Worker Justice

For decades, meatpacking workers have endured 11-hour shifts practically shoulder-to-shoulder on high-speed lines, leading to frequent and serious injuries. Other food system workers have also long faced systemic exploitation, including farmworkers who are subject to wage theft, pesticide exposure, and sexual harassment at horrific rates, and warehouse and delivery workers who are frequently misclassified as independent contractors and denied basic worker protections.

Federal and state labor laws have long excluded agricultural workers from having the same protections other laborers have. This exclusion is unfair, serves no good purpose, and is rooted in a racist vision for the food system in the U.S. This “agricultural exceptionalism” has diminished the power of food system workers for generations and worsened racial inequality.

Food production companies intentionally hire people who have fewer rights at work, like undocumented workers and workers on temporary visas. Companies regularly deceive workers to come to the U.S. with false promises of high pay, housing, and professional development, then force them into unsafe work without adequate training and protections and unsanitary shared housing that would not meet minimum standards for human habitation. Through exploiting visas and deceiving immigrants into taking these jobs, companies create a more vulnerable workforce they can use for cheap, general labor in violation of the law. When these workers want to speak up about their working or living conditions, they not only risk losing their jobs, but the possibility of immigrant detention or deportation as retaliation by their employers.

Meatpacking workers, farmworkers, delivery workers, and restaurant workers have become sick, been seriously injured, and died because their employers refused to bear the costs of the precautions necessary to keep workers safe. We partner with community and labor groups to challenge unsafe conditions and push for workplaces where people can do their jobs without risking their health or their lives.