The distance from Immokalee to Lakeland, FL is about 200 miles.  Not an excessively long distance journey—unless your mode of travel is by bicycle. And that is precisely what a group of farmworkers and religious supporters are embarking upon this week.

Immokalee is located in a rural area outside of Naples, where workers labor to pick tomatoes sold across the country to major food chains.  The reason for the impoverished farmworkers’ lengthy trek is to seek dialogue with an important Florida businessman, no less than the chief executive of our state’s largest, most profitable company.

Letters to Publix CEO Ed Crenshaw have gone unanswered for more than two years, so the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, an award-winning farmworker organization, say they will show up on September 6 – the first day back to work after Labor Day weekend -- at his office.

They wish to personally invite Mr. Crenshaw to the fields where workers pick Publix’s tomatoes so that he can learn more about how his company can be part of the solution to farmworker poverty and abuse.

For the past 30 years, Florida tomato pickers have been working for the same salary with no insurance, no benefits, no sick leave or vacations, no right to organize and no overtime to harvest the fresh tomatoes sold in Publix’s produce aisle.

What is the specific issue that we, the common food shopper, can understand?  Cost!  But certainly it is measured in more than posted prices or ledger figures of profit and loss.  There is a human cost at play, as well.

Fortunately, due to the courage of leading tomato farms in the state, including several located near Bradenton, the Florida Tomato Growers Exchange reached a collaborative accord with the CIW to address industry abuses.  These farms, representing 90% of the state’s tomato industry, have agreed to a new code of conduct protecting harvesters’ basic rights as well to pass on an extra penny a pound pledged by major retailers like Subway, McDonald’s, Burger King and Whole Foods.

For years Publix has been invited to use their considerable influence and resources to benefit the workers who pick their tomatoes.  Yet Publix refuses to pay just one penny more per pound to do its part in raising farmworker wages. Nor will the grocery giant agree to condition its purchases on suppliers’ compliance with the new Fair Food code of conduct.

The leaders of the fast-food and foodservice industries are on board to do this, resulting in landmark gains for the workers.  Yet, in the words of Reggie Brown of the Florida Tomato Growers Exchange, "Everybody in the system has to be invested for it to work" and Publix’s continued rejection of these advances truly threatens to undermine them, setting a dangerous example for the rest of the supermarket industry.

Which is why “The Publix Guarantee” is at risk, the famous vow to customers that, “we will never knowingly disappoint you.”  The company’s indefensible refusal to support the best hope for more ethical standards in Florida’s tomato fields is nothing if not disappointing.

I am praying for Mr. Crenshaw – not only that he hospitably welcomes the farmworkers’ invitation to Immokalee to learn how his company can support their noble cause, but indeed that he embraces the opportunity for Publix to improve the lives of Florida’s tomato-picking families.

In so doing, Mr. Crenshaw would truly be honoring the sage advice of his grandfather, Publix founder George Jenkins: “Don’t let making a profit get in the way of doing the right thing.”

Dr. Jack Barnes

Bradenton

related:

'Penny a Pound' Protestors to Bike 200 Miles to Confront Publix CEO