Hundreds and thousands of food workers have planted, fished, hauled, picked, packed, chopped, filled, repacked, boxed, delivered and served our food this winter. Did they get decent wages and civilized working conditions?
After all, that’s the big question at the heart of the discussion around workers and food – Who makes it and how are they treated?
After stories about worker abuse exposed by big newspapers like the Guardian, it’s important to look at things like transparency, stronger worker regulations, decent working conditions and how this regulation can be managed. For example via workers unions and legal advice.
There also needs to be discussions as to where the value goes in the supply chain and taking into consideration migrant workers “who can lack access to key information and ways to organise [themselves], given the language and cultural barriers they face.”
Read the full blog post by Vicki Hird, Sustainable Farm Campaign Coordinator at Sustain: the alliance for better food and farming and leading expert on food and farming issues here, and join in with further discussion on the topic March 30th 6.30-8.30pm.
Vicki will be speaking alongside Donald Hirsch (Director of the Centre for Research in Social Policy, Loughborough University – expert on social policy and what people need for an acceptable standard of living).
