The food system, like every other sphere of life in America, has been shaped by structural racism and racial injustice. Civil Eats has chronicled some of the many efforts to expose and address the ways that structures in the food system actively work to silence, marginalize and take advantage of people of color.
Ricardo Salvador, senior scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists and director of its Food and Environment Program, has spent a lifetime writing and talking about what an equitable food system might look like. On a recent, unseasonably sunny October evening at The Redd on Salmon in Portland, Oregon, he offered 800 food system innovators a reminder about the size and scope of institutional racism in our current food system, underlined the urgency of food justice work, and offered concrete actions we can all take to create positive change.
“We live in a very unjust, inequitable society,” began Salvador. “And the brunt of the inequity is felt through the food system.” Salvador detailed how we got here through the dark history of colonization—from the genocide of the myriad Native American tribes, whose land we stole, to the African citizens who were abducted and enslaved by the English and then the Americans.
“From the standpoint of an economist, the way you generate wealth is that you have access to at least one of the factors of production: land, labor, rent,” Salvador said. From the 1830s until the 1880s, he noted, we drove the original inhabitants of this continent off their land, quite literally depriving them of their food as well as their food culture.
“If you want to find some of the most immiserated human beings on the planet—not just in the United States—you would go to the concentration camps that we call the reservations,” Salvador said. “Here is where you will find people whose land was taken from them, and therefore their foodways, their ways of accessing the natural resources upon which they based their entire cultures and they way that they nourished themselves.”
Similarly, the Africans who were taken from their homeland and brought to the U.S. by the slave trade were driven against their will from their land and were forced to be the unpaid labor to allow white Americans to profit. “What those people were enslaved to do was actually to drive the beginning of what today we call Big Ag,” Salvador said.
Tragically, slavery has not disappeared. To this day, exploited farm labor is what keeps the cost of food so cheap in this country. “Farm labor is the most essential, the most important part of our food system, and the most undervalued,” Salvador said.
“We spend as little as 6 to 12 percent of our disposable income on food. That is usually quoted as something that we should be very proud of. But it should be a national shame,” he said. “It’s as if the workers involved in the food industry and nature that is required to produce the food were costs to be minimized…We need to find a way in which we actually value all of those resources—the land and the people that are involved.”
One of the long-simmering questions facing those striving for better food for all is how to go beyond voting with your fork? Is it possible to create a new food system that does not rely on exploitation?
Salvador made a case for profound system shifts like reparations, loan forgiveness programs, and immigration reform. He urged people to work independently and collectively to support these goals and the great food-system reform work that’s already afoot in our communities around this country. Among his suggestions:
• Support Reparations to the descendants of enslaved peoples. One place to start is to urge your members of Congress to support Rep. John Conyers’ (D–MI) bill, HR 40: Commission to Study Reparation Proposals for African Americans Act.
• Support immigration and labor reforms that value labor and provide for dignified livelihood. For example, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers’ Fair Food Program, and realistic transition initiatives such as the proposed “Blue Card” program.
• Get your elected officials to support U.S. Representative Chellie Pingree’s Local Food and Regional Market Supply FARMS bill, which will create local jobs, boost midsize farms’ sales, and increase access to healthy food.
• Get your elected officials to read and support Oregon senator Earl Blumenauer’s roadmap for an alternative Farm Bill “Growing Opportunities.”
• Get your local school district to sign onto the Good Food Purchasing program, a metric-based framework that encourages institutions to direct their buying power toward local economies, environmental sustainability, a valued workforce, animal welfare, and nutrition. (L.A. Unified School District, San Francisco Unified, Oakland Unified, and Chicago Public Schools have all already signed on.)
In closing his presentation at the Redd, Salvador came back to his original question.
“Do we know enough to create a food system that does not rely on exploitation?” he asked. “Yes, we know enough to produce our food without exploiting nature, and we definitely know enough to produce our food without exploiting people…. Let me just put a very sharp point on it for you: The question is not really: ‘Do we know enough to be better?’ The question is: ‘Will we?’”
Three years ago, when Chelsey Smith took a job at the Jack Daniel’s bottling plant in Lynchburg, Kentucky, she had no idea what the policy on maternity leave was. “I didn’t have a clue about it until I was pregnant,” says Smith, now 26. So when she and her husband, Drew, a truck driver for the company, learned they were pregnant with their first child last year, they were happily surprised to discover that Brown-Forman (the owner of Jack Daniels’s) had a progressive parental leave policy: Chelsey was entitled to 12 weeks of paid leave, and Drew, as the non-birth parent, was due six weeks, paid.
Brown-Forman’s parental leave policy proved crucial for the new parents. Chelsey had complications during labor—the epidural caused part of her left leg to remain numb—and she came home from the hospital on crutches. In addition to pediatrician visits, Chelsey had to see a neurologist several times and have an MRI. (The cause of the numbness is still a mystery.) The extra appointments would have been impossible if Drew wasn’t also home and able to drive the family.
“When I came home from the hospital, I was on crutches and couldn’t put my foot on the ground. Drew did everything: bathed me, cooked supper, went grocery shopping, did dishes and laundry—the list goes on,” she says. And because Brown-Forman’s policy allows the non-birth parent to take his (or her) six weeks any time over the first six months of the baby’s life, Drew can reserve a week or two for when Chelsey returns to work.
Drew, 32, realizes how rare paid paternity leave is in the United States and says he can’t imagine not having this benefit. “Those nights of hardly any sleep are much easier to deal with,” he says, “when you don’t have to worry about getting up on time in the morning.” And the time he’s been home with Chelsey and their daughter, Megan, has brought them closer as a family. “I sure am glad I was there the first time that little girl smiled,” Drew says. “I would’ve missed that and many other memories without these benefits.”
Chelsey, Drew, and Megan Lee Smith. Photo courtesy of Drew Smith.
Brown-Forman—which also makes brands such as Woodford Reserve, Sonoma-Cutrer wines, and Finlandia vodka—has one of the best parental leave policies in the alcohol industry.
“Their parental leave policy is fantastic. And their paternity leave is the highest I’ve seen,” says Deborah Brenner, the founder and president of Women of the Vine & Spirits, a membership organization dedicated to the support of women in the alcoholic beverage industry.
“It was a topic that mattered a lot to me,” says Kirsten Hawley, Brown-Forman’s chief human resources officer. “It came from conversations with women who were trying to make hard choices between staying at home to bond with a newborn baby or coming back to work so they could earn an income. And also talking to dads about their desire to stay home with their newborn child longer than they had the opportunity to.” At the time, the company already offered decent parental leave—two weeks, paid, for dads, and six weeks, paid, for moms—but it was covered by a short-term disability insurance policy. Hawley thought the company could do better. She says, “We decided to not treat childbirth as a disability.”
The revised policy, which kicks in after a year of employment, also makes no distinction between fathers and same-sex partners—the “non-birth parent” can be male or female. “We wanted to be sure that our leave addressed today’s modern families,” Hawley says. It also covers adoptive parents and foster parents, giving them six weeks of paid leave. It covers all Brown-Forman’s salaried workforce and hourly nonunion employees.
Needless to say, this is not the norm in the alcohol industry. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ 2016 National Compensation Survey, the leisure/hospitality sector has among the lowest rates—6 percent—of access to paid family leave. (That category includes restaurants and hotels, though not bars.) The only category to fare worse was the construction industry. Manufacturing, which includes companies that make alcoholic beverages, was slightly higher, at 10 percent.
“The restaurant industry is not flexible, and it doesn’t put any value on families or mothers,” says Jessica Brown, 34, who oversees the food and beverage program at JetBlue. Brown should know. She had worked for two years as the wine director for a notable New York restaurant group when, soon after she’d told her direct supervisor she was pregnant, her position was eliminated. “It’s unclear whether the owners knew about my pregnancy when my position was eliminated,” she says, “but it was definitely a shock.” Not that the company offered any paid parental leave anyway.
Brown spent months applying for jobs in the industry and had some positive interviews, but once she disclosed that she was pregnant, in each case she was told (later, by the various HR staffs at the places she applied) that the employer had decided not to fill the position. Ultimately, she was able to parlay her food and beverage experience into a “day job” at JetBlue.
Five states—California, New Jersey, New York, Washington, and Rhode Island—and the District of Columbia have passed paid family leave laws, but many other states offer just six weeks of paid leave at partial salary, which any woman who has given birth says is barely enough time (or money). Still, it is better than the unpaid leave mandated by federal law. The Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) requires all businesses with more than 50 employees to offer new moms and dads 12 weeks of unpaid leave. (To get this “benefit,” though, you have to be full-time and have been with your company for a year.) Crucially, the FMLA also offers job protection: Your employer must offer you the same job when you return to work, or one that is nearly identical, with identical pay and benefits.
But what if you’re pregnant and you work for a small employer, like a restaurant, cocktail bar, or small wine importer? “You hope to win the lottery,” says Kate Newhall, the policy director at Family Forward Oregon, a politically savvy nonprofit that advocates for family-friendly policies in the state.
Family Forward Oregon spearheaded the campaign for a statewide paid sick leave bill, which was signed by Governor Kate Brown in 2015, and it is one of the leading organizations behind Time for Oregon, a coalition fighting for paid family and medical leave in the state. A bill to provide such leave was introduced in the 2017 legislative session, but it didn’t pass. Newhall is confident, however, that it will be on the agenda again in 2018, saying, “We’re in it to win it!”
Until Oregon passes a paid family leave bill, it is one of the 45 states where new mothers have to fend for themselves—or rely on family. When Sonia Kehler, 44, a bartender in Portland, was pregnant with her daughter Vela, her boss at Captain Ankeny’s bar gave her six weeks off, unpaid. Kehler survived financially because her partner, also a bartender, was able to find a better-paying day job and because her father babysat Vela when she went back to work. She was able to pump breast milk in an employee bathroom. Having been a bartender for years, Kehler wasn’t surprised by the lack of any kind of paid maternity leave. She says, “I never even asked.”
Rare is the independently owned bar or restaurant that can afford to offer paid maternity leave. Liz Davis, the owner and manager of Xico, a Mexican restaurant in Portland with 25 employees, has offered health insurance to all employees—even those who work only part-time—since the day the restaurant opened five years ago. But paid maternity leave is another matter. “Our profit margin is so small, and we actually can’t operate with one less server,” says Davis. “We’d have to replace her. So it becomes a situation where we’re paying two people.” But after reading Hillary Clinton’s book What Happened (Simon & Schuster) and thinking about the issue at length, Davis decided to offer one week of paid maternity leave. “I know that’s nothing,” she says, “but for [my employees], it’s the difference between being able to pay rent that month and not.”
In states like California, which was the first in the nation to pass a paid family leave law, in 2002, restaurant owners aren’t faced with this tough decision, because thestate pays for the leave through a worker-funded insurance program. Jacquelyn Dowell, 33, is a bartender at Oakland’s Ramen Shop. When she told her boss she was pregnant, he was very supportive.
“He sat me down and said, ‘What shifts are gonna be good for you? I just want you to be comfortable,’” Dowell says. “So that was amazing.”
Six weeks before her due date, Dowell was racked with false labor pains, and her doctor told her not to return to work. California’s short-term disability program covered her at 55 percent of her salary for six weeks, and the state’s then Paid Family Leave covered another six weeks off, also at 55 percent of her salary.
Was that enough to live on in the high-rent Bay Area? “Not at all—not even close,” Dowell says. But fortunately, Dowell’s husband, Kevin, works for a small spirits company, The 86 Co., and he was allowed a month and a half of paternity leave at his full salary. Knowing that most bartenders in the U.S. don’t receive any pay during maternity leave makes Dowell feel lucky. “Yet I feel that what I received wasn’t enough,” she says. “It’s super unfair. It’s just crazy to me that pregnancy isn’t covered.” Last year, California governor Jerry Brown signed a bill that will increase the Paid Family Leave payment to 70 percent of a minimum wage worker’s salary. (Workers with higher pay will get 60 percent of their salary.) The new coverage will take effect in 2018.
Companies in the alcoholic beverage industry that are truly family-friendly, like Brown-Forman and The 86 Co., are few and far between. Some leading wine and spirits distributors offer paid leave, but only to members of the sales team. (This recalls Starbuck’s recent fiasco: Earlier this month shareholders objected that a new, 18-week parental leave policy was only for salaried workers, whereas hourly workers receive only six weeks.)
Diageo, the British multinational spirits and beer company (Smirnoff, Johnnie Walker, Guinness) whose U.S. offices are based in Norwalk, Connecticut, has made Working Mother’s list of 100 Best Companies for the past nine years. In addition to subsidizing day care, the company offers job-sharing, flextime, and a decent parental leave policy. All full-time employees who have worked a year for the company—even fathers and adoptive parents—are eligible for four weeks of paid leave.
One restaurateur who is helping set the bar for paid family leave is Danny Meyer at Union Square Hospitality Group. Last fall he announced an eight-week parental leave program at all 16 of his restaurants and bars that applies equally to birth parents and non-birth parents. The program covers full-time employees who have been with the company for at least one year, and gives four weeks at 100 percent of the base wage, and another four weeks at 60 percent. Of course, this means that workers at restaurants that still accept tipping will not get tips while they’re out, but the base wage at USHG restaurants is still higher than the tipped minimum wage in New York City. (Similarly, workers who take advantage of this leave at the group’s nine Hospitality Included restaurants—that is, restaurants that have abolished tipping—would not get revenue share, but their base wage is higher than the current New York City minimum wage of $11 an hour.)
But the majority of companies in the alcohol industry don’t offer paid parental leave for the simple reason that they don’t have to. Kat Kelly, now 38, was pregnant when she took a job as import manager at Baron Francois, a French wine importer. (She did not disclose she was pregnant in her interview because she feared she would not be hired if they knew.) She says her boss presented the company as family friendly in her interview, but he offered her only six weeks off, unpaid, when she gave birth. (Because she hadn’t been at the company for a full year, and because Baron Francois had 20 employees at the time, Kelly was not entitled to any time off under the FMLA.) Luckily, she had applied for short-term disability and so got a tiny portion of her salary. But just a month into her six-week leave, Kelly says she felt pressured by the company to work from home.
“Psychologically, I wasn’t ready. And I don’t think I’d physically healed from the C-section,” says Kelly, who returned to work exhausted. “I was forgetting things, feeling overwhelmed.” The only place she could pump her breast milk was in one of two single staff bathrooms, and coworkers were always knocking on the door. To top it off, she also felt pressured to go to evening wine events and drink a lot. “I wanted to be like, ‘Oh, I’m still cool,’” Kelly says. “But I wasn’t able to do that anymore.” She eventually left Baron Francois—and the wine industry—to work at NARS Cosmetics, which she says is a truly family-friendly company. “They have a nice, big pumping room,” she says. “Women have babies, and that’s a natural part of life.”
Kylie Henshaw, human resources coordinator at Baron Francois says the company still doesn’t have a formal maternity leave policy, but in January it will be subject to New York state’s new Paid Family Leave Program, which requires that all companies offer eight weeks of leave to new mothers and fathers, paid at 50 percent of her or his salary. (The Program covers full-time and part-time employees; full-time employees must work at least 26 weeks, or six-and-a-half months, at a company to be covered; part-time employees must work at least 175 days to be covered. The Program also covers employees who need to care for a sick relative.) Henshaw says the company has since moved to a new office space and now has a private room in which new mothers can pump.
But until all states start passing paid family leave policies like California and New York’s—or bars, restaurants, and alcoholic beverage companies start issuing more progressive maternity leave policies on their own—the drinks industry will continue to lose some of its best employees.
“One of the main problems that the restaurant industry has right now is maintaining qualified employees,” Jessica Brown at JetBlue says. To her, it is no surprise why.
“They’re losing a tremendous number of seasoned professionals because they don’t support families or any type of maternity leave.” Employees who have been with a company for a long time are, she says, “put out to pasture” just because they decide to start a family. “The industry has to take a hard look at this issue in general. They need to look at the Big Picture.”
When she was 13, Claire Wineland started a foundation to help people with cystic fibrosis (CF), a progressive and terminal genetic disease. That would be remarkable for any tween, but for Claire—who was born with the disease and had just nearly died of complications from it—it was especially plucky. Though she’s spent nearly a quarter of her 20 years in the hospital and has had 35 surgeries (so far), Wineland’s outlook on life is uniquely upbeat. Wineland shares her secrets on staying resilient, embracing challenges, and becoming a professional schmoozer.
Q: How do you stay resilient in the face of your disease? A: I don’t think of my disease as a burden. Just being alive, regardless of one’s circumstance, is incredibly challenging. Every single human being is dealing with a huge level of suffering. It’s an innate human condition. Growing up, I spent a lot of time in the hospital. I’d have the hospital room all decked out, doing arts & crafts, just being a kid. Adults would come visit me. They’d squat low and say, “I’m so sorry you have to deal with this.” And I’d be like, “No, I’m having a grand old time!” Finally, I started to hear about their lives. The more I started to talk to them, the more I realized that they were miserable. We’re looking at the wrong measurements. It’s not getting over your problems—it’s finding a way to use them.
Q: When you were 13, you started Claire’s Place Foundation to help people with cystic fibrosis. Tell me about it. A: CF is a hugely taxing illness. After I recovered from lung failure and being in a coma [at age 13], it dawned on me how much support my parents—especially my mother—needed. She was a single mom with another kid. She was with me every single day in the hospital. She had to quit her job. On top of that, she had to find a way to pay her bills. I started the foundation to help her.
Once my mom was secure, I realized, “Wow, I’m actually pretty good at this!” The Foundation has grown every year. We provide grants for families who are dealing with extended hospital stays. We help them pay their rent, their car payments, bills—whatever they need covered financially, so that they don’t have to lose their home on top of losing their child.
Q: What keeps you upbeat and enjoying life, when it would be so easy for you to dwell on the negative? A: When you feel something, you have to let yourself feel it. People mistake positivity with ignoring what’s there and what’s real. The truth is, anger, aggression, fear, pain, sadness—they are way older than we are. There is a way to feel something and not get stuck: by acknowledging what’s there and realizing that, fundamentally, it doesn’t matter. I genuinely don’t care that I have CF, because I get to travel the world as a public speaker. I have a dog I love (her pit mix, Daisy). I get to design hospital rooms. I get to be the person I want to be! Not in spite of my illness, but because of it.
Q: You’re partnering with Zappos to make hospitals more beautiful. Tell me a bit about this project and why you’re passionate about it. A: There’s no reason why hospitals have to be terrifying, cold, and sterile environments. I’m focusing on redesigning hospitals to benefit patients, so that they’re a space for them to heal. We’re re-doing the Children’s Hospital in Vegas. The playroom is my baby: I’m going to bring the outside in by changing the lighting so it’s not fluorescent, but warm. It should be done by the end of this year.
Q: How do you balance your full life with the limitations that your disease brings? A: I’m really bad at balancing taking care of myself and working. I tend to overdo the working and underdo the treatment. With CF, you have to do four hours of breathing treatments per day. They’re intensive and exhaustive. Then you have shots, pills, blood tests.
No matter how well I take care of myself, I have a terminal illness. But at the end of the day, what will I have done with my time? Just breathing treatments? Or will I have actually given something with my life? As much I screw up and am by no means a perfect patient, I’m really proud of myself. It’s up to everyone to find their own version of that.
This interview was done for MeQuilibrium's Cup of Calm series, where writers interview interesting people and experts, their journey to resilience, and their wisdom on wellbeing
