BRADENTON – Planning to arrive on the first day back to work after Labor Day, a group of farm workers  will make a 200-mile trek from Immokalee to Lakeland where they hope to get an audience with Publix CEO Ed Crenshaw, who they intend on inviting for a visit to the fields where Publix tomatoes are picked in hope of finally convincing the supermarket chain to join the ”penny a pound“ movement.

Tomato retail as an industry has benefited from 30 years of flat wages, no labor organization, no benefits for pickers as well as the associated culture of abuse and poverty that such practices engender. The Florida Tomato Growers Exchange has begun to work with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers to promote increased workers' rights and pass on an extra penny per pound of tomatoes pledged by retailers.

So far, large corporations like McDonald's, Subway, Burger King, Whole Foods, and most famously, Taco Bell have signed on to the extra penny pledge. Publix however, has continued to resist pledging the extra penny and tomato pickers have had no luck getting face time with the giant corporation.

Publix is a Fortune 100 company and the largest private corporation in Florida (8^th largest in the nation). Clearly, it is seen as instrumental in the struggle to improve basic rights for pickers. But the company, who had over a billion dollars in net profits last year and is continuing to see record success despite a down economy, has refused to even talk about the issue, beyond a few one-sentence statements that pledges nothing more than their intention to stay out of it.

Hope surfaced a couple of years ago when it was reported that two of the farms Publix had bought tomatoes from, Six L's and Pacific Tomato Growers, employed bosses who'd been convicted of brutally enslaving farm workers from third-world countries. Still, Publix remained steadfast in their commitment to stay out of what they viewed as a labor issue, rather than one of human rights.

The same group of pickers held a large protest outside of the Publix corporate headquarters in 2009, but to no avail. The Interfaith Action of Southwest Florida has started the ”Farmworkers in the fields are family, too“ movement, another effort to shame the supermarket giant into supporting basic rights for the workers it profits from. The group encourages churches throughout the region to distribute penny folders that members can fill for a month and then present to local Publix managers as a prepayment for the penny a pound they'd otherwise give up or pass on to customers.

With all of these creative ways to prompt participation having so far failed, it might be difficult to imagine the poor workers' novel trek yielding the corporation's participation. However, it is hoped that it might continue to raise awareness among customers who have the power to take much more than pennies from the Publix coffers, if they boycott the store in protest of its stubborn refusal to do so little for people to whom it would mean so much.

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A Penny for Your Thoughts... About Tomatoes