McDonald’s to pay more for tomatoes, help workers

McDonald’s Corp. agreed Monday to pay a penny more per pound for its Florida-grown tomatoes to help boost wages for the migrant workers who harvest them, following a two-year campaign by an advocacy group that called for the increase.

Under the agreement, a third party will verify that farmworkers who pick McDonald’s tomatoes will receive the increase. Oak Brook, Ill.-based McDonald’s also will require its suppliers to follow a workplace code of conduct that the workers would help create.

The deal involves payments for round tomatoes that go on McDonald’s sandwiches. McDonald’s USA Spokesman William Whitman declined to say how much the change would cost the company but said the increase would not be passed on to consumers.

The announcement was made by the nonprofit Coalition of Immokalee Workers and the nation’s biggest fast-food restaurant chain at the Atlanta-based Carter Center, where they negotiated the deal.

Florida pickers harvest about 90 percent of the nation’s domestic winter tomato supply, but McDonald’s mainly buys Florida’s round tomatoes for its sandwiches, about 15 million tomatoes annually. Farm workers are paid about 40 cents per 32-pound bucket. The extra penny a pound would nearly double their pay to about 72 cents a bucket.

•Shares of Dow Chemical Co. rose 5 percent Monday after a British newspaper reported a group of Middle Eastern investors and U.S. buyout firms was preparing a bid for the huge chemicals and plastics maker.

The Sunday Express, a British tabloid, reported over the weekend that the group has secured financial backing for a $50 billion bid for the Midland, Mich.-based chemicals company. That would be the biggest leveraged buyout ever.

The Express reported the investment team, which includes private equity firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co., is preparing a bid of $52 to $58 per share.

•With its sales shriveling even more than analysts feared, Advanced Micro Devices Inc. is imposing a partial hiring freeze and curtailing its spending as the slumping chip maker tries to weather a fierce battle with Intel Corp.

The Sunnyvale-based company outlined the cost-cutting measures Monday along with a warning about its first-quarter results. AMD said its revenue for the three months ending in March totaled $1.23 billion, well below the company’s initial estimates of $1.6 billion to $1.7 billion.