The High Cost of Food: Endemic Precarity, Debilitation, and Premature Death Among Migrant Food Processing Workers

• In Event: 20210 - Working the Food System: Labor, Sovereignty, and Sustenance

Abstract

This article examines the endemic precarity faced by migrant food processing workers, a condition exacerbated but not initiated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Through over 75 in-depth interviews with workers, supervisors, and human resource personnel across 20 food processing plants, and analysis of more than 200 OSHA complaints, this study reveals how these workers endure daily bodily pain and emotional distress. The precarious employment in food processing extends beyond low wages and unpredictable schedules to include working through pain, facing retaliation for reporting injuries, and navigating fragmented regulatory systems that often harm rather than help. This research highlights the non-exceptional nature of employment practices that expect temporary or long-term impairment as a normal consequence of work. By integrating conceptualizations of precarious work with the political notion of precarity, the article re-centers the workplace to understand the material workings of harm distribution. The study also explores the embodied and temporal dimensions of endemic precarity, showing how bodily harm and emotional distress are compounded by restrictive employment, migratory, and welfare policies. Ultimately, this article calls for a deeper understanding of the biopolitics of debilitation and the systematic disposability of migrant workers within racial capitalism

Author

• Lola Loustaunau, University of Wisconsin-Madison