Once upon a time in the labor move­ment, a rebel­lious van­guard emerged at the mar­gins of Amer­i­can indus­try, braid­ing togeth­er work­ers on society’s fringes — immi­grants, African Amer­i­cans, women, unskilled labor­ers — under a broad ban­ner of class struggle.

The range of tactics employed by urban food workers reveals the great ecosystem that is labor. When farm wages are driven down by exploitation of migrant workers, that shapes labor struggles higher up the food chain in processing plants and restaurants. When cooks and servers organize, they gain leverage to demand that restaurants source from growers of ethically produced food.

The Indus­tri­al Work­ers of the World (IWW), or Wob­blies, raised hell in the ear­ly 20th cen­tu­ry with unapolo­get­i­cal­ly mil­i­tant protests and strikes.

Their vision of a local­ly root­ed, glob­al­ly ori­ent­ed anti-cap­i­tal­ist move­ment was eclipsed by main­stream unions, which had more polit­i­cal mus­cle. But grass­roots direct action is today under­go­ing a resur­gence in the cor­ners of the work­force that have remained iso­lat­ed from union structures.

Such alter­na­tive cam­paigns have a spe­cial res­o­nance in today’s food indus­tries, which employ the rough­ly 20 mil­lion peo­ple (one-sixth of the total work­force) who har­vest, process, dis­trib­ute and sell the food we eat. This mar­gin­al­ized, low-wage group is hun­gry for orga­niz­ing mod­els that move as nim­bly as the cor­po­ra­tions that run the pro­duc­tion chains. The IWW’s sig­na­ture orga­niz­ing mod­el, syn­di­cal­ism (which pri­or­i­tizes direct action in the work­place), mesh­es with the grow­ing trend in the labor move­ment toward less bureau­crat­ic labor groups, such as work­er cen­ters and immi­grant advo­ca­cy cam­paigns. Flex­i­ble mobi­liza­tion that doesn’t require for­mal votes or union cer­ti­fi­ca­tion is well-suit­ed to pre­car­i­ous labor­ers seek­ing to out­ma­neu­ver the multinationals.

Since 2007, the Wob­bly-affil­i­at­ed coali­tion Focus on the Food Chain (FOFC) has empow­ered work­ers in New York City’s food sec­tors to chal­lenge abu­sive employ­ers on the streets and in the courts. The group — an alliance between the local IWW and the advo­ca­cy group Brand­work­ers Inter­na­tion­al—aims to ​“car­ry out mem­ber-led work­place jus­tice cam­paigns to trans­form the indus­try” and focus­es on the oft-neglect­ed links between farm and fridge. Accord­ing to Brand­work­ers Exec­u­tive Direc­tor Daniel Gross, these pro­cess­ing and dis­tri­b­u­tion indus­tries are a ​“sweat­shop corridor.”

​“The busi­ness mod­el,” he says, ​“is exploita­tion of recent immigrants.”

But in New York, the work­ers at these com­pa­nies — some of which cater to high-end nat­ur­al gourmet mar­kets — are tied into the local food sys­tem as con­sumers as well. So groups such as Brand­work­ers envi­sion empow­er­ing work­ing-class com­mu­ni­ties holis­ti­cal­ly, with well-pay­ing jobs that ensure fam­i­lies’ access to the lit­er­al fruits of their labor. In the long term, Gross says, FOFC aims to ​“trans­form this sec­tor to pro­vide the good man­u­fac­tur­ing jobs that we want to see and to cre­ate a sus­tain­able food sys­tem that pro­vides fresh local food.”

That vision is far from ful­filled, but work­place-based cam­paigns have yield­ed vic­to­ries. In Brand­work­ers’ law­suit against the Queens-based dis­trib­u­tor Bev­er­age Plus, a fed­er­al court award­ed $950,000 in dam­ages to Lati­no ware­house work­ers and dri­vers who com­plained of wage theft and harsh work­ing con­di­tions, includ­ing up-to-12-hour days. FOFC also chal­lenged local kosher foods pro­duc­er Flaum Appe­tiz­ing, a com­pa­ny noto­ri­ous for under­pay­ing and abus­ing immi­grant employ­ees. In a two-pronged strat­e­gy, FOFC launched a com­plaint with the Nation­al Labor Rela­tions Board for dis­crim­i­na­to­ry retal­i­a­tion against immi­grant work­ers, and also worked with an Ortho­dox com­mu­ni­ty activist group to pres­sure some 120 gro­cery stores to stop doing busi­ness with Flaum until it met work­ers’ demands. The dis­putes end­ed ear­li­er this year, with work­ers win­ning a $577,000 settlement.

On a nation­al scale, advo­ca­cy and com­mu­ni­ty groups (includ­ing Brand­work­ers) have orga­nized the Food Chain Work­ers Alliance, pro­mot­ing eco­nom­i­cal­ly and eco­log­i­cal­ly sus­tain­able ways of eat­ing. Mem­ber groups have cam­paigned for the rights of restau­rant staff and of child farm­work­ers, and have estab­lished ​“fair food pro­cure­ment” prin­ci­ples to pres­sure employ­ers for sol­id wages, bet­ter work­ing con­di­tions and the use of local food.

Cre­ative direct-action orga­niz­ing has trick­led into food ser­vice sec­tors as well. In Sep­tem­ber, after the man­age­ment of a Hot and Crusty bak­ery in Man­hat­tan attempt­ed to lock out work­ers seek­ing to union­ize, 23 employ­ees didn’t just pick­et, but launched their own enter­prise to reclaim a space in the city’s food­scape. With the back­ing of the local labor group Laun­dry Work­ers Cen­ter, the Work­er Jus­tice Café served cof­fee and bagels out­doors — à la Hooverville-meets-Occu­py — until their union gained recognition.

The range of tac­tics employed by urban food work­ers reveals the great ecosys­tem that is labor. When farm wages are dri­ven down by exploita­tion of migrant work­ers, that shapes labor strug­gles high­er up the food chain in pro­cess­ing plants and restau­rants. When cooks and servers orga­nize, they gain lever­age to demand that restau­rants source from grow­ers of eth­i­cal­ly pro­duced food. The monop­o­lies of agribusi­ness and the ser­vice and retail indus­tries embody how a cor­po­ra­tized sup­ply chain sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly cheats work­ers and impov­er­ish­es communities.

And while the hey­day of syn­di­cal­ism has fad­ed, the food economy’s sheer mass and dynamism may prove fer­tile ground for its resur­gence. Just as our food is sourced on a local, region­al and transna­tion­al scale, immi­grant work­ers’ strug­gles are inher­ent­ly local and glob­al. As cor­po­ra­tions tight­en their grip on sys­tems of pro­duc­tion, work­ers can only respond through a com­bi­na­tion of direct-action and cross-indus­try sol­i­dar­i­ty, span­ning a long chain of linked injustices.

UPDATE: Reflect­ing the same uncom­pro­mis­ing ener­gy as the Hot and Crusty work­ers ear­li­er this year, New York City has just seen a spec­tac­u­lar surge of strikes by non-union fast food work­ers demand­ing decent wages and work­ing con­di­tions. For more, see David Moberg and Josh Eidel­son​’s cov­er­age of this poten­tial­ly ground­break­ing work­ers’ movement.