Publix Refuses To Submit To A Shakedown: 'A Penny A Pound'

The local CBS affiliate for Nashville, NewsChannel 5, was on progressive overdrive tonight...crews covering groups of 10-12 ardent Marxists, each gathered for their pet cause. After the fifth story or so, it became a bit comical...

But this one was actually a bit chilling, as it detailed the efforts of one group to shake down a supermarket chain. The truly relevant bit is in the final paragraph of the quote.

It's a protest calling attention to what some say is support of demeaning and unfair working pay for Florida tomato working.

With the help of a translator, Oscar Otzoy, one of those farm workers describes what things are like.

"It's very difficult to be a farm worker. You might work 10 to 12 hours in a day and only come home with fifty dollars," said Otzoy.

He says the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, CIW, is targeting one of the largest Southeastern Grocer Publix, whose headquarters is in Florida.

Otzoy adds with the help of his interrupter, "And we are calling on Publix and other super markets to join in these agreements to help raise farmer worker wages and eliminate the abuses that make possible the extreme of modern day slavery."

The protest is calling for stores like Publix to pay an extra one cent per pound of tomatoes purchased, with the penny going not to the farmers, but directly to the workers.

In other words, fork over a penny per pound of tomatoes sold to us (We'll make sure those oppressed workers get all of it, honest!) and we'll stop harassing you and your shoppers. Until next time, when we decide the poor cucumber pickers need a nickel a pound. There's the cherry pickers in Chile, and the meatpackers in Iowa to think about, too. And, next year, that penny per pound might not be enough, you know.

Nice little grocery business ya got here, Publix! It'd be a shame (wouldn't it, Vito) if all those plate glass windows were to be smashed, or customer's tires were slashed, or a flash mob invaded with cans of spray paint. Right, Gino? Right, Vito?

Yeah, boss, it would be a cryin' shame!! It'd be like what's going on in London. What a shame, boss, what a shame!

What a business model! Damn! Why didn't someone think of that earlier!!! Well, actually, guys like Al Capone did, to great effect. It's why Chicago is, so, well, Chicago.

Publix, for their part, and wisely so, aren't having anything to do with this.

"For us, it is a labor dispute between the growers and the pickers, so we encourage them to get together and resolve the problem, and then charge a fair price for tomatoes and we will pay a fair price," said Brenda Reid, with the regional media and communications department for Publix.

Here's the link to the Student/Farmworker Alliance. Hmmm....this stuff costs money. Where do they get it? Not from the impoverished pickers, to be sure. Hmmm....

Ms. Reid's statement is proper--it's between labor and management in that industry. The SFA's tactic of triangulating against retailers, who buy produce for their restaurants and stores, is thinly-veiled extortion. Some firms seem to have succumbed.

Three cheers for Publix, for standing tall. For doing the right thing.