Supporting the Farmworkers Who Bring Food to Our Tables:
The campaign to ensure farmworkers are given fair wages and just
working conditions for the tomatoes we buy at Publix  

Resources

Coalition of Immokalee Workers

Interfaith Action of Southwest Florida
Resources and tips on how to get
involved with the Publix Campaign


National Farm Worker Ministry
150 SW 13th Avenue, Miami, FL  33135
Phone  (786) 264-1708; Fax  (786) 264-1859
interfaith@sfiwj.org; www.sfiwj.org
Today the harvest of shame continues for Florida tomato
pickers.  Conditions include:

Sub-Poverty Wages
Workers are paid virtually the same piece rate (40-50
cents per 32-lb. bucket) as they were in 1978.  At this
rate, a worker must pick 2.5 TONS of tomatoes to earn
Florida minimum wage in a typical 10-hour workday.

Denial of Fundamental Labor Rights
Farmworkers in Florida have no right to overtime pay, no
health insurance, sick leave, paid vacation or pension,
and no right to organize in order to improve these
conditions.

Modern-Day Slavery
In the most extreme cases, workers are forced to labor
against their will through the use of or threat of physical
violence.

Hope
In recent years, however, a new hope has emerged that
promises to end Florida's harvest of shame once and for
all.  The Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) - an
internationally-recognized farmworker organization - has
reached ground-breaking agreements with many of the
world's leading food retailers: fast food corporations
McDonald's, Burger King, Subway and Yum Brands
(parent company of Taco Bell); supermarket chain Whole
Foods; and foodservice providers Bon Appetit and
Compass Group.  In these agreements, corporations
commit to paying one more penny per pound for the
tomatoes they buy directly to the workers who picked
them and to establish a code of conduct in their supply
chain to ensure that workers are being treated with
dignity.  To date, three Florida growers, including
Florida's third largest tomato grower East Coast Growers
and Packers, have committed to work together with
these companies to implement these fair food
agreements.

Publix, Florida's largest privately-owned company with
sales of more than $12 billion during the first half of
2009, refuses to enter into an agreement with the CIW to
guarantee fair wages and dignified working conditions
for the tomato pickers in its supply chain.  What's more,
Publix continues to purchase tomatoes from two
Immokalee-based tomato farms where the victims in last
season's brutal slavery prosecution worked picking
tomatoes.

Publix now has two options:

    Continue to Turn a Blind Eye to the exploitation
    of farmworkers in its supply chain.
OR

    Be a Part of the Solution and Help Put an
    End to the Harvest of Shame in Florida's fields
    by entering into an agreement with the CIW

For more information, visit CIW's website.
April 2009 -
Coalition of Immokalee Workers
Facts and Figures on Florida
Farmworkers
SFIWJ Board Member Rev. Lucy
Hitchcock-Seck at the Publix Protest in
Miami on November 8th, 2009
South Beach on October 29, 2009
Unitarian Universalist Church to Publix CEO Ed
Crenshaw: "As the Chief Executive officer of a large
corporation, you have the opportunity... to end the
human rights abuses and sub-poverty wages faced by the
workers who pick the tomatoes sold in your stores."