“How many workers brought us tonight’s food?”
The third installment of Pursue’s “Chewing on Food Justice” series began with this seemingly simple exercise. For starters, we were enjoying the fruits of the labor of the employees of Terri, the Tav HaYosher-certified kosher vegan restaurant that has catered each event in the series. They had prepared and delivered the food to Town and Village Synagogue. One step back were the truck drivers who had brought the food supplies to Terri. Further back, the farmers and farm laborers who had grown and picked the food. Then the workers who had supplied the seeds, fertilizers, and tools. And so on and so on…
While it was easy to lose count of the number of workers in the food chain that brought us that night’s meal, it was markedly less easy to listen to the stories of the unacceptable working conditions and unfair business practices that are the daily reality for the vast majority of food workers in this country. Fortunately, the goal of the night was not to despair but to rise up: with the help of four inspiring speakers that share in the struggle for workers’ rights, attendees learned about various campaigns going on right now, as well as the past successes that inspire these activists to keep on going.
Mae Singerman, an activist with the Community/Farmworker Alliance (CFA), provided an overview of the work CFA has done in solidarity with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW). The CIW is a community based organization of low-wage agricultural workers in Southwest Florida that has been organizing since the early ‘90s around improving their living and working conditions. Their Campaign for Fair Food is currently focused on increasing wages for farmworkers at the rate of an extra penny per pound of tomatoes picked – a small amount that would essentially double their income. While many corporations like Taco Bell and Subway have signed on to the group’s demands, a stubborn holdout is Trader Joe’s. Mae described the creative and fun actions the group has taken in their efforts to garner the support of Trader Joe’s, including dressing up as tomatoes, and how Pursuers can get involved.
Daniel Gross of Brandworkers passionately explained his organization’s theory of change: that workers are the ones in the best position to make change in their working conditions. He described the food industrial corridor in East Williamsburg that depends on the labor of recent Latin American and Chinese immigrants to provide New York City with the food products we consume in restaurants and from grocery stores, linking food workers’ issues with the struggle for immigrants’ rights. He called the recent death of a worker at a tortilla factory “emblematic” of the unsafe conditions in these factories. Yet he was upbeat in his sense of possibility about the future of the movement: “You can’t win a campaign without allies – so volunteer!”
Bringing a personal perspective to Daniel’s points, Maria Corona, an employee of Flaum’s—the kosher appetizer company currently under fire for withholding back pay from its workers, despite a court mandate to do so—with the help of a translator told the story of the long hours and low wages that many of the company’s employees face. There have been many gains since they began organizing, including paid holidays and separate gender bathrooms, but the issue of back pay represents a continuing struggle: “It’s not so much the money but the justice that matters,” she said.
Ari Hart of Uri L’Tzedek (ULT), the Orthodox social justice organization that has been a loud and active supporter of the workers in the Flaum’s case, emphasized that ULT’s signature food justice campaign, the Tav HaYosher is in fact a positive campaign. It rewards employers for complying with labor laws, bringing welcome attention to the good in an otherwise often unsavory industry. He described his own childhood living in close proximity to the local kosher butcher (who used his mother’s kitchen) and the stark juxtaposition with our far-flung, complex food system. Judaism calls on us to make sacrifices for the betterment of others, he noted, citing the Yom Kippur prayers we recite to “restrain our hands from doing wrong” and to “convert our hands to hands of justice.”
Pursuers questioned the panelists on everything from internal resistance to ULT’s work within the Orthodox community to resources where we can investigate where our food products come from. Addressing change-makers’ often perfectionist impulses, the panelists encouraged attendees to do something, whatever they can, to make our food more ethical. Perfection isn’t possible but, as Ari reminded us: “Opting out doesn’t make change.”
Suzanne Lipkin is Pursue’s program officer for operations.
