The COVID-19 pandemic has created an opportunity to re-envision a food sector where workers all along the food chain have access to high-quality employment and are valued for their labor. Recent food worker strikes, efforts to organize, and a growing unwillingness to accept poor work conditions suggest an important rise in worker power. This Urban Food Policy forum will ask how to use this momentum to encourage policy advocates, elected officials, labor leaders and others to consider strategies for improving the pay and benefits, protecting the health and safety, and strengthening the right to organize of food workers in the New York region. Panelists will share their views on how the next Mayor and City Council as well as New York’s Governor and legislature can build back better a food sector that supports its workers. Join the CUNY Urban Food Policy Institute and invited guests on July 28, 2021 for this virtual forum and discussion.

Speakers

• Carina Kaufman-Gutierrez, Deputy Director The Street Vendor Project
• Ligia Guallpa, Director, Workers Justice Project
• Josh Kellerman, Director of Public Policy, Retail, Wholesale & Department Store Union
• Candis Tolliver, Political Director, 32BJ SEIU

Moderators

• Nick Freudenberg, Distinguished Professor of Public Health at the CUNY Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy and Director of the CUNY Urban Food Policy Institute
• Emma Vignola, Doctoral Candidate in Community Health and Social Sciences at the CUNY Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy and CUNY Urban Food Policy Institute Fellow