Over the last decade, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers has extracted agreements with some of the country's biggest food corporations, agreeing to the farmworkers request to receive an extra penny per pound of tomatoes they pick in Florida.
Yum Brands!, which represents Taco Bell and KFC, were the first corporation to agree to the farmworker terms. Later McDonalds, Burger King and Subway also agreed to pay the additional amount.
But Publix, the largest grocer in Florida, hasn't budged an inch, and on Tuesday, while members of the Coalition biked from Tampa or places further to go to Publix corporate headquarters in Lakeland, their CEO, Ed Crenshaw, was "unavailable" to meet with workers.
This article appears in Sep 8-14, 2011.