OK. Please read this if you don't want to or can't watch the video.

As other chains agree to pay tomato pickers fair wages, Publix remains holdout - Orlando Sentinel

The website wants you to pay to read the article if you are not a subscriber to the newspaper.

You are right. I let them get the better of me. I am sorry for that. It's just that my post was immediately attacked by people who didn't have the facts. It was not a hit and run post and I was simply shocked by the responses. The farm workers deserve a fair wage in a safe environment without sexual and physical abuse.

That's all I am saying. I didn't ask for a debate. I simply said watch the video.
I did and I know more.

That's odd. I am not a subscriber. Just google Fair Food Act Publix.

Why single out Publix. Will you continue to buy at Winn-Dixie, Food Lion, Save-a-Lot, Wegmans, Whole Foods, Fresh Market, etc., etc.? Suggest the best solution for you is to grow your own garden so you can pick your own harvest. How about Chicken; haven't you ever seen videos about how some farms raise Chickens in disgusting conditions? How about Beef? Ever seen a slaughterhouse?

You can say what you will about Publix not wanting to pay an additional penny to farmers or migrant workers. Publix pays and treats their employees better than any big corporation that I know of. Their employees get paid well and rewarded for good work. They receive bonuses, heath and dental benefits, a good retirement program and company stock. Maybe this is the reason that they don't want to play extra to farmers. They'd rather pay their own employees better.

If these migrant farm workers want higher wages and better working conditions, aren't they free to go and find work elsewhere?

I don't agree with some of the abuses mentioned in the trailer. Workers should not be locked in trailers and chained to poles. That absolutely should be stopped if it's going on. These workers, like all workers in this country should be free to leave these jobs and seek employment elsewhere.

Do they seriously look at this type of work as a lifelong career? Picking produce should be at best am entry level position. I would think that people in that kind of a job would take steps to get themselves trained to do something that pays more.

At the beginning of the trailer for this piece of propaganda, our president states that no one who works full time in this country should have to live in poverty. I would ask; When has that ever been the case anywhere in the world? Do people believe that a high school dropout with no skills who takes a minimum wage job should be able to support a family of four? I don't recall being able to support myself with the wages from my first job. I lived with my parents until I worked myself up in a career.

I see that Eva Longoria is one of the people behind this movement. She is a well know liberal activist. If you want to talk about unfair wages, how about we discuss the fact that we pay people like Eva Longoria and her husband millions of dollars to entertain us. Do they really believe that they've earned everything they have. Do they believe that they deserve what they have earned? Does she worry about the fact that people are paying $15-$20 to watch her act in a movie and maybe some of those people can't afford it? Does she ever consider that a large part of what we pay for products comes from advertising and those advertisers pay televisions programs millions of dollars to advertise and that money is then used to pay people like her to act on those programs. Does she even think about the fact that what she does drives up the cost of everything that we buy. Every time we make a purchase a portion of that money goes into the pockets of entertainers like her. Entertainers, IMHO, including professional athletes are the most over paid people in our society. How much is what they do really worth?

But that never comes up and I, for one, am glad that it doesn't. I think that people should be able to make whatever they can.

click here
for the entire piece

"The Fair Food Program changes all that — through voluntary cooperation.

Companies agree to pay an extra penny a pound. That money — which costs the average tomato-buying family about 40 cents a year — then goes into an audited fund that makes sure pickers get raises and that workplace-safety practices are in place.

Many companies decided it's simply the right thing to do. Florida's largest grocery chain, however, refuses.

Publix says none of this is the chain's concern. It says suppliers are free to charge them more for tomatoes, which Publix would gladly pay.

But the movie calls baloney on that. So does common sense.

If Publix would happily pay more money, the suppliers would happily take it.

The reality, as experts in the movie note, is that big buyers like Publix control the prices. It's the biggest grocery game around. And farmers know that if they try to jack up prices, the big chains will simply go to another farm ... or perhaps another country."

If it's true that forty cents a year out of my pocket once a year can improve someones life in a big way,,, and I say no; it would be hard for me to sleep. If only what's fair to everyone was that simple. And don't you think Publix is a big advertiser in that paper? It takes moxie to to go against your advertiser. Does that happen a lot?