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Influential voices in food movement seek better worker wages

Updated 3:06 pm, Wednesday, December 25, 2013


  • Melvin Stuart rallies for fast-food workers Friday by standing at the drive-up window at an Oakland Jack in the Box. Photo: Liz Hafalia, The Chronicle


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Since he wrote "Fast Food Nation" more than a decade ago, muckraking author Eric Schlosser has noticed a sympathy gap in the food movement that he helped foster. Some foodies seem to care more about the treatment of the animals they eat than the workers who prepare and serve them.

"It's not all foodies by any means," Schlosser said. "But the food movement can get sidetracked into wealthy, upper-middle-class people caring about food as status, caring about food as pleasure. I'm a huge supporter of animal welfare, but the compassion for the abuse of animals is so much more excessive, I think, than for low-wage workers in this country."

That is changing, as interest in the plight of low-wage restaurant workers is becoming part of the national conversation - from President Obama calling for a higher minimum wage, to one-day strikes by fast-food workers this month in 100 U.S. cities, to Pope Francis denouncing the wage inequality in a world where CEOs of fast-food chains are making 1,200 times as much as line cooks.

Supporting workers

Now, some of the most influential voices in the food movement - including Monterey resident Schlosser, best-selling author Michael Pollan and pioneering Berkeley chef Alice Waters - are chiming in.

They are connecting the dots between different camps in the food movement by saying it's impossible to care about eating sustainably produced food when food service workers are not making sustainable wages.

An October study by the UC Berkeley Labor Center found that 52 percent of fast-food workers' families are enrolled in public assistance programs, compared with 25 percent of the workforce as a whole.

"The whole point of the food movement is to encourage people to reconceive their identity as consumers so that other values can inform their buying choices," said Pollan, a journalism professor at UC Berkeley. "And that sometimes it's a good thing to pay more because it means you're supporting a system that you feel better about."

Labor leaders hope that hearing prominent food luminaries speak out will prompt kohlrabi munchers to support Big Mac preparers. California - where the minimum wage is the highest in the country and, by law, egg-laying chickens must be given room to spread their wings - would seem to be a likely place to find food industry unity.

"If people care about where their food comes from, they will care about the people who are preparing it," said Pete Castelli, executive director of the Service Employees International Union Local 1021, which has been helping to organize fast-food workers in Northern California.

Drive 'coming around'

This month, Pollan had a starring role in an e-mail blast that the liberal group MoveOn.org sent to its 8 million members trying to generate support for the fast-food workers strike.

"If we are ever to right this wrong, to produce food sustainably and justly and sell it at an honest price," Pollan wrote, "we will first have to pay people a living wage so that they can afford to buy it."

Schlosser said Pollan "getting behind the strike shows that the food movement is finally coming around."

Pollan said he and others in the food movement have discussed the issue for years, but he acknowledged in an interview that "it's not on everybody's radar" and has "historically been a blind spot."

But the wage disparity between the executive suite and the kitchen is opening many eyes. McDonald's CEO earns $9,200 an hour, while the company's average line employee makes $7.73 an hour, according to a recent study by personal finance company NerdWallet.com.

Not acknowledging such gaps "has been an ongoing critique of the food movement that has hit home with people," Pollan said. "We are promoting the kinds of food that are honestly priced, but sometimes more expensive. People in the food movement want to democratize food."

A huge challenge with changing the system quickly is that the United States has driven down the price of producing food to record-low levels.

"Cheap food is baked into our economy or society," Pollan said. "But we've done this by cutting corners, by exploiting workers and by exploiting the land."

Buying without asking

Like Pollan and Schlosser and others, Waters has long been involved with improving working conditions for farmworkers. Now, she's speaking out on behalf of workers in fast-food restaurants that aren't part of the farm-to-table and slow food movement.

"We live in a fast-food culture, and it's teaching us about how to live our lives: the idea that everything should be fast, cheap and easy," Waters said. "They want to sell this, and they don't want us to ask anything about it - just buy it and become imprisoned in that paradigm."

For years, Waters said she has been "preaching that food is precious. I really treasure the people who grow it, who take care of the animals, that work the land. All of those people who take care of my nourishment are my allies, and I want to pay them the highest amount."

At nationwide protests, fast-food workers are asking for a minimum wage of $15 an hour. Obama is supporting a measure in Congress, co-sponsored by Rep. George Miller, D-Martinez, that would raise the federal minimum wage to $10.10 from the current $7.25.

Still, that's barely above what the poverty wage level is for a single person with one child: $8.10.

"I've never wanted to think about the idea that people should get 5 cents more. I don't think they should get 5 cents more, I think they should get $5, $10 more," Waters said. "It's hard for me to get into that incremental change conversation, but I know that it's important now."

Not unique to foodies

Anna Lappé, an Oakland author and longtime critic of the fast-food industry, says "blaming the food movement for being out of touch" is a bit overblown.

"There is a disconnect, but it's not unique to foodies," said Lappé, author of "Diet for a Hot Planet: The Climate Crisis at the End of Your Fork and What You Can Do About It."

"One of the effects of inequality is that people who have resources are isolated and often don't see the depths of poverty in this country," Lappé said. "Frankly, I think a lot of Americans are out of touch."

Coming Thursday

The Bay Area restaurant scene is thriving, but line cooks, the backbone of kitchens, are fleeing the region.

Coming Thursday

