Jim Hightower's Lowdown

How “Wonderful” Is POM, Fiji Water, and The Wonderful Company


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If you name your $4-billion food conglomerate “The Wonderful Company,” you probably should strive extra hard not to let it become the horrible company.

This outfit spends a fortune painting itself as an environmentally sensitive purveyor of healthy products – like “POM,” its brand of pomegranate juice and its bottled “Fiji Water.” Moreover, its billionaire owners, Stewart and Lynda Resnick, have marketed themselves as generous philanthropists and powerhouse donors to the Democratic Party.

Wonderful.

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But the corporation’s rap sheet includes false advertising, hogging of the public’s scarce water supplies, massive fossil fuel pollution, and – most abhorrent – exploitation of the low-paid farm workers who produce the crops that enrich the Resnicks.

Stewart, hailed as “the wealthiest farmer in the US,” has been spending lavishly on high-dollar lawyers and lobbyists, furiously fighting the United Farm Workers, who’re seeking fair wages, decent treatment, and simple respect from him. Worse, the politically-connected land baron is going all out to bust the entire union by pushing activist judges to outlaw California’s “card check” system. This is a democratic process enabling widely dispersed farm laborers to vote in unionization elections.

By trying to kill it, Stewart is engaged in a massive voter suppression effort to deny a smidgeon of justice to poorly-paid oppressed workers. It’s a raw power play by Stewart and his brotherhood of billionaire agribusiness barons, to further enrich themselves by taking away hard-won fair labor laws – and re-subjugating workers to the autocratic whims of owners.

What’s wrong with the Reznicks? They’re fabulously rich, and their company is enormously profitable. Yet they’re trying to nickel and dime one of the hardest working and poorly treated groups of workers in America. Nothing wonderful about that… or them.

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Jim Hightower's LowdownBy Jim Hightower

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