Fast for Fair Food Lenten Reflection by Bernice Powell Jackson of the World Council of Churches

“As we begin the season of Lent…

…it’s easy in our increasingly secular world to ignore it or in the world of superficial piety to privatize it. But the word from God spoken by the prophet Isaiah brings a different message. Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? In fact, God warns those who are fasting and tearing their clothes to shreds that God is not impressed with all that. Only when the people stop oppressing their workers, blaming each other for their problems and breaking relationships within their own families will God respond to their prayers.

It’s not a difficult jump to get from Isaiah to the Coalition of Immokalee Workers and Publix. A few weeks ago Trader Joe’s signed an agreement with CIW, only a few days before opening its first Florida store. So it’s still about Publix. Now, don’t get me wrong, I like my Publix store. I like the politeness of its workers. I like the cleanliness of the stores and the variety of the items they stock. I like their Buy One, Get One Free sales.

What I don’t like is the arrogance of their leadership (they never responded to our letter and thousands of dollars of cash register receipts) and their unwillingness to even sit down and talk with the CIW leaders. In every situation that the workers of CIW have encountered for a decade now, when they are able to sit down and talk with the heads of fast food conglomerates, tomato grower associations and food supply companies, they were able to see each other’s humanity and dignity and to find a place of agreement. Yet Publix leadership refuses to sit down or to talk, which only says to me they know that theirs is a morally indefensible position and they can’t look the workers in the eye.

In my sermons over the past months, I have focused on the difference between chronos time and kairos time. The old ways of chronos time are quickly disappearing and kairos time, God’s time, is upon us. The kin-dom is at hand. We can see that as old marriage inequality laws fall to the wayside, as old religious understandings of impurity disappear, as old oppressive political regimes and laws melt away. The unwillingness of Publix to sign with the CIW is the last vestige of the old agricultural order in the South which relied on slave labor and then share-cropping and segregation to support it. This too shall pass. The question for them is do they wish to be on the side of justice or oppression, the past or the future.

During the week of March 5-10 many of the leaders and workers of the CIW will be on a fast at the Publix headquarters in Lakeland. We are invited to join them throughout the week and on Saturday, when they end the fast. I will join them to lead their religious vigil the evening of Wednesday, March 7.

Rev. Bernice Powell Jackson of the First United Church of Tampa, and President of the World Council of Churches in North America since 2004.

I invite you to join me there or join us in prayer that evening.

Perhaps our Lenten discipline this year might be to pray every day that the hearts of the leaders of Publix might be softened, that they might sit down with CIW and sign an agreement which gives the workers just one penny per pound more for their labor. Remember Isaiah…

In Peace and Love,

Pastor Bernice

Princess and the Pea, Publix and the Penny

Media covering the Fair Food Fast ask us, “How do you respond to Publix’s offer to “Put the penny in the cost and we’ll gladly pay it”? Publix’s statement is that they respond to market forces, and: “our policy is not to get involved in labor disputes.”

Just a penny per pound more would make all the difference in farmworkers' lives.

The extraordinary change in the relationship between growers and farmers at this moment is not a labor dispute. Over 90 percent of the Florida tomato growers and the Coalition of Immokolee Workers (CIW) have already agreed upon a Fair Food Code of Conduct. The corporations that have signed on have agreed to pay the Fair Food Premium, which is a small price increase that is designed to give the workers a penny wage increase for every pound of tomatoes they pick.

Ask Publix CEO Ed Crenshaw to meet with the farmworkers and sign the Fair Food Agreement.

Greg Asbed, staff with the CIW likens the Fair Food Premium to the reverse of the Princess and the Pea story. The Princess feels discomfort at the placement of a pea at the bottom of stack of many mattresses, whereas Publix could sleep soundly and never notice the discomfort of a little penny. Meanwhile, farmworkers will experience significant gain from the expenditure of a penny a pound on the part of the corporation. Yet Publix refuses to talk to the farmworkers or even consider signing the agreement. By refusing, Publix undermines the efforts of the farmworkers to labor in environments free of abuses that have characterized the system for over three decades. Publix provides an alternative, a shelter for growers that have not signed the agreement. By so doing, they participate in practices that are unjust and immoral.

As the largest corporation in Florida, Publix exerts enormous influence in the food industry. Publix has the opportunity now be a part of the healthy changes that are taking place in the industry. Or, Publix can tacitly support the continuation of a system that does not recognize the humanity of the men and women who pick the tomatoes it sells in groceries stores it lauds as offering a “pleasurable shopping experience.”

How can we enjoy buying goods when we know the farmworkers who pick them are underpaid and overworked, who labor without pension and health benefits and when some of them may have been subjected to forced labor? The scriptures of the Old and the New Testament are clear in calling for justice for the worker and the creation of each one of us in the image of God.  We stand with farmworkers as they strive for a new day in fields and a future for their children in a “Fair Food” universe.

Ask Publix CEO Ed Crenshaw to meet with the farmworkers and sign the Fair Food Agreement.

Until tomorrow,

Michael Livingston

Director, National Council of Churches Poverty Initiative

Ed Crenshaw, it’s time.

Rev. Livingston, with representatives from the Coalition of Immokalee Workers and the Student Farmworker Alliance, lights a candle to begin prayers for a New Day to dawn for worker justice, when Publix signs the Fair Food Agreement.

Ed Crenshaw won’t talk to farmworkers. He’s the CEO of Publix, the largest grocery store chain in the Southeast. The Coalition of Immokolee Workers has had remarkable success in a long struggle for justice for farmworkers. Yum Brands (2005), McDonalds (2007), Burger King (2008), Subway (2008), Whole Foods (2008), Aramark (2010), and most recently Trader Joe’s (2011), are among ten corporations that have signed on to participate in the Fair Food Campaign.

Click here to sign a petition to Ed Crenshaw, asking him to meet with farmworkers and sign the Fair Food Agreement.

The Fair Food Campaign asks corporations to:

• increase the wages of the workers
• comply with a Code of Conduct that includes zero tolerance for forced labor and systemic child labor
• enable worker to worker education sessions to ensure workers know their new rights
• allow a worker-triggered complaint mechanism
• maintain a system of health and safety volunteers on every farm to ensure that workers have a voice in their working conditions
• make some specific and concrete changes in working conditions that ensure fair compensation
• and provide for the simple comfort of shade and rest during extremely hot work days.

It’s day one of six days of fasting with farmworkers and their supporters at the corporate headquarters of Publix in Lakeland, FL. I’m already impressed with the quiet dignity of workers with whom I cannot communicate using the English I speak or the Spanish they speak. Yet we stand together under the same bright sun and our very presence alongside a busy thoroughfare, announces a firm commitment to seek justice for a workforce whose humanity has been ignored by a system of labor that is fundamentally unjust.

The farmworkers and holding signs that say “You’re human and so am I,” and “I fast today so that my children won’t be hungry tomorrow.” A typical farmworker must pick about 150-160 buckets of tomatoes a day, each bucket weighing about 32 pounds. They don’t have health plans, and often make less than minimum wage. They can sometimes arrive at 4:00a.m. and wait for hours to be hired for the day–hours for which they are not paid, and time spent away from their families. 

I like a thick slice of tomato on my burger; but at what price?  Ed Crenshaw, sit down and talk to farmworkers.  It’s time.

Click here to sign a petition to Ed Crenshaw, asking him to meet with farmworkers and sign the Fair Food Agreement.

Grace and Peace,

Michael Livingston

Director, National Council of Churches Poverty Initiative

Fast for Fair Food

I love tomatoes. Many of us do. But can we eat them in good conscience when we know that the farm workers who pick them are grossly underpaid and work under conditions that most of us do not and would not tolerate?

Can we live with doing nothing when the companies (like Publix) who hire them or who benefit disproportionately from their labor refuse to acknowledge their responsibility for the plight of farm workers, and will not engage in constructive conversation about meaningful change?

We are all in this life together. We are all fed from the bounty of the earth. I am going to join farm workers and the Presbyterian Hunger Program in Lakeland, Florida in a fast as part of the Fair Food Campaign. I do not regard this fast as a hardship on my part. By God’s grace I can offer the luxury of my time to brothers and sisters whose humanity I value as much as my own. I count it a privilege, as the season of Lent begins, to, as Paul asks of us in Romans 12:1: “…present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.”

Learn more about the Fast for Fair Food and join Florida clergy and congregations in praying that with God’s help, Publix’s isolation and hesitation can be transformed into communication and cooperation with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers. View and share the Faith Moves Mountains video and materials and join your prayers with thousands across Florida. I’ll keep in touch next week through our Facebook page and Twitter, sharing stories of the farm workers’ struggle and the community gathering around them, fasting and speaking for justice together.

Across Florida and the southeast where Publix grocery stores are prominent, people of faith are encouraged to drop off a manager’s letter when they shop, and to support or organize events such as the Interfaith Clergy Press Conference and Open Letter to Publix on March 6 in Tallahassee which includes Presbyterian clergy: the Rev. Brant Copeland, the Rev. Tom Borland, and the Rev. Mary Vance.

Learn more about ways you can pray with and support the Fast for Fair Food.

Grace and Peace,

Michael Livingston

Director, National Council of Churches Poverty Initiative

Photo of tomato picker by Scott Robertson.

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