Do we like them?

Do we like Taco Bell?

Mexican-inspired fast-food chain with thousands of restaurants worldwide, based in Irvine, California.

Our score: 5 out of 10. Mixed. It was an early adopter of the farmworker Fair Food deal, but it has a record of wage-and-hour lawsuits, and we found little recent evidence either way.

Taco Bell is the fast-food arm of Yum! Brands, the same parent as KFC and Pizza Hut. It's run by Sean Tresvant, who joined in 2022 from Nike's Jordan brand and took over as CEO in 2024. Yum has since given him a bigger role as chief consumer officer.

The best chapter is farmworkers. The Coalition of Immokalee Workers began a national boycott of Taco Bell in 2001. After four years, Yum agreed in 2005 to the group's demands, including paying a penny more per pound for tomatoes. Taco Bell was the first company to sign, and that campaign grew into the Fair Food Program.

The less good bit is how it treats its own staff. Taco Bell has faced plenty of wage-and-hour class actions over the years. In 2016 a federal jury in California found it had underpaid workers who skipped meal breaks, though the jury didn't rule against it on several other claims.

So we land in the middle. The farmworker deal is a real plus. The pay lawsuits are an old blemish, and our searches didn't turn up recent proof of better or worse. We'd call it mixed, not a clear yes.