A 200-mile bicycle ride will end today in Lakeland, Fla., where the chief executive officer of Publix Super Markets, Ed Crenshaw, will receive a letter signed by 30 Gainesville-based religious leaders.
The purpose of the letter: to persuade Publix to support better wages and conditions for farmworkers.
The bicycle ride and letter are part of the "Pilgrimage to Publix," an event organized by Interfaith Action of Southwest Florida, said Kimberly Hunter. She is a 2008 UF grad who is interning with the organization to keep the "pilgrimage" running smoothly.
Interfaith Action is an activist group that works with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, an organization made up of farmworkers, to push corporations to support fairer wages for and better treatment of migrant workers who work in Immokalee, Fla.
The pilgrimage program includes an invitation to Crenshaw to visit Immokalee and learn about the farmworkers' situations firsthand. Aramark, which provides food services for UF, reached an agreement with the CIW in 2010.
According to a news release on Publix's website, the company's stance is that the CIW's complaints should be handled by the farmworkers' direct employers, not grocery retailers.
Publix officials also state in the release that the protest "ironically" hurts Florida's farmworkers and Florida's produce industry.
The release includes statements regarding how the minimum wage has changed several times since 1978, and how if workers feel if productivity standards are too strenuous, they should seek employment elsewhere and force employers to revise standards.
The release also states that Publix does not support any violations of human rights, and its team is unaware of any instances of slavery in its supply chain or any examples of payments made below minimum wage to workers.
Hunter and five other people left Immokalee by bicycle Saturday, starting their 200-mile pilgrimage to Lakeland. The group is made up of Hunter, two other Interfaith Action members and three Immokalee farm workers.
They stopped in various cities along the way to educate people about their cause and work on grassroots organizing efforts.
Darinel Sales, one of the CIW members on the bicycle ride, has worked on Immokalee farms for two years.
His interview responses were translated from Spanish by Margaret Gleeson, a member of Interfaith Action who is biking with Sales and the others to Lakeland.
"I'm a farmworker, and I'm working alongside other farmworkers in the coalition to eliminate...the physical violence and other kinds of abuses that exist in the field," said Sales, 26. "One of our major hopes as a farmworker community is that Ed Crenshaw will hear our message and will listen to our message and join with us to work together in the Campaign for Fair Food to do what he can do to improve our situation."
