Publix Responds To CIW Protest Actions

Monday, we brought you protest images from a spot near a West Miami Publix, where the Coalition of Immokalee Workers staged a protest. The CIW is a farmworkers union seeking a contractual commitment from Publix to ensure fair wages and conditions for workers. So far Burger King, Taco Bell, McDonald's,...

By Jacob Katel

November 11, 2009

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Monday, we brought you protest images from a spot near a West Miami Publix, where the Coalition of Immokalee Workers staged a protest. The CIW is a farmworkers union seeking a contractual commitment from Publix to ensure fair wages and conditions for workers. So far Burger King, Taco Bell, McDonald's, Whole Foods, Bon Appetit, and others have joined the union's Campaign For Fair Food.

We reached out to Publix for comment on the CIW's Florida-wide protest of the company's policies. Media and community relations manager Kimberly Jaeger responded via email. We will write back to her with some questions. For now, here's what she had to say:

"Publix has made it a practice not to intervene in labor disputes between a supplier, its employees and their union. Publix does pay fair market value for tomatoes, it's just not our place to determine what that rate should be, which is why this is a labor dispute that should be settled between the workers and the growers. We urge them to come to an immediate resolution."

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