Why seafood processing labor matters to emerging Blue economies in the United States

The United States have positioned themselves as global arbiters of human rights abuses, and increasingly in fisheries sectors. Yet annually numerous cases emerge which indicate the United States, like other countries in the Global North, is not ultimately preventing severe labor and human rights abuses within its own borders. Furthermore, sociological research on work and workplaces points to pervasive racialized and gendered labor practices across industries and regions of the United States, which routinely undergird the (re)production of vast inequities, and the routine devaluation (and even exploitation) of labor of women and racially minoritized groups, including immigrants. Considered in light of growing interest and momentum building around sustainable and equitable ocean economies (Blue Economies) in the United States and elsewhere, this paper and our research more broadly seek to understand how the seafood processing industry can move away from this trend. Given the omission of this sector from international discourses around blue economies, and the environmental and social justice implications of precarity for seafood processing work, this paper seeks to provide a review of the state of knowledge on labor in seafood processing. In reviewing the existing scholarship and publicly available information, we then identify key areas for future work that will inform our own emerging collaborative efforts to establish a research network dedicated to the study of labor in this overlooked sector.