This week's newsletter is the last in a series of three guest posts on job quality in sustainable food systems by Sophie Kelmenson, a postdoc fellow in the Department of City and Regional Planning at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. (Catch up on the first and second parts of the conversation here.) Sophie reached out to us in 2019 with a research proposal that would use data from GFJ's archive of job postings to study labor demand and job quality in the field of alternative food systems. You can read Sophie's full paper in the Journal of Agriculture and Human Values here.
Please note that all of this data was gathered between the years of 2010 and 2019, before GFJ implemented a $15 / hour minimum wage for all jobs.
It is also important for us to note that all data was used anonymously and in good faith - there was no exchange of money or goods in any aspect of Sophie's research and publication.
JOB OPENINGS REFLECT...
A range of ways people are doing the work of building alternative food systems that strive to be more sustainable and equitable. If you're reading this newsletter, you are likely to believe in the potential of those alternatives. My research shows that, to live up to that potential, policy intervention is going to be needed.
My suggestions include...
- Labor protection laws already on the books should be better enforced - these include the right to organize and anti-wage theft laws.
- Next, labor protections and wage standards that most American workers already enjoy must be extended to those in the food system by removing farmworker exemptions.
- Worker protections and supports should include: minimum wage raises indexed to inflation, unemployment insurance, overtime pay, paid sick leave, mandated and paid rest periods for farm workers (including meal times); improved workplace health and safety standards, and an abolished tipped minimum wage in food service.
- Stakeholders beyond middle-class consumers and farmers must be actively and equitably recruited to participate in policy development, particularly farm workers. Several groups - the Food Justice Certification Project is one example - provide models for public consultation processes.
- Enforcing anti-trust laws for industrial agriculture and shifting subsidies away from industrial agriculture will combat food system consolidation, and increase the competitive advantage of more equitably run firms.
Going further - and going forward - labor organizing in the food system can link economic and food justice in the following ways:
- Consumers and institutions can support workers by supporting workplace justice, union drives, and pro-worker legislation.
- Institutions should integrate wage quality standards into their partnership expectations. For example, the Good Food Purchasing program provides transparency and requires commitments to sustainability and labor equity in its sourcing programs.
- Firms can prioritize worker wages and worker skill, which has been shown to increase productivity. Further, increasing minimum wages has not been shown to decrease jobs in the restaurant sector.
To learn more about Sophie's research, read her paper, "Between the farm and the fork: job quality in sustainable food systems" or reach out to her via email, where she would be happy to discuss this or related projects that you might have brewing.
We offer a big plate of gratitude to Sophie for reaching out to us as a potential data source.
Yours in food justice,
Dor + Tay
original artwork by Candace Caston: acrylic paint and hand cut paper collage finished with added digital elements generated by DALL-E, 7 x 7 in.
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