"If there are some atrocities going on, it’s not our business."
That's what Publix supermarket spokesperson Dwaine Stevens said when he was asked about the workers who pick tomatoes for Publix. Workers who suffer horrifying abuses.
Publix is a Florida-based company, and farmworkers there have been mistreated for decades. We've learned that the workers in Florida's tomato fields -- the workers who pick tomatoes for Publix -- endure widespread sexual harassment. Poverty-level wages. Wage theft. Even slavery.
Here's an example of the sorts of violations we're talking about: In 2008, investigators found more than a dozen people enslaved as tomato pickers in Florida. They were forced to sleep in box trucks and shacks, charged for food and showers, denied wages, and beaten if they tried to leave. Traffickers confiscated their identification documents, invented debts they could never repay, and hooked them on alcohol to keep them working.
"If there are some atrocities going on, it's not our business."
But it is their business. It's how they make their profits. And it has to stop.
The Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) has asked Publix to join its internationally recognized Campaign for Fair Food –– a campaign whose partners already include companies like Whole Foods, McDonalds, and Subway. The goal of the campaign is to prevent serious human rights abuses precisely like those occurring in Florida's tomato fields.
Abuses that can only be described as atrocities.
So far, Publix has refused even to engage in conversation with the CIW, let alone consider joining the Campaign for Fair Food. But the CIW is taking action –– and Change.org can help.
Next week, the CIW will be hosting marches and demonstrations at Publix stores in Tampa and St. Petersburg, Florida. And if we can get 20,000 signatures on the petition to help Publix tomato pickers in time, they'll deliver those signatures to Publix management as part of the big event.
We need to take swift, decisive action to help Florida's tomato workers. Because there are atrocities going on. And it is our business.
Click here to tell Publix to join the Campaign for Fair Food to ensure its workers are treated with dignity.
https://www.change.org/petitions/tell-publix-to-sell-slave-free-tomatoes?alert_id=ULHpiGFRHv_BFkouLuEDo&me=aa
Thanks for taking action,
- Patrick and the Change.org team