Around the globe, hundreds of millions of food workers make it possible for the world to eat. Almost all the food we eat passes through the hands of workers who plant, harvest, process, transport, prepare, sell, and serve it. Labor is essential to our food system. Yet workers throughout the food system are treated as…
This week, the U.S. Senate parliamentarian ruled against the inclusion of initial immigration reform measures in the federal budget reconciliation package. As legislators consider additional avenues for advancing immigration reform, the Food Chain Workers Alliance, farmworker members, and over 50 labor, food and other organizations released a letter urging President Biden, Secretary of Agriculture Tom…
June 10, 2021 — Today, more than a year into the pandemic, the Department of Labor Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) issued its first Emergency Temporary Standard establishing enforceable COVID-19 safety protocols for employers only in health care facilities. Labor Secretary Marty Walsh announced that “OSHA has tailored a rule that focuses on health…
FCWA is a coalition of worker-based organizations whose members plant, harvest, process, pack, transport, prepare, serve, and sell food, organizing to improve wages and working conditions for all workers along the food chain. In 2019, farmworker members of FCWA opposed the Farm Workforce Modernization Act because we believed it would set dangerous precedents, divide workers,…
For the past year, food workers have been on the frontlines of the COVID-19 pandemic, providing essential services as cases surged. Today, the Food Chain Workers Alliance launches “WE ARE NOT DISPOSABLE: Food Workers Organizing on the COVID Frontlines.” This report documents the disproportionate impacts of COVID-19 on food workers, especially Black and Latinx workers.…
Today a team of worker justice organizations are releasing The COVID Jungle: Chicagoland’s Essential Food Workers and the Need for Vaccination Priority. Chicagoland is home to the country’s second largest food economy. Food production and warehousing in it’s suburbs make up a who’s who of major food corporations including Mars Wrigley, Kellogg, Trader Joe’s, Starbucks,…
As we look ahead past the 2020 elections we remain focused on the urgent needs facing food workers in this moment. Food worker exploitation is deeply set into U.S. laws and structures, and there is a long fight ahead to ensure economic and social justice for all workers. We know that worker leadership, creativity, and…
Black, Latino, and Asian slaughterhouse workers suffered disproportionately as the meat industry scrambled to respond to COVID-19. Now, they’re demanding justice. Food Chain Workers Alliance and Rural Community Workers Alliance, along with several allies advocating for meat processing workers, filed an administrative civil rights complaint with the U.S. Department of Agriculture on July 8 alleging…
On MAY DAY we honor and support all workers mobilizing in the form of strikes, rallies, slow-downs, call-outs and other actions throughout the globe. In the time of COVID-19 the state and the larger public are finally recognizing the labor of over 22 million workers that keep the food supply chain running. Yet, food workers…
Tuesday, April 29th – Trump is putting workers’ lives at risk in the interest of protecting massive food corporations’ profits. President Donald Trump announced that he will use the Defense Production Act to declare meat-processing plants “essential infrastructure,” forcing beef, egg, poultry and pork plants to remain open during the COVID-19 pandemic. Across the country…
Food workers are still on the job throughout every sector of the food supply chain, providing essential services for the public in this moment of crisis and every day. Yet while corporations are profiting off this crisis, food workers are on the front lines facing dangerous working conditions, a loss of wages, and a lack of…
Food workers who serve, deliver, distribute, process and harvest our food are doing critical work in this moment of crisis and everyday. Food workers are still on the job throughout the food chain. Every aspect of the food supply chain are essential services for the public and recognized as such in many government orders. This…
