Source: Rita Jane Gabbett, MEATINGPLACE, 11/15/16



A report by the Food Chain Workers Alliance (FCWA) and Solidarity Research Cooperative titled, “No Piece of the Pie — U.S. food workers in 2016”, combined government data with interviews with 20 workers to draw conclusions about the state of worker conditions across the entire food chain.  

The 21.5 million workers in the food system make up the largest employment sector in the United States, with more than one out of every seven workers in the United States working along the food chain. The data analyzed included every step of the chain — production, processing, distribution, retail and service. Food workers include laborers in fields and fisheries (production), bakers and slaughterhouse workers (processing), drivers and warehouse workers (distribution), grocery store cashiers and stockers (retail), and restaurant servers, cooks, dishwashers and street vendors (service).

The report also updated the findings of the 2012 “The Hands that Feed Us” report. While overall employment in the food system recovered relatively quickly from the recession of 2007-2009, workers themselves have not seen positive changes, according to the report. Since the 2012 report, wages overall remain stagnant, food workers are accessing food stamps at higher levels, health and safety problems have increased and membership in unions has declined, the report concluded.

The report findings emerged from an analysis of national data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and the U.S. Census Bureau as well as current discussions in academic and policy literature. Research for this report also included original in-depth interviews with 20 food workers across all five sectors of the food chain from member organizations of the Food Chain Workers Alliance.

Key findings include:
— Employment in the food chain is robust and growing. Fourteen percent of the nation’s workforce is employed in the food chain, over one in seven of all workers in the United States.  The number of food chain workers grew by 13 percent from 2010 to 2016. 
— Despite employment growth, the food chain pays the lowest hourly median wage to frontline workers compared to workers in all other industries. The annual median wage for food chain workers is $16,000 and the hourly median wage is $10, well below the median wages across all industries of $36,468 and $17.53.
— Food chain workers rely on public assistance and are more food insecure than other workers. Thirteen percent of all food workers, nearly 2.8 million workers, relied on Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits (food stamps) to feed their household in 2016. This was 2.2 times the rate of all other industries, a much higher rate than in 2010 when food workers had to use food stamps at 1.8 times the rate of all other industries. Food insecurity in households supported by a food chain worker rose to 4.6 million during the Great Recession.
— Most food chain workers are in frontline positions with few opportunities at the top. Eighty-two percent of food chain workers are in frontline positions.
— Frontline workers in the food chain are racially and ethnically diverse, but most CEOs are white males. Seventy-two percent of chief executive officers in the food system are white men. Fourteen percent are white women, and the rest people of color.
— Significant racial and gender wage gaps exist. For every dollar earned by white men working in the food chain, Latino men earn 76 cents, Black men 60 cents, Asian men 81 cents, and Native men 44 cents. White women earn less than half of their white male counterparts, at 47 cents to every dollar. Women of color face both a racial and a gender penalty: Black women earn 42 cents, Latina women 45 cents, Asian women 58 cents, and Native women 36 cents for every dollar earned by white men.
— Rates of injury and illness at work for food workers have risen since 2010. Non-fatal rates of workplace-caused injury and illness in food production rose from 4.6 cases per hundred workers in 2010 to 5.5 in 2014.
— Food chain workers are members of unions at a steadily decreasing rate. Only 6 percent of workers in the food chain are members of a labor union.

The FCWA is a national coalition of 23 worker-based organizations, including unions, worker centers and food justice groups. FCWA funding comes from the Ford Foundation, Jessie Smith Noyes Foundation, Lawson Valentine Foundation, Norman Foundation, Panta Rhea Foundation and Presbyterian Hunger Program.

For the full report, click here.

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