This year’s Just Food? Conference will focus on labor in the food system, exploring the issues most relevant to those who grow, harvest, prepare, and serve our food. Participants will learn from a diverse group of food system workers, advocates, scholars, practitioners and other authorities, who will speak about their work on topics including agricultural worker rights, worker compensation in the restaurant industry, regulatory responses, and alternative ownership and operating models. Through the conference, we hope to shift attention toward a critical, but often overlooked, component of our food system: the workers. By amplifying the voices of those most embedded in our food system, we hope to educate participants, empower them to make positive change, and ultimately, work together to create a more just food system.

Conference Features

• Two keynote talks, including:
  • A keynote talk, Discriminatory labor practices in the restaurant industry, by Sheila Maddali, Director, Restaurant Opportunities Center of Pennsylvania and Co-Director, Tipped Worker Resource Cente
  • A keynote discussion, More than just food: the case of the Fair Food Program, featuring:
    • Steve Hitov, General Counsel, Coalition of Immokalee Worker
    • Fabiola Mieres, Honorary Research Fellow, Durham University, UK
  • Concurrent panel and workshop sessions throughout Saturday;
  • Lunchtime documentary film screenings; and a diverse poster and exhibit session, highlighting academic and community research

Schedule

All Day: Poster Session

8:00–9:00am: Registration and light breakfast

9:00–9:20am: Welcome Address

• Emily Broad Leib, Director of the Food Law and Policy Clinic of Harvard Law School

9:20–10:10am: Keynote: Tipped Over The Edge: Restaurant Workers’ & the Fight for Justice

• Sheila Maddali, Director, Restaurant Opportunities Center of Pennsylvania and Co-Director, Tipped Worker Resource Center

10:25–11:35am: Breakout Session #1: Panels

Stories from the Fields: Immigrants’ Contributions to U.S. Agriculture

• Paola Betchart, Workers Rights Advocate, Workplace Justice Program, Worker Justice Center of New York, Alianza Nacional de Campesinas.
• Carly Fox, Senior Worker Rights Advocate, Worker Justice Center of NY
• Dolores Bustamante and Juana Cruz, Mujeres Divinas, Alianza Nacional de Campesinas.  
• Luis Jimenez and Victor Hernandez, Alianza Agrícola

Lives on the Line: Labor Conditions in Meat & Poultry Processing Facilities

• Deborah Berkowitz, Senior Fellow, Worker Safety & Health, National Employment Law Project
• Alexandre Galimberti, Senior Advocacy & Collaborations Advisor, Oxfam America
• Omaid Zabih, Staff Attorney – Immigrants & Communities Program, Nebraska Appleseed

Caught in the Net: Labor in the U.S Fishing Industry

• Kathy Hessler, Clinical Professor of Law and Animal Law Clinic Director Director, Lewis & Clark Law School
• Rebecca Jenkins, Aquatic Animal Law Initiative Fellow, Lewis & Clark Law School
• J.J. Bartlett, President, Fishing Partnership Support Services

11:45–12:25pm: Breakout Session #2: Talks

Growing a Workforce: Beginning Farmers and the Problem of Labor

• Margiana Peterson, PhD Student, UC Berkeley, Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management
• Adriel Hsu-Flanders, Harvest Manager, Siena Farms

Ethics Over Exploitation: Moral Mapping of Food System Labor

• Nicole Civita, Affiliated Professor of Law / Faculty in Sustainable Food Systems, University of Arkansas School of Law & Sterling College

Food Production, Risk, and Immigrant Labor: The Public Health Case for Immigration Reform and a Better Food System

• Claire Fitch, Program Manager, Food System Policy Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future

12:35–1:40pm: Lunch and Films

Film Screening: Ground Operations: Battlefields to Farmfields

• “Ground Operations is an award-winning documentary that chronicles the growing network of combat veterans who are becoming organic farmers, pastured livestock ranchers, beekeepers, chefs, permaculturists, hydroponic urban farmers and food entrepreneurs.”

Film Screening: East of Salinas

• “A Documentary film about immigration, childhood and circumstance.”

Networking Lunch

1:50–3:00pm: Breakout Session #3: Panels

Milked: Migrant Dairy Labor and the American Dreams

• Aurora Moses, Clinical Assistant Professor of Law, Food and Agriculture Clinic, Vermont Law School
• Laurie Beyranevand, Professor of Law, Vermont Law School
• Sarah Danly, Program Officer for Legal Design Center for Agriculture and Food Systems, Vermont Law School
• Enrique Balcazar, Organizer, Migrant Justice
• Rafaela Rodriguez, Attorney,  Milk with Dignity Standards Council
• Tom Fritzsche, Executive Director, Milk with Dignity Standards Council

Bridging the Divide: Innovative Models for Fair Compensation in the Restaurant Industry

• Joanna Wohlmuth, Manager, Juliet
• Keith Harmon, Owner, Casa Verde, Tres Gatos, Centre Street Cafe
• Caden Salvata, Managing Director, Mei Mei

Combating Worker Exploitation: Gaps in the Laws Impacting Labor Across the Food System

• Miguel Keberlein Gutierrez, Director of the Immigrants and Workers’ Rights Practice Group at LAF Chicago
• Whitney Benns, Consultant, Triad Consulting Group; Adjunct Professor of Law, Georgetown Law
• Cathy Ruckelshaus, General Counsel and Program Director, National Employment Law Project

3:00–3:30pm: Poster Session & Coffee Break

3:40 – 4:00pm: Remarks

• Martha Minow, Harvard Law School

4:00–4:50pm: Keynote: More Than Just Food: The Case of the Fair Food Program

• Steve Hitov, General Counsel, Coalition of Immokalee Workers

5:00pm: Goodbye from the Conference Organizers

A collaboration of the Harvard Food Literacy Project and Harvard Law School Food Law Society. Co-sponsored by the Food Law and Policy Clinic at Harvard Law School.