“Labor Across the Food System” will take place Friday and Saturday at UCSC's Humanities Lecture Hall,
While the local food movement emphasizes where food comes from, it often neglects the questions of who grew, shipped, processed or sold it. This weekend the UCSC Humanities Department will host academics and activists to discuss “Labor Across the Food System” in a bid to address some of the farm labor and social justice issues that often go overlooked.
These issues fall on fertile ground in Santa Cruz County. Davenport-based Swanton Berry Farm was the first organic farm to sign a contract with the United Farm Workers, an agreement he undertook in 1998. Swanton continues to pioneer this movement, taking part in at-will government audits of labor conditions and allowing workers to own shares of the business.
The area has a rich history of farmworker activism, says local historian and conference keynote speaker Frank Bardacke. “Santa Cruz County, especially Watsonville, has been a center of farmworker militancy since the 1930s,” says Bardacke, whose talk will focus on the role of allies, particularly wealthier and more educated allies, in labor movements. “Because the basis of power for farmworkers fluctuates seasonally, there is a great need for allies in this movement, while also not letting those allies dominate.”
The conference strives to address this issue in its systems approach of uniting both activist and scholars around the entire food system. “This is a pathbreaking conference by addressing labor issues in a way that is across the spectrum of the food system,” said Patricia Allen, the director of the UCSC Center for Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems. The conference is broken into four sessions, identifying issues paralleling the food system: “Farm Labor,” “Food Processing,” “Food Shipping & Retail” and “Food Service & Restaurants.”
The modern food system is rife with labor and social justice issues. Food and agriculture workers are often some of the lowest paid workers worldwide, while holding some of the most labor intensive and hazardous jobs. As Steve McKay, director of the UCSC Center for Labor Studies, says, “Cheap food doesn’t come cheap. It comes from squeezing all of the parts along the chain, and the workers are a particularly vulnerable place to squeeze.”
Labor Across The Food System
Friday at 7pm; Saturday at 9am
UCSC Humanities Lecture Hall, Hagar Dr. at McLaughlin Dr.,Santa Cruz
Free
