Consider for a moment the increasing visibility of issues
having to do with food labor. Between 2012 and 2014,
thousands of food chain workers went on strike in over 150
cities with the support of over 1,000 protests from an array
of labor and progressive groups. They demanded safe
working conditions, fair wages, benefits, and workplace
respect. At the same time, the AFM is ramping up efforts to
create living wage food jobs with benefits, cooperatives
with greater workplace democracy, and fair trade campaigns. These movement mobilizations are emerging in the
context of a precarious economic climate, and social distrust of corporations or the state to take care of workers.
Yet, because of historical divisions between labor and other
social movements (e.g., organic, food security, vegan)
there are challenges that emerge in the process of
addressing differences and/or reaching comprises at the
point of labor to make food, and economies, fair. In short,
the provisional and incomplete nature of AFM mobilization requires an analysis aware of contradictions and slippages