February 24, 2012

Publix Super Markets
Corporate Office
P.O.Box 407
Lakeland, FL 33802-0407

Dear Mr. Crenshaw:

This is not the first time that the Christian Witness in Public Life (CWPL) Mission Team from Vanderbilt Presbyterian Church in Naples, FL has contacted you about supporting the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW). Your backing would lead to better working conditions in the fields, as well as providing a “penny-a-pound” increase directly to the pickers for their long unrecognized hard work. They harvest tomatoes for all of us: growers, buyers and consumers. We have heard your response that this is a labor issue which only involves growers (stating they alone control the price) and thus not your concern. Yet many other tomato buyers have signed on to the CIW pact, recognizing the major role buyers play in establishing prices. The most recent co-signer is your new Naples rival, Trader Joe’s.

CIW has the long standing support of Vanderbilt, and of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (PCUSA). Our congregation is committed to standing with Interfaith Action and the CIW now and in the future, come what may. As evidence of our support, CWPL asked church members to save their Publix receipts during the month of January, 2012. We are sending you these receipts, totaling approximately $22,000, as evidence that the many members of our congregation who shop at Publix hope to encourage you and your corporation to act in a caring and responsible manner and move to support CIW’s position. While conducting this collection, we also learned that others among our congregants choose not to shop at Publix because of its current stand on the CIW issue.

We recognize and praise Publix for their humanitarian operations in other areas. You hire the elderly and the disabled, provide employment for legal immigrants and encourage them to learn and speak English, as well as contributing a wide variety of groceries to food banks for those in need. The former are certainly “hands up”; the latter a “hand out”. So why Publix is unable to recognize the CIW petition as a “hand up” opportunity remains a conundrum to us all.

We know that tomato prices fluctuate due to conditions within and outside of your control. As with gasoline and other commodities, consumers are upset by upward trends, but hardly notice a single penny change. Publix support of the CIW might well mean that your customers’ tomato expenses would increase by the “penny-a-pound”, but we at Vanderbilt feel that would be a small price to pay for the major changes this would make in farm-workers lives. These pickers have not realized any change in their “bucket” wages for many, many years. Squeezing these workers has not kept tomatoes at 1980 prices, although that is where their income has remained. No wonder they are forced to frequent food banks to feed their children! As the largest corporation in Florida, Publix support for the CIW would make a huge difference in these lives. That’s why the Vanderbilt congregation is asking you to reconsider and sign on to help these workers achieve a real “hands up” about-face.

In Christian Hope,

Christian Witness in Public Life

Vanderbilt Presbyterian Church