By St. Petersburg Times Staff Writer .

The activist group called the Coalition of Immokalee Workers last week got another fast-food chain to agree to pay more for tomatoes.

With 24,000 U.S. stores and its "$5 footlong" advertising jingle, Subway agreed to match Burger King and pay an additional 1.5 cen

Subway is the biggest fast-food buyer of Florida's $619-million annual tomato crop. There's just one catch: A lot of the additional money collected has yet to reach the tomato workers.

The Florida Tomato Growers Exchange has refused since last year to allow any of its members to participate in the agreements. Two growers originally participated in the Taco Bell deal for two years, but the McDonald's and Burger King deals have never been implemented. That money from the fast-food ch

"With every new company that signs on, it provides a lot of incentive for a forward-thinking grower to be willing to pass on the penny per pound," coalition spokeswoman Julia Perkins told the Herald. Last week's agreement with the farmworker activist group scuttled protests planned in Miami and — no doubt of greater concern to Subway — a march to the company's corporate headquarters in Milford, Conn. Immokalee is inland from Fort Myers and Naples.