Full Description
Examining the essential role—and exploitation—of frontline workers across the food chain.
Consumers are demanding a healthier and more sustainable food system. Yet labor is rarely part of the discussion. In Will Work for Food, Laura-Anne Minkoff-Zern and Teresa M. Mares chronicle labor across the food chain, connecting the entire food system—from fields to stores, restaurants, home kitchens, and even garbage dumps.
Using a political economy framework, the authors argue that improving labor standards and building solidarity among frontline workers across sectors is necessary for creating a more just food system. What would it take, they ask, to move toward a food system that is devoid of human exploitation? Combining insights from food systems and labor justice scholarship with actionable recommendations for policy makers, the book is a call to action for labor activists, food studies students and scholars, and anyone interested in food justice.
Contents
Contents
List of Illustrations
List of Abbreviations
Introduction: A New Opening for Worker Justice in the Food System
1 • Industrialization and Racialized Dispossession on the Farm
2 • Deskilling in the Assembly Line and on the Factory Floor
3 • Precarity and Deregulation in the Warehouse and on the Road
4 • Consolidation and Vulnerability from the Corner Store to the Superstore
5 • Intersectionality and the Fight for a Fair Wage in Food Service
6 • Reproductive Labor, Gender, and Food Work in the Home
7 • Value, Work, and Food Waste at the End of the Line
Conclusion: Working toward a Just Food Future
Acknowledgments
Appendix
Glossary of Terms
Notes
Bibliography
Index
