“Having read this case study, I am proud to give you permission to name us and would happily be a reference for anyone who had questions.”

Robert Buker, CEO, U.S. Sugar

For years, Florida-based U.S. Sugar (one of the nation’s largest farms) had been under attack over labor practices and environmental issues. Activists and their political allies had been relentless in their indictments. Media was uncritical in endorsement of the hostile claims, which management insisted were exaggerated at best and entirely false at worst.

One at a time:

Asked to help, we advised that charges of abusive treatment of migrant farmworkers had to be resolved first. Until then, no one in politics, regulation, or journalism would listen to the company’s side of the environmental argument.

Farm Worker Treatment — Restoring a reputation:

The biggest obstacle to resolving the farmworker charges was the decades-old practice of barring outsiders from U.S. Sugar’s fields.

We proposed and management agreed to declare an “Open Harvest”. We issued and aggressively promoted with news organizations throughout the nation an invitation to come to Clewiston (U.S. Sugar’s home town) and see for themselves. The quality of migrant-worker housing and food had been an issue. We said journalists were welcome to spend a night in the company’s migrant villages and eat meals with the workers.

Many of the top national news organizations responded, sending reporters and camera crews. Six weeks after the Open Harvest commenced, a senior official from the U.S. Department of Labor visited and told reporters that U.S. Sugar was running the “best agricultural housing” in the United States.

Soon after that, the company and farmworker advocates resolved a set of mutual lawsuits. U.S. Sugar became recognized as setting a national standard for treatment of migrant workers in agriculture.

Charges of Environmental Violation — Rebuilding a reputation:

Attempting to establish himself as an environmental crusader, the regional U.S. Attorney had ordered EPA officials to stage a surprise raid on the company’s facilities. Wearing “EPA” emblazoned flak jackets, carrying assault guns, and followed at a close distance by local television news cameras and reporters, they invaded U.S. Sugar’s processing plants. Ultimately, their accountants found paperwork violations, which management decided not to fight, accepting a substantial fine.

Together with the company’s general counsel (Robert Buker, current CEO), we recommended that management not run from the plea or denounce its injustice, but “own” it.  Instead of appearing alone in court, the CEO arrived with the entire executive corps, which collectively accepted responsibility. Outside the courthouse, he stood before cameras and said, “We made mistakes. We have fixed those mistakes. We will never make those mistakes again” — a statement that became his mantra.

Watching, an assistant U.S. Attorney said to a member of the U.S. Sugar team, “I guess you won this one.”

 Sensitive Ecosystem — Harnessing a reputation:

The Florida Everglades and Everglades National Park lay downstream from the company’s property. The ability to measure minerals in water had recently become exponentially more sensitive. Environmentalists seized on this sensitivity and insisted that any amount of minerals beyond a few parts per billion would destroy the fragile Everglades ecosystem. They proposed expensive modifications to local water flows, with the farmers footing the bill.

We felt that the proposal would open the door to runaway costs and bankrupt not just U.S. Sugar but all the farmers of the region, which, we believed, was an environmentalist goal. We proposed a credit system by which the farmers would have their share of the cleanup funds reduced to the extent that they cleaned up the waters themselves. We modeled this program after the SO2 credits in the Clean Air Act.

Environmentalists resisted, but the logic of U.S. Sugar’s proposal and that the farmers of the region were willing to compromise while the environmentalists were not, led to a rare reverse.

The local, state, and federal level negotiations that followed had begun with the farmers isolated and the environmentalist in alliance with all the other players, including in public opinion. By the end of negotiations all those players, including the general public, were with the farmers – a fact confirmed when the environmental activists challenged the agreement through the state initiative system. In the biggest initiative and counter-initiative campaign in the state’s history (which on the farmers’ side we helped shape), the farmers won.

Conclusion -- Three challenges, three strategies

Strategy for restoring a reputation: Openness.

Strategy for rebuilding a reputation: Own mistakes.

Strategy for harnessing a reputation: Don’t just oppose; propose. Seize the initiative … and the agenda