Labor

This is a new category, and is related to a number of others. See also Economics, Colonialism, and Consumption, Human Rights and Third World Development, as well as Place page.

General News

11 Jobs Where an Honest Day's Work Earns You Poverty

"Do What You Love" — The Dangerous Work Mantra of Our Time 1/14.

Agriculture

(see also Grapes of Wrath page).

UCB Edible Education **** 101 amazing lineup includes: “The Hands That Feed You” by Eric Schlosser.(video).

Human Trafficking and the Seafood Industry UCSC talk 2/13: talk by Pulitzer Prize-winning AP reporter Martha Mendoza (Kresge '88) as she takes you behind the scenes of her team's ongoing investigations of human trafficking.

Hurricane Irma’s Overlooked Victims: Migrant Farm Workers Living at the Edge also in CA wine country wildfires. 10/17.

Nestle has initiated its child labor prevention system in its Cocoa Plan, from freedomunited.org/ anti-slavery NGO. 10/17.

The powerful fumigant methyl bromide will be retired from California’s strawberry fields at the end of this year after more than 20 years of fierce debate over its effects and alternatives. According to new research published by UC Santa Cruz professor and food studies expert Julie Guthman, these debates often pit the health and well-being of farm workers against the economic viability of growers while overlooking the constraints and availability of farm land.

Andres Arias (Oakes, 2016), a double major in Latin American and Latino studies and sociology, has immersed himself in California migrant communities to conduct original research about this vulnerable and often voiceless population.

Supermarkets Selling Shrimp Peeled by Slaves 12/15.

Labor conditions are awful at chicken plants, according to big report 10/15.

Here’s what it’s like to harvest apples (audio).

Do industrial agricultural methods actually yield more food per acre than organic ones? from Grist 10/15.

6 Things to Know About the EPA’s New Pesticide Rules For the first time since 1992, the EPA has updated rules governing the use of pesticides, which will protect the more than 2 million workers who produce America's food. 10/15.

NO JUSTICE, NO PEAS: Underpaid, overworked farmworkers set to get liberal labor protections. Farmers grumble. 9/16.

UCSC's Steve McKay, associate professor of sociology and director of the UC Santa Cruz Center for Labor Studies and his students have research local farmworkers. 5/15.

Locavore Movement Overlooks Farmworkers 2/15.

Autism Risk Higher Near Pesticide-Treated Fields, Study Says 6/14 see Chemicals.

NAFTA effect on worker safety in Mexico. Overall effect (video) 12/13 20th anniversary report (which could have lessons for current TPP). NAFTA sparked Zapatista uprising in Mexico.

Sexual assault and harassment in fields. see Women.

“The Harvest of Loneliness: The Bracero Program,” Gonzalez and Vivian Price, an alumna of UCI's political science doctoral program, explore the historical accounts of migrant Mexican farm workers brought into the U.S. from 1942-1964 under the temporary contract worker program known as the Bracero Program.

Grist special feature 4/11 provides a good introduction. For example, Planned Parenthood's Pajaro Valley Health Action Team in central California, the connection between farmworkers and healthy babies is clear and obvious. Pesticide exposure has been linked to birth defects: Therefore, mitigating its impact is a reproductive health issue. 11/11

Farmworkers Fired For Leaving During California Wildfire 5/13 (VIDEO)

The Most Dangerous Job in America Thousands of meatpacking workers suffer crippling injuries each year. A special report from inside the nation's slaughterhouses. By Eric Schlosser. An older but related chapter(c8 password req) in Fast Food Nation on history of meatpacking industry posts.

Filipino labor pioneer Itliong, known as “Seven Fingers” — the tales vary about how he lost the missing three — came to the United States in 1929 when he was 15, having never slept in a bed or lived in a home with electricity. Soon he joined striking lettuce workers in Washington State (more) 10/12.

The food movement’s final frontier: Taking care of workers 6.12.

Law to prevent heat death (4/12) could have prevented Maria Isavel Vasquez Jimenez, 17, from dying in 2008 because supervisors denied her shade and water as she pruned grapes for nine hours in nearly triple-digit heat in a San Joaquin County vineyard. The teenager was two months pregnant.

Ironically/tragically, today in US kids of migrant laborers are going hungry (audio). (December 10, 2009) Nearly a million migrant children crisscross the U.S. with their families, from harvest to harvest and from job to job. In North Carolina, migrant families struggle to find work, and many rely on schools for food and clothing. The people who run the state's migrant program say living conditions and financial hardships for laborers are the worst in memory.

Child Labor in the fields is still legal in the US, as documented in The Harvest/La Cosecha, a new documentary directed by the veteran photographer and human rights advocate U. Roberto Romano, shines a bright light on this murky corner of the agribusiness universe. See also this article. 10/11. North Carolina tobacco 12/13.

More info from Bread for the World.org

A Seat at the Table is a game/simulation from Oxfam.

In the novel The Grapes of Wrath, we see union organizing emerging as an important counter-balance to increasing corporate exploitation. Currently, the United Farms Workers (UFW) organized by Cesar Chavez and Delores Huerta (recent audio interview ), is working to protect workers from pesticide poisoning. See also here. In doing so they protect the rest of us, not just from toxins on our food, but airborne and waterborne toxins. Randy Shaw argues they set the stage for later social movements from environmentalism to the Obama campaign. Shaw is the author of "Beyond the Fields: Cesar Chavez, the UFW, and the Struggle for Justice in the 21st Century." Audio interview UCSC has extensive oral histories of local farmworkers and activists (including Helen Hosmer , who knew Dorthea Lange). UCSC's Melanie DuPuis argues that we must not allow businesses to pollute the air and water because no one "owns" them (traditionally, to prove damage to a particular person or property is the only way to get legal protection, as in a car accident). This bring us to thinking about public good.

Raj Patel exposes modern slavery in Florida tomato fields: "workers were chained inside trucks, charged $5 for a shower, and made to work for pennies a day, suffering heinous physical abuse from their employers. Their suffering is bought cheap, at $2 a pound in the supermarket. Yet for picking those tomatoes, the average worker earns about 45 cents for a 32 pound bucket. And far too many earn much less." His newer book The Value of Nothing also has extensive info on food. Video talk for example, the slavery. In his new book, Tomatoland, food writer Barry Estabrook details the life of the mass-produced tomato — and the environmental and human costs of the tomato industry, including slavery. audio interview and excerpt 5/11. Video but Coalition of Immokalee Workers, that amazingly effective immigrant farmworkers’ rights group, went up against Taco Bell, McDonald’s, Safeway, Whole Foods, and Trader Joe’s, and they won. [vpozosbe@ucsc.edu Victoria Pozos], a FoodWhat alumna, whose mom is a farm laborer in Watsonville, is currently at UCSC studying Farm Labor Justice and most recently worked with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers in Florida learning about and advocating for their Fair Food Campaign nationally. 2/18: I Am Not a Tractor Susan Marquis, vice president of innovation at the RAND Corporation, looked at efforts by Florida farmworkers to improve their working conditions video).

Food First overview

Davis Bacon, who spoke at plenary, has written extensively on migrant farmworkers. His 2004 book, The Children of NAFTA: Labor Wars on the U.S./Mexico Border, covers both agriculture and the maquiladora factories.

Stephen Colbert appeared with United Farm Workers (UFW) President Arturo S. Rodriguez today to testify before Congress about a day he spent working in the fields, having taken up the UFW on its dare to American citizens "take our jobs." (Humor)

Lopez, Anna A , who obtained her PhD in Environmental Studies from UC Santa Cruz, wrote The Farmworkers' Journey brings together for the first time the many facets of this issue into a comprehensive and accessible narrative: how corporate agribusiness operates, how binational institutions and laws promote the subjugation of Mexican farmworkers, how migration affects family life, how genetically modified corn strains pouring into Mexico from the United States are affecting farmers, how migrants face exploitation from employers, and more. (also Google book).

Jelinek, L Harvest Empire S&E Stacks S451.C2J44 1982.

America's Food Sweatshops and the Workers of Color Who Feed Us. 2/12

Mystery Disease In Central America Kills Thousands dehydration and chemicals suspected. 2/12.

The Price of Sugar In the Dominican Republic, a tropical island-nation, tourists flock to pristine beaches unaware that a few miles away thousands of dispossessed Haitians have toiled under armed-guard on plantations harvesting sugarcane, much of which ends up in U.S. kitchens.

Migration

(environmental refugees) People can also be forced from their land by drought/famine/civil war (often these are interrelated).

Short video overview.

Overview with links

Overview with reference to Katrina

David Bacon's Illegal People -- How Globalization Creates Migration and Criminalizes Immigrants (Beacon Press, 2008)

Bacon's Photodocumentary on indigenous migration to the US: Communities Without Borders (Cornell University/ILR Press, 2006). See also Transnational Working Communities project

The Children of NAFTA, Labor Wars on the U.S./Mexico Border (University of California, 2004)

Images

2009 UN study on how climate change will affect migration. See also a comprehensive but readable 2007 UN report.

Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting provides a view from Bangladesh, a nation already reeling from the impact of climate change.12/09 See also Bangladesh 5/10 article.

For two decades photojournalist David Bacon has documented the connections between labor, migration, and the global economy. In his new book, Illegal People, Bacon examines the many ways globalization uproots people in Latin America and Asia, driving them to migrate. (World Affairs Council audio interview, one hour mp3 download)

Migrant construction labor TEDtalk video

UCSC alum Cary Joji Fukunaga has created a Sundance award winning film about migration, Sin Nombre. Interview

Often people are forced off farms and have to migrate to large cities to live in slums to work in factories. This is documented by Ed Burtynsky (video).

Robert Neuwirth, author of Shadow Cities, finds the world’s squatter sites -- where a billion people now make their homes -- to be thriving centers of ingenuity and innovation. He takes us on a tour. (Migration) TEDtalk video

Stewart Brand on squatter cities. TEDtalk video

Against All Odds is a game from the UN that gives some insights.

Restaurants

Behind the Kitchen Door

Nickle and Dimed.

Protests in 50 cities for livable wage

Retail

Wal-Mart protests 11/13.

Manufacturing

Sweatshops in Asia 9/16.

The True Cost is a documentary about the clothing industry’s impact on the world, particularly its horrendous working conditions and poverty wages for its employees and its devastating toll on the environment. “The price of clothing has been decreasing for decades, while the human and environmental costs have grown dramatically,” says the film.

Toxic Tech: Apple And Other Manufacturers Have to Stop Poisoning Their Workers 4/14.

NAFTA effect on worker safety in Mexico. Overall effect (video) 12/13 20th anniversary report (which could have lessons for current TPP). NAFTA sparked Zapatista uprising in Mexico.

Davis Bacon, who spoke at plenary, has written extensively on migrant farmworkers. His 2004 book, The Children of NAFTA: Labor Wars on the U.S./Mexico Border, covers both agriculture and the maquiladora factories.

Big Backlash in Bangladesh to 8 story building collapse: Workers Escalate Demands for Better Working Conditions 5/13 Garment workers die in fires (video) 11/12 not unlike the American Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire in 1911 that galvanized labor. More than 1,000 people have died in Rana Plaza Bangladesh, plus background on issue 5/13. American stats. Take action.

There's been quite a lot on info on exploitation of electronic assembly workers, but a new aspect that's emerging is people who work in big warehouses like Amazon that ship it to us. 3/12

New Study Links Plastics Exposure to Breast Cancer 11/12

Rare Earth minerals needed for cell phones, hard on workers. 2/12

Sweatshop Warriors: Immigrant Women Workers... by Miriam Ching Yoon Louie.

Video

Toxic Tech: Apple And Other Manufacturers Have to Stop Poisoning Their Workers see Heather White and Lynn Zhang’s new short-form documentary,Who Pays the Price? The Human Cost of Electronics link.4/14.

Maquilapolis is a documentary about (and by) workers in Tijuana's assembly factories, the maquiladoras. The project is a collaboration between the filmmakers, and the Tijuana women's organization Grupo Factor X, with the participation of the human rights organization Global Exchange (Slugs!) and the environmental activism non-profit The Environmental Health Coalition.

Lixin Fan's film The Last Train Home is about Chinese migrant labor. (Trailer) (try to ignore the really exploitative ad).

Manufactured Landscapes DVD5820 (90 min.) Follows photographer Edward Burtynsky as he travels through China photographing the effects of that country's massive industrial revolution.

At the head of the Fair Labor Association, Auret van Heerden takes a practical approach to workers' rights, persuading corporations and NGOs to protect labor in global supply chains TEDtalk video

Apple:

Democracy Now segment on protests, interview with New York Times reporter Charles Duhigg, who helped break the story about the human costs of Apple products for workers in China. We're also joined by Mike Daisey, whose acclaimed one-man show, "The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs," is based partly on his visits to Apple's Chinese factories and his interviews with the workers there.

Mr. Daisey and the Apple Factory 1.6.12 Mike Daisey was a self-described "worshipper in the cult of Mac." Then he saw some photos from a new iPhone, taken by workers at the factory where it was made. Mike wondered: Who makes all my crap? He traveled to China to find out. From NPR's This American Life. Audio. Talk (video). UPDATE: some of this was made up. On the other hand, subsequently worse conditions than he reported found.

Sweatshops in China Are Making Your iPods While Workers Suffer "Rotten Apple: iPod Sweatshops Hidden in China,"
Dan Margolis, People’s World, January 25, 2011. Student Researcher: Aluna Soupholphakdy
, Faculty Evaluator: Elaine Wellin, Sonoma State University. 2/12

Track Apple progress (or lack)

Other

Black Lung makes a comeback. 70K coal miners have died. 7.12 (audio and text).

Blue Vinyl Link. Trailer excerpt

Trade Secrets: This documentary exposes the 40 year history of the American chemical industry's suppression of information regarding the threats to public health by synthetic chemicals being introduced into the environment at all levels. Addresses the danger to public health by the continued use of approximately 9000 of the 15,000 mass produced chemical substances that have never undergone toxicological study in the United States. Followed by a panel discussion moderated by Moyers including industry spokesmen, environmental, and medical experts. VT7877 120 min.

History

See also History

NAFTA effect on worker safety in Mexico. Overall effect (video) 12/13 20th anniversary report (which could have lessons for current TPP). NAFTA sparked Zapatista uprising in Mexico.

IWW: Good overview interview with anarchist academic Andrej Grubačić (audio), citing Rebel Voices anthology on IWW/Wobblies, which may well hold good lessons for Occupy.

The devil's milk: a social history of rubber By John Andrew Tully.

Ruler and Rebels: A People’s History of Early California, 1769 – 1901, by Larry Shoup, focuses on the dramatic but little known stories of early California history, written from the point of view of rank and file working people.

The songwriter Joe Hill is one of the most enduring figures of the radical syndicalist Industrial Workers of the World, or Wobblies. He left a deep mark on protest music in this country, influencing Bob Dylan and Woody Guthrie among others. Hill was executed in 1915 for a crime there was little evidence that he committed. Almost a century later, journalist William Adler has delved into charges against him and solved the riddle of the case against Hill. Adler discusses Hill's life, death, and legacy. book. Audio interview.

A People's History of the United States by William Zinn. Highly recommended ****

Dana Frank one of top academic experts on Honduras, and has written on women in banana labor unions. has co-authored with Howard Zinn.

There is Power in a Union: The Epic Story of Labor in America by Philip Dray. Highly recommended ****

In the novel Grapes of Wrath, we see union organizing emerging as an important counter-balance to increasing corporate exploitation. Currently, the United Farms Workers (UFW) organized by Cesar Chavez and Delores Huerta (recent audio interview ), is working to protect workers from pesticide poisoning. See also here. In doing so they protect the rest of us, not just from toxins on our food, but airborne and waterborne toxins. Randy Shaw argues they set the stage for later social movements from environmentalism to the Obama campaign. Shaw is the author of "Beyond the Fields: Cesar Chavez, the UFW, and the Struggle for Justice in the 21st Century." Audio interview UCSC has extensive oral histories of local farmworkers and activists (including Helen Hosmer , who knew Dorthea Lange).A new book on the UFW by local author Frank Bardacke concentrates on leaders aside from CC. video.

Cesar Chavez movie Audio interview with David Bacon, who spoke at College 8 plenary. Bacon was an organizer of the grape boycott, and he praises the movie, but thinks the importance of previous Leftist unions, and especially the Filipino contribution is not appreciated.

The Battle of Blair Mountain by Chris Hedges. This an effort to halt companies from extracting coal by blasting apart the mountain, the site in the early 1920s of the largest armed insurrection in the United States since the Civil War.

The Conquest of Bread: 150 Years of Agribusiness in California By Richard Walker New York: New Press, 2004.

Carey McWilliams (amazing guy), in his work Factories in the Field (1939), concentrated on the exploitation of migrant laborers on large-scale corporate farms. California, the Great Exception (1949). author bio. The movie Chinatown was based on his work.