Once again we are reading up on the inequality and exploitation of the food industry. This reading is more geared directly towards the farms and their workers. What stood out to me the most was the quote, "food-workers are the most likely to be food insecure". This bewilders me as food workers are the back bone of the way most of us gain access to our food. Without their hard work the selection of food we have would be next to nothing. The reason they are likely to be food-insecure is due to low wages throughout the years for agricultural workers. Wages have gone down for workers, and agricultural sales have only gone up. Part of this can be attributed to the seasonal work in the agriculture field. This does make sense and there are options to help workers keep year round work, but most of them are not all that simple. On top of this, it's not exclusive to US employees. Immigrant workers are being taken advantage of for their labor. They are underpaid and overworked. Most of this stems from a good majority of them being illegal immigrants. This is how they are able to be taken advantage of. There is no way for them to advocate for change without fear of being deported and uprooting their life again. They are in a state of helplessness with no reliable way out. This is beyond disappointing to hear more about. While some of this is not new knowledge, hearing it again and again just keeps driving the nail further. This isn't how people should be treated. The worst part is, this is nothing new and has been going on, and took up until 1964 to even approach fixing some of these issues. All going to show how difficult the agricultural field is in the United States.
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Chapter 4 and conclusion
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2 comments:
I agree that it is unfortunate for the migrant workers that they do not have a voice for reform without risking their status here. Reform to the immigration system is needed to help change the issues these food workers are facing. I think if the immigration system worked better than maybe more of these people would be able to come here legally and maybe have access to more higher paying jobs.
I think your use of the word "helplessness" is very effective at describing the situation for illegal immigrants working on farms in the U.S. In many scenarios, unionized workers can succeed in remediating oppressive polices imposed by large corporations, however, most of the migrant workers will never get that opportunity. Their illegal status makes it virtually impossible for them fight for any kind of meaningful change to their working conditions or compensation. I think the U.S. should be grateful that so many people are willing to produce quality work in such a vital industry, yet we continue to push back against them.
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