Labor, power and scale: an analysis of food policy councils and food labor advocacy in the United States

• FPC’s policy centered approach to labor injustice contrasts with movements which prioritize local food through market-based initiatives. • FPC’s focus on the regional scale presents both challenges and opportunities for prioritizing food system labor. • Values-based procurement, a growing policy priority for FPCs, has been shown to improve wages and working conditions for food systems laborers. • We call for critical scholarship to (re)consider broad critiques that regionally-focused food movements fail to address food labor conditions. In this study, we focus on U.S.-based Food Policy Councils (FPCs), diverse networks of food system representatives that work regionally across sectors. We examine how these groups’ focus on regional scale can be both a challenge and an opportunity for prioritizing food system labor. Contrary to research in geography and other food system scholarship, which critiques locally focused market-based food movements for attending to the interests of well-resourced consumers and ignoring labor injustices and inequalities, this paper argues that FPCs are finding ways to contribute to social movements and policy change regarding food workers’ rights on a regional scale. Drawing on national survey data, focus groups, and interviews with FPC leaders, we conclude that FPCs have the potential to improve food labor conditions, particularly through their support of values-based procurement policies. By applying a food systems lens to concerns that are relevant to both workers and employers at the local and regional scales, some FPCs are bringing awareness to the conditions of food workers. While these approaches do not alleviate structural constraints to increasing low wages, nor power differentials between workers and owners, they highlight the value of place-based food labor advocacy and provide openings for rethinking critiques concerning regional and local food movements.