“Don’t let making a profit stand in the way of doing the right thing”

Posted on by CIW

In an interview with the Tampa Business Journal from February of last year, Publix CEO Ed Crenshaw was asked, “Who are your heroes in the business world and why?” Here’s what he said:

“Obviously, my hero in the business world has been and will always be George Jenkins, ‘Mr. George,’ the founder of Publix and my grandfather… George Jenkins set a wonderful example for me and taught me many valuable lessons, but the one that stands out, and the one I think about most often is very simply, ‘don’t let making a profit stand in the way of doing the right thing.'”

That is an admirable aphorism, no doubt. But not one, apparently, Ed Crenshaw truly took to heart.

Here’s what a Publix spokesperson said just last month about the human rights crisis in Florida’s fields and the possibility of Publix working with the CIW to address those human rights violations:

“We don’t have any plans to sit down with the CIW,” Publix’s Media and Community Relations Manager Dwaine Stevens said, also citing that the company sells around 36,000 products in the stores and it cannot get involved with each product’s labor issues. “If there are some atrocities going on, it’s not our business. Maybe it’s something the government should get involved with.”

“Atrocities” in our supply chain? Not our business.

Modern-day slavery, sexual harassment, sub-poverty wages, wage theft? Not. Our. Business.

Turning its back on documented human rights violations in its supply chain — no matter how Publix spins it — couldn’t possibly be described as “doing the right thing.” Indeed, when you combine this position with Publix’s refusal to pay the penny-per-pound to help lift farmworkers out of poverty, it becomes clear that the people who run Publix today have pretty much taken George Jenkins’ words of wisdom and stood them squarely on their head.

On the threshold of unprecedented transformation…

Oddly enough, Mr. Steven’s quote would have made much more sense back in Mr. Jenkins’ day. Mr. Jenkins founded and ran Publix during what could be best termed the “Harvest of Shame” era of Florida agriculture.

During the second half of the last century, farm labor conditions in Florida were, if anything, even more brutal than they are today. The facts of farm labor exploitation came most famously to light in the famous CBS documentary by Edward R. Murrow entitled “Harvest of Shame.”

[The video on the right is by CBS Evening News from this past December, looking back at the original documentary in light of the changes brought about today by the Campaign for Fair Food.]

At that time, farmworkers were truly powerless and voiceless. No meaningful alternative existed to the harsh reality of exploitation and physical abuse faced by workers across the state. That’s the world Mr. Jenkins knew (he himself mortgaged an orange grove to launch his first supermarket), and the world that supplied Publix with its fruits and vegetables, no questions asked. Selling those fruits and vegetables helped make Mr. Jenkins and his family very wealthy.

But today there is an alternative. Today, there is a solution — the Campaign for Fair Food. Last November, the CIW and the Florida Tomato Growers Exchange signed an agreement to extend the CIW’s Fair Food principles – including a strict code of conduct, a cooperative complaint resolution system, a participatory health and safety program, and a worker-to-worker education process – to over 90% of Florida’s tomato fields.

And today that solution has won the support of virtually every relevant actor in the food industry:

  • Farmworkers – check
  • Growers – check
  • Buyers (leaders of the fast-food and foodservice industries, and a leading grocery chain) – check
  • Consumers – check

Virtually every relevant actor… except Publix, Ahold, and their colleagues in the supermarket industry.

Here’s what Ahold had to say after last November’s announcement of the landmark CIW/FTGE agreement:

“On November 16, the Florida Tomato Growers Exchange, which represents all of Ahold’s major tomato growers and suppliers, announced an agreement with the CIW to accept the CIW’s Fair Food Code of Conduct. We are pleased to learn about this agreement and believe that it is entirely consistent with our findings, specifically, that the growers from whom we source tomatoes in the Immokalee region are committed to treat employees and other workers fairly and with dignity and in accordance with the Ahold Standards of Engagement.

… We will not, therefore, participate directly with the growers’ employees in CIW’s proposed penny-per-pound program.”

With Publix and Ahold spearheading the resistance, the supermarket giants are today the only thing standing between the Campaign for Fair Food and a future of respect for human rights in Florida’s fields, between a food industry based on farm labor exploitation and degradation today and a more modern, more humane industry tomorrow.

If you aren’t part of the solution, you are the problem…

So why does it matter if Publix, Ahold and the rest of the supermarket industry don’t participate in the solution?

Because the solution is only as good — the raise is only as big, the change in working conditions is only as durable — as the number of buyers that support it. In the words of the FTGE’s Reggie Brown, “Everybody in the system has to be invested for it to work.”

While Publix and Ahold appear to have paid close attention to the CIW/FTGE joint announcement, they both seem to have somehow overlooked this crucial passage:

“Nearly 50 years to the day since Edward R. Murrow shocked the nation with his landmark report Harvest of Shame – which aired the day after Thanksgiving, 1960 – a solution has appeared on the horizon through the Campaign for Fair Food,” added Gerardo Reyes, also of the CIW.

“For this new model to achieve its full potential, however, retail food industry leaders must also step up and support the higher standards,” concluded Reyes. “Key players in the fast-food and foodservice industries have already committed their support. It is time now for supermarket industry leaders to seize this historic opportunity and help make the promise of fresh – and fair – tomatoes from Florida a reality.” read more

Without Publix and Ahold — and the rest of the supermarket industry — paying into the penny-per-pound program and conditioning their purchases on the Fair Food principles, workers’ raises are shorted and the push to improve working conditions is undermined.

Such an outcome would be doubly harsh given the active role supermarket giants like Publix and Ahold have played in creating — by leveraging their volume purchasing power to demand ever lower prices for produce — the poverty and brutal working conditions from which they have profited for so many years.

That’s why we march…

That’s why, if you support the Campaign for Fair Food, you must join us this spring for the Do the Right Thing Tour!

The victory announced last November in Immokalee is, without doubt, a watershed moment in the history of Florida agriculture. Never before have growers and workers joined together behind such progressive standards and at such a comprehensive level, covering over 90% of the entire Florida tomato industry. We — all of us — are making history.

But that victory will be diminished if Publix and Ahold are allowed to take the low road they seem so determined to travel. As we assemble to march in Boston and Tampa, let us gather our forces, meet them on that road, and turn them back to join the rest of the food industry on the path to true social responsibility.

This march is to make farm labor abuse Ed Crenshaw’s business.

This march is to make Publix remember — and honor — its founder’s wise counsel.

This march is to make Publix and Ahold — who, like Publix, has decided to put profits before the people who make its profits possible — do the right thing.

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