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Foodies Get Wobbly
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Dan Clore
Dec 3, 2012, 9:55:04 AM12/3/12
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News & Views for Anarchists & Activists:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygo
http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/14218/foodies_get_wobbly
December 2, 2012
Foodies Get Wobbly
Food supply chain workers adopt the IWW’s radical actions to fight
abusive employers.
BY Michelle Chen
The range of tactics employed by urban food workers reveals the great
ecosystem that is labor. When farm wages are driven down by exploitation
of migrant workers, that shapes labor struggles higher up the food chain
in processing plants and restaurants. When cooks and servers organize,
they gain leverage to demand that restaurants source from growers of
ethically produced food.
Once upon a time in the labor movement, a rebellious vanguard emerged at
the margins of American industry, braiding together workers on society’s
fringes—immigrants, African Americans, women, unskilled laborers—under a
broad banner of class struggle.
The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), or Wobblies, raised hell in
the early 20th century with unapologetically militant protests and strikes.
Their vision of a locally rooted, globally oriented anti-capitalist
movement was eclipsed by mainstream unions, which had more political
muscle. But grassroots direct action is today undergoing a resurgence in
the corners of the workforce that have remained isolated from union
structures.
Such alternative campaigns have a special resonance in today’s food
industries, which employ the roughly 20 million people (one-sixth of the
total workforce) who harvest, process, distribute and sell the food we
eat. This marginalized, low-wage group is hungry for organizing models
that move as nimbly as the corporations that run the production chains.
The IWW’s signature organizing model, syndicalism (which prioritizes
direct action in the workplace), meshes with the growing trend in the
labor movement toward less bureaucratic labor groups, such as worker
centers and immigrant advocacy campaigns. Flexible mobilization that
doesn’t require formal votes or union certification is well-suited to
precarious laborers seeking to outmaneuver the multinationals.
Since 2007, the Wobbly-affiliated coalition Focus on the Food Chain
(FOFC) has empowered workers in New York City’s food sectors to
challenge abusive employers on the streets and in the courts. The
group—an alliance between the local IWW and the advocacy group
Brandworkers International—aims to “carry out member-led workplace
justice campaigns to transform the industry” and focuses on the
oft-neglected links between farm and fridge. According to Brandworkers
Executive Director Daniel Gross, these processing and distribution
industries are a “sweatshop corridor.”
“The business model,” he says, “is exploitation of recent immigrants.”
But in New York, the workers at these companies—some of which cater to
high-end natural gourmet markets—are tied into the local food system as
consumers as well. So groups such as Brandworkers envision empowering
working-class communities holistically, with well-paying jobs that
ensure families’ access to the literal fruits of their labor. In the
long term, Gross says, FOFC aims to “transform this sector to provide
the good manufacturing jobs that we want to see and to create a
sustainable food system that provides fresh local food.”
That vision is far from fulfilled, but workplace-based campaigns have
yielded victories. In Brandworkers’ lawsuit against the Queens-based
distributor Beverage Plus, a federal court awarded $950,000 in damages
to Latino warehouse workers and drivers who complained of wage theft and
harsh working conditions, including up-to-12-hour days. FOFC also
challenged local kosher foods producer Flaum Appetizing, a company
notorious for underpaying and abusing immigrant employees. In a
two-pronged strategy, FOFC launched a complaint with the National Labor
Relations Board for discriminatory retaliation against immigrant
workers, and also worked with an Orthodox community activist group to
pressure some 120 grocery stores to stop doing business with Flaum until
it met workers’ demands. The disputes ended earlier this year, with
workers winning a $577,000 settlement.
On a national scale, advocacy and community groups (including
Brandworkers) have organized the Food Chain Workers Alliance, promoting
economically and ecologically sustainable ways of eating. Member groups
have campaigned for the rights of restaurant staff and of child
farmworkers, and have established “fair food procurement” principles to
pressure employers for solid wages, better working conditions and the
use of local food.
Creative direct-action organizing has trickled into food service sectors
as well. In September, after the management of a Hot and Crusty bakery
in Manhattan attempted to lock out workers seeking to unionize, 23
employees didn’t just picket, but launched their own enterprise to
reclaim a space in the city’s foodscape. With the backing of the local
labor group Laundry Workers Center, the Worker Justice Cafe served
coffee and bagels outdoors—a la Hooverville-meets-Occupy—until their
union gained recognition.
The range of tactics employed by urban food workers reveals the great
ecosystem that is labor. When farm wages are driven down by exploitation
of migrant workers, that shapes labor struggles higher up the food chain
in processing plants and restaurants. When cooks and servers organize,
they gain leverage to demand that restaurants source from growers of
ethically produced food. The monopolies of agribusiness and the service
and retail industries embody how a corporatized supply chain
systematically cheats workers and impoverishes communities.
And while the heyday of syndicalism has faded, the food economy’s sheer
mass and dynamism may prove fertile ground for its resurgence. Just as
our food is sourced on a local, regional and transnational scale,
immigrant workers’ struggles are inherently local and global. As
corporations tighten their grip on systems of production, workers can
only respond through a combination of direct-action and cross-industry
solidarity, spanning a long chain of linked injustices.
UPDATE: Reflecting the same uncompromising energy as the Hot and Crusty
workers earlier this year, New York City has just seen a spectacular
surge of strikes by non-union fast food workers demanding decent wages
and working conditions. For more, see David Moberg and Josh Eidelson's
coverage of this potentially groundbreaking workers' movement.
ABOUT THIS AUTHOR
Michelle Chen is a contributing editor at In These Times, a contributor
to Working In These Times, and an editor at CultureStrike. She is also a
co-producer of Asia Pacific Forum on Pacifica's WBAI. Her work has
appeared on Alternet, Colorlines.com, Ms., and The Nation, Newsday, and
her old zine, cain. Follow her on Twitter at @meeshellchen or reach her
at michellechen [at] inthesetimes [dot] com.
--
Dan Clore
New book: _Weird Words: A Lovecraftian Lexicon_:
http://tinyurl.com/yd3bxkw
My collected fiction: _The Unspeakable and Others_
http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/the-unspeakable-and-others/6124911
Lord Weÿrdgliffe & Necronomicon Page:
http://tinyurl.com/292yz9
News & Views for Anarchists & Activists:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygo
"From the point of view of the defense of our society,
there only exists one danger -- that workers succeed in
speaking to each other about their condition and their
aspirations _without intermediaries_."
--Censor (Gianfranco Sanguinetti), _The Real Report on
the Last Chance to Save Capitalism in Italy_
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygo
http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/14218/foodies_get_wobbly
December 2, 2012
Foodies Get Wobbly
Food supply chain workers adopt the IWW’s radical actions to fight
abusive employers.
BY Michelle Chen
The range of tactics employed by urban food workers reveals the great
ecosystem that is labor. When farm wages are driven down by exploitation
of migrant workers, that shapes labor struggles higher up the food chain
in processing plants and restaurants. When cooks and servers organize,
they gain leverage to demand that restaurants source from growers of
ethically produced food.
Once upon a time in the labor movement, a rebellious vanguard emerged at
the margins of American industry, braiding together workers on society’s
fringes—immigrants, African Americans, women, unskilled laborers—under a
broad banner of class struggle.
The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), or Wobblies, raised hell in
the early 20th century with unapologetically militant protests and strikes.
Their vision of a locally rooted, globally oriented anti-capitalist
movement was eclipsed by mainstream unions, which had more political
muscle. But grassroots direct action is today undergoing a resurgence in
the corners of the workforce that have remained isolated from union
structures.
Such alternative campaigns have a special resonance in today’s food
industries, which employ the roughly 20 million people (one-sixth of the
total workforce) who harvest, process, distribute and sell the food we
eat. This marginalized, low-wage group is hungry for organizing models
that move as nimbly as the corporations that run the production chains.
The IWW’s signature organizing model, syndicalism (which prioritizes
direct action in the workplace), meshes with the growing trend in the
labor movement toward less bureaucratic labor groups, such as worker
centers and immigrant advocacy campaigns. Flexible mobilization that
doesn’t require formal votes or union certification is well-suited to
precarious laborers seeking to outmaneuver the multinationals.
Since 2007, the Wobbly-affiliated coalition Focus on the Food Chain
(FOFC) has empowered workers in New York City’s food sectors to
challenge abusive employers on the streets and in the courts. The
group—an alliance between the local IWW and the advocacy group
Brandworkers International—aims to “carry out member-led workplace
justice campaigns to transform the industry” and focuses on the
oft-neglected links between farm and fridge. According to Brandworkers
Executive Director Daniel Gross, these processing and distribution
industries are a “sweatshop corridor.”
“The business model,” he says, “is exploitation of recent immigrants.”
But in New York, the workers at these companies—some of which cater to
high-end natural gourmet markets—are tied into the local food system as
consumers as well. So groups such as Brandworkers envision empowering
working-class communities holistically, with well-paying jobs that
ensure families’ access to the literal fruits of their labor. In the
long term, Gross says, FOFC aims to “transform this sector to provide
the good manufacturing jobs that we want to see and to create a
sustainable food system that provides fresh local food.”
That vision is far from fulfilled, but workplace-based campaigns have
yielded victories. In Brandworkers’ lawsuit against the Queens-based
distributor Beverage Plus, a federal court awarded $950,000 in damages
to Latino warehouse workers and drivers who complained of wage theft and
harsh working conditions, including up-to-12-hour days. FOFC also
challenged local kosher foods producer Flaum Appetizing, a company
notorious for underpaying and abusing immigrant employees. In a
two-pronged strategy, FOFC launched a complaint with the National Labor
Relations Board for discriminatory retaliation against immigrant
workers, and also worked with an Orthodox community activist group to
pressure some 120 grocery stores to stop doing business with Flaum until
it met workers’ demands. The disputes ended earlier this year, with
workers winning a $577,000 settlement.
On a national scale, advocacy and community groups (including
Brandworkers) have organized the Food Chain Workers Alliance, promoting
economically and ecologically sustainable ways of eating. Member groups
have campaigned for the rights of restaurant staff and of child
farmworkers, and have established “fair food procurement” principles to
pressure employers for solid wages, better working conditions and the
use of local food.
Creative direct-action organizing has trickled into food service sectors
as well. In September, after the management of a Hot and Crusty bakery
in Manhattan attempted to lock out workers seeking to unionize, 23
employees didn’t just picket, but launched their own enterprise to
reclaim a space in the city’s foodscape. With the backing of the local
labor group Laundry Workers Center, the Worker Justice Cafe served
coffee and bagels outdoors—a la Hooverville-meets-Occupy—until their
union gained recognition.
The range of tactics employed by urban food workers reveals the great
ecosystem that is labor. When farm wages are driven down by exploitation
of migrant workers, that shapes labor struggles higher up the food chain
in processing plants and restaurants. When cooks and servers organize,
they gain leverage to demand that restaurants source from growers of
ethically produced food. The monopolies of agribusiness and the service
and retail industries embody how a corporatized supply chain
systematically cheats workers and impoverishes communities.
And while the heyday of syndicalism has faded, the food economy’s sheer
mass and dynamism may prove fertile ground for its resurgence. Just as
our food is sourced on a local, regional and transnational scale,
immigrant workers’ struggles are inherently local and global. As
corporations tighten their grip on systems of production, workers can
only respond through a combination of direct-action and cross-industry
solidarity, spanning a long chain of linked injustices.
UPDATE: Reflecting the same uncompromising energy as the Hot and Crusty
workers earlier this year, New York City has just seen a spectacular
surge of strikes by non-union fast food workers demanding decent wages
and working conditions. For more, see David Moberg and Josh Eidelson's
coverage of this potentially groundbreaking workers' movement.
ABOUT THIS AUTHOR
Michelle Chen is a contributing editor at In These Times, a contributor
to Working In These Times, and an editor at CultureStrike. She is also a
co-producer of Asia Pacific Forum on Pacifica's WBAI. Her work has
appeared on Alternet, Colorlines.com, Ms., and The Nation, Newsday, and
her old zine, cain. Follow her on Twitter at @meeshellchen or reach her
at michellechen [at] inthesetimes [dot] com.
--
Dan Clore
New book: _Weird Words: A Lovecraftian Lexicon_:
http://tinyurl.com/yd3bxkw
My collected fiction: _The Unspeakable and Others_
http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/the-unspeakable-and-others/6124911
Lord Weÿrdgliffe & Necronomicon Page:
http://tinyurl.com/292yz9
News & Views for Anarchists & Activists:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygo
"From the point of view of the defense of our society,
there only exists one danger -- that workers succeed in
speaking to each other about their condition and their
aspirations _without intermediaries_."
--Censor (Gianfranco Sanguinetti), _The Real Report on
the Last Chance to Save Capitalism in Italy_
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