Third Annual International Food Workers Week Begins Nov. 23, 2014

Contacts:

• Jose Oliva, Associate Director, 773-612-2559, jose@foodchainworkers.org
• Diana Robinson, Campaign & Education Coordinator, 516-830-0316, diana@ foodchainworkers.org

November 18, 2014 – This year marks the 3rd Annual International Food Worker Week (IFWW) from November 23-29, started by the Food Chain Workers Alliance (FCWA) in 2012. 2014 is also the 5th Anniversary of the FCWA. IFWW is a week of events and actions designed to educate consumers about the challenges facing food system workers and to encourage them to take actions to support food workers.

A host of events and activities are being planned around the country ranging from movie screenings of the documentary “Food Chains” coming out in theaters nationwide on November 21, to the release of the FCWA’s new comic book, “Food Chain Avengers”, over 1800 Black Friday actions by OUR Walmart workers and supporters, actions to demand that Wendy’s and Publix join the Fair Food Program to improve conditions for tomato farmworkers in Florida, and many others. A full listing of online and in-person actions is available on the FCWA website.

The focus of this year’s International Food Workers Week is Food Worker Heroes – everyday food workers who are organizing to stop child labor, the use of pesticides, and the militarization of communities, and organizing for living wages and access to healthy food.

The focus of this year’s International Food Workers Week is Food Worker Heroes – everyday food workers who are organizing to stop child labor, to end the use of pesticides, and the militarization of communities from the U.S.-Mexico Border to Ferguson, and food workers who are organizing for living wages for all and access to healthy affordable food. To help promote this year’s International Food Workers Week, we have published a poster with an image of the Food Chain Avengers that will be visible in many high-road food businesses and organizations around the U.S.

As part of IFWW, the FCWA is also partnering with the Lexicon of Sustainability’s social media project called the Food List so that the theme for the week of November 24 is Food Workers. The FCWA created a new video series called “Food Worker Heroes” for the Food List. The videos highlight the everyday food worker heroes on whom we depend for our food every day.

As workers take more militant action to improve their wages and working conditions, we are reminded of the early years of the labor movement, when sit-down strikes shut down the auto industry. – Jose Oliva

Martha Sellers, a Los Angeles-area Walmart worker, is one of the Food Worker Heroes, and she is going on strike on Black Friday. Martha says, “I get a lot of satisfaction in helping the customers find and locate products that will help them and benefit them. That makes me proud to be a worker in this workforce.” Martha is going on strike because “Workers who try to change Walmart for the better can be harassed, humiliated in front of their colleagues, get their hours cut, get written up for no good reason, and even be fired. Since I started speaking out for change in my store, I’ve had my hours cut and seen my coworkers threatened and even fired.”

“As workers take more militant action to improve their wages and working conditions, such as the sit-down strike and the civil disobedience waged by Walmart workers in Los Angeles on November 13, 2014, we are reminded of the early years of the labor movement, when sit-down strikes shut down the auto industry,” says Jose Oliva, associate director of the Food Chain Workers Alliance. “Now that manufacturing is a shadow of its former self, the food system has become the largest private employer in the U.S., with close to 20 million workers. However, unlike the cars and other mass products manufactured by industrial workers, food is an indispensable necessity, making it clear that this is not just a struggle for better working conditions and the recreation of a middle-class, it is the struggle for survival, for a system that helps people and the planet to thrive.”