Building power and worker leadership in Chicagoland's food supply chain
Illinois is the second largest food and beverage manufacturing hub in the United States.
As such, it’s home to one of the largest concentrations of food warehouse workers nationwide. Food workers, disproportionately people of color, are some of the most exploited workers in the country — from farmers, to restaurant workers, to meat manufacturers, and food warehouse workers.
When food warehouse workers organize, they win.
In the Chicagoland area, organized food warehouse workers in specific workplaces and across an entire industry have the potential to leverage real power against some of the largest corporations in the world, raise wages, abolish unjust working conditions, improve quality of life for themselves and their families, abolish the ubiquitous control of temporary staffing agencies, and strengthen communities which are increasingly at the whim of corporations, their third party logistics companies, and temporary staffing agencies.
Warehouse Workers for Justice believes that building power and worker leadership in Chicagoland’s food supply chain is a matter of racial, economic, and gender justice.
We offer a roadmap for transforming the warehousing and distribution industries throughout Illinois more broadly and across the country by:
Key highlights of work:
As such, it’s home to one of the largest concentrations of food warehouse workers nationwide. Food workers, disproportionately people of color, are some of the most exploited workers in the country — from farmers, to restaurant workers, to meat manufacturers, and food warehouse workers.
When food warehouse workers organize, they win.
In the Chicagoland area, organized food warehouse workers in specific workplaces and across an entire industry have the potential to leverage real power against some of the largest corporations in the world, raise wages, abolish unjust working conditions, improve quality of life for themselves and their families, abolish the ubiquitous control of temporary staffing agencies, and strengthen communities which are increasingly at the whim of corporations, their third party logistics companies, and temporary staffing agencies.
Warehouse Workers for Justice believes that building power and worker leadership in Chicagoland’s food supply chain is a matter of racial, economic, and gender justice.
We offer a roadmap for transforming the warehousing and distribution industries throughout Illinois more broadly and across the country by:
- Developing a model for food warehouse worker leadership;
- Developing and replicating successful workplace organizing fights within and beyond the food supply chain; and
- Deepening and leveraging relationships within the food justice space to enhance our organizational ability to lead food justice coalitions in workplace organizing and corporate campaigns.
Key highlights of work: