vicious lies about us and calling us things like
`the lowest form of life' and `blood suckers," Reyes
said. 'I mean, we're a farmworker community fighting
slavery and trying to get a fair wage for the work we
do.'

The bigger question, Reyes said, is this: 'When you
realize the person posting those things is actually
Burger King's vice president in charge of the ethical
operation of the company's supply chain, it really
makes you wonder just how high up does this whole thing
go? Does Burger King, as a company, approve of this
sort of behavior? If not, we'd expect to see some
changes now that this has come to light.'

`The low-road approach'

Last month, activist2008 sent an e-mail to The News-
Press almost identical to many of the online postings
signed 'Shawn Glass.' The e-mail's Internet address
showed it came from Burger King's corporate
headquarters in Miami. No one named Shawn Glass works
there, according to the employee phone directory.

At the time, Silversmith denied the e-mail was official
BK communication, although he didn't deny it came from
the company.

'This is a non-corporate sanctioned opinion,' he told
The News-Press. 'The strident tone does not reflect
Burger King, who wants to cooperate and bring real
change to Immokalee.'

Marc Rodrigues of the Student Farmworker Alliance,
which works closely with the coalition, says he's not
surprised by the latest revelation but frustrated an
executive would 'stoop to this level and choose the
low-road approach instead of trying to work for real
change.'

It was Rodrigues who discovered earlier this year the
alliance had been infiltrated by Cara Schaffer, who
said she was a student at Broward Community College
interested in organizing campus events in support of
farmworkers.

In reality, Schaffer owns Diplomatic Tactical Services,
a Hollywood, Fla.-based security and investigative firm
that advertises its ability to place operatives in the
ranks of target groups.

Her application for a private investigator's license
was denied last year because she failed to prove she
had experience or training. Florida's Division of
Licensing told her, 'Your employment must be terminated
immediately, or your employer may reassign you to
duties that do not require licensure or registration.'

That didn't stop her from listening in on two alliance
conference calls. Her company's Web site is no longer
online.

Reluctance to cooperate

The coalition, one of the nation's most respected anti-
slavery groups, also is asking Burger King to help
'eliminate slavery and human rights abuses from
Florida's fields.'

At Senate hearings on farm conditions held by U.S. Sen.
Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., earlier this month, Eric
Schlosser, author of the best-selling 'Fast Food
Nation,' praised Yum! and McDonald's for working with
the coalition and urged Burger King to do the same.
'The admirable behavior of these two industry giants
makes the behavior or Burger King . seem completely
unjustifiable.'

Schlosser has argued it would take Burger King no more
than $300,000 a year to pay the increase.

On its corporate Web site, Burger King, which has more
than 11,300 restaurants in the United States and in 69
countries and U.S. territories, reports revenues of
$2.2 billion last year, up 9 percent from 2006. CEO
Chidsey made $4.1 million last year, according to
Forbes.com.

Given the company's profile and earnings, Grover's
behavior is all the more interesting, said John
Stauber, executive director of the nonprofit, non-
partisan Center for Media and Democracy, based in
Madison, Wis.

'I think this shows a deep arrogance that a person at
such a high level in the corporation would be directly
involved in that type of harassment,' Stauber said.
'This a huge black eye for the Burger King corporation.
It's the type of situation that lands companies in
public relations textbooks on how not to engage the
press, the public and your critics.'

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