At the turn of the century Upton Sinclair wrote the novel "the Jungle" exposing the dehumanising conditions of workers yet the issue that the media took up was the horror of the food processing and its lack of safeguards to public health in the stock-yards and slaughter-houses of Chicago.
To-day we witness campaign after campaign to improve the quality and safety of our food and offer increased protections for animal welfare. But what about the well-being of those who produce the food. The plight of farmworkers, those who actually grow and harvest the food, is often left out of the discussion.
Farm labor is one of only a few occupations exempt from most federal and state minimum wages and work-hour limitations. Of the farmworkers who responded to the most recent National Agricultural Workers’ Survey (NAWS), about one-third earned less than $7.25 an hour and only a quarter reported working more than nine months per calendar year. The California Institute for Rural Studies found that one-fourth of farmworkers live below the federal poverty line, and 55 percent are food insecure on average. Are conditions better on organic farms? Not as much as you’d think. Entry-level workers on organic farms in California make only 29 cents an hour more than their counterparts on non-organic farms do. That’s still less than a living wage. And those workers on organic farms are actually less likely to have paid time off, health insurance for themselves and their families, and retirement or pension funds. The organic food industry have proven resistant to including labor standards in organic certification.
If the growing food justice movement is to truly confront injustice in the food system then it must confront the problem of class.
To-day we witness campaign after campaign to improve the quality and safety of our food and offer increased protections for animal welfare. But what about the well-being of those who produce the food. The plight of farmworkers, those who actually grow and harvest the food, is often left out of the discussion.
Farm labor is one of only a few occupations exempt from most federal and state minimum wages and work-hour limitations. Of the farmworkers who responded to the most recent National Agricultural Workers’ Survey (NAWS), about one-third earned less than $7.25 an hour and only a quarter reported working more than nine months per calendar year. The California Institute for Rural Studies found that one-fourth of farmworkers live below the federal poverty line, and 55 percent are food insecure on average. Are conditions better on organic farms? Not as much as you’d think. Entry-level workers on organic farms in California make only 29 cents an hour more than their counterparts on non-organic farms do. That’s still less than a living wage. And those workers on organic farms are actually less likely to have paid time off, health insurance for themselves and their families, and retirement or pension funds. The organic food industry have proven resistant to including labor standards in organic certification.
If the growing food justice movement is to truly confront injustice in the food system then it must confront the problem of class.
United Natural Foods Incorporated (UNFI), the largest multi-billion dollar wholesale distributor of organic and “natural” foods in the U.S., is currently under investigation for 45 violations of federal labor law, including physically threatening immigrant workers in California who were trying to form a union. The company recently fired its underpaid and overworked unionized workers at its Auburn, Wash., distribution center for going on strike, and illegally hired non-union replacement workers. Here in the U.S., most consumers naively believe that organics and Fair Trade practices go hand in hand. They are surprised to learn that most family farmers and farm workers, as well as many supply chain workers, struggle to make a living. But the truth is, labor exploitation is rampant in the fields, factories and warehouses where organic products are grown, processed and housed.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.alternet.org/food/exposed-how-whole-foods-and-biggest-organic-foods-distributor-are-screwing-workers?page=0%2C1