FORT MYERS (Florida) NEWS-PRESS

September 26, 2009

Workers plan informational blitz at Publixes

By AMY BENNETT WILLIAMS

In the wake of its groundbreaking agreement Friday with food-service giant Compass and East Coast Growers, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers is keeping the heat on Publix.

In October, the grass-roots farmworker group will visit Southwest Florida stores, asking to talk about the tomatoes Publix sells and handing out leaflets to customers.

Publix is one of the 10 largest supermarket chains in the United States with 1,002 supermarkets in Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, Alabama and Tennessee.

Working with area churches and others, the coalition has already mounted a letter-writing campaign asking Publix to improve conditions for farmworkers and pay them a penny more per pound for tomatoes they pick — which grocers such as Whole Foods and major fast-food chains have agreed to do.

“Every single reason Publix has given for not addressing the human- rights violations on its suppliers’ tomato farms has been shot down,” said the coalition’s Gerardo Reyes. “They have nowhere left to hide.”

Also at issue is the fact that Publix buys tomatoes from Pacific Tomato Growers and Six L’s. Last year, members of the Navarrete family went to federal prison for enslaving 12 men they forced to work on those growers’ farms.

“Publix has a long history of non-intervention in disputes between suppliers and their employees,” said spokeswoman Shannon Patten in an e-mail, “and unfortunately, I don’t have any additional information that would be helpful.”

That frustrates coalition supporters such as the Rev. Allison Farnum of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Fort Myers, where members have been sending letters and postcards to Publix for months with no response.

She’s also galled by the fact that the Publix store in downtown Fort Myers pays nothing for the West First Street site it occupies.

“I understand we’re in really tough times,” Farnum said, “but to ask for free rent and have their backs turned to what’s going on in Florida’s fields is disappointing.”

As part of its downtown redevelopment effort, Fort Myers gave Publix five years rent-free when it opened the store there in 2007.

Coalition member Gerardo Reyes calls it a shame.

“Publix wants consumers to think that shopping in their stores is a pleasure,” Reyes said. “But if every time people see the green Publix sign they think of tomatoes picked by slaves and are reminded that Publix is refusing to buy tomatoes through a program that pays farmworkers a better wage and protects their labor rights, like Whole Foods does, well, that’s not a pleasure — that’s a shame.”