The Checkout: Grocery Nerds

Episode #33 Notes

1:00 - How did you become a community organizer?

3:00 - What necessitates organizing in The Bronx?

6:45 - Defining food apartheid.

10:50 - How did you get started in the community garden movement?

16:45 - What inspired you and others to organize Black Urban Growers (BUGS)

24:15 - Rise and Root Farm and worker ownership.

31:15 - What role has food played in the black freedom struggle?

38:15 - Black Farmers Fund

45:00 - Who are some of the people from the Black Freedom struggle who inspired your work?

51:00 - How do you define food sovereignty?

53:00 - Justice for Black Farmers Act.

59:00 - Reading Recommendations!

The Color of Wealth: Black Banks and The Radical Wealth Gap, Mehrsa Baradaran

Farming While Black, Leah Penniman

Freedom Farmers, Dr. Monica M. White

Growing Out Loud, K. Rashid Nuri

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Episode #33 Notes

1:00 - How did you get interested in gardening?

2:00 - What kind of skills have you picked up since you started gardening?

5:00 - How do you define regeneration?

7:15 - What is the language of regeneration?

12:40 - Why is representation and equity important for regenerative agriculture and climate change?

21:00 - Oversimplifications regarding climate change.

26:00 - Does regenerative agriculture have the potential to change the conversation around climate change and agriculture?

30:00 - How do we replicate systems of oppression in regenerative agriculture?

35:00 - What is needed in food systems to ensure justice and equity?

44:00 - Book recommendations?

Roots, Alex Haley

Remaking Eden, Lee Silver

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Episode #31 Notes

Background on Prop 22 in California.

1:00 - Prop 22 in California - tell us about it.

5:45 - The disinformation campaign around Prop 22

8:45 - Fair Labor Standards Act as it relates to Prop 22.

11:30 - The Gig Economy, Prop 22, and the implications for the workforce outside of California that we should be thinking about.

14:30 - Healthcare provision in Prop 22.

18:00 - What kind of organizing are you seeing amongst gig economy workers to reverse Prop 22?

22:30 - Anti-trust as a tool to manage gig companies.

27:00 - Amazon. On market dominance, how they do it, and how that’s problematic.

29:30 - How has Amazon kept people across political parties more or less placated?

33:30 - The vertical and horizontal integration of Amazon, and how that gives it an unfair advantage.

38:30 - Amazon and labor issues.

42:00 - Automation in retail and distribution. What types of technology are we seeing?

52:45 - How will other big retailers react to the technology and automation distributions from Amazon?

56:00 - The darker side of Amazon’s operational innovations.

1:00 - Book recommendations!

Trick Mirror, Jia Tolentino

The Meat Racket: The Secret Takeover of America’s Food Business, Christopher Leonard

Food and Power, Claire Kelloway

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Episode #30 Notes

0:30 - What is being done to stop the Line 3 Pipeline and others - and why?

6:00 - On the destruction of indigenous culture and nature.

10:30 - On transitioning to a better future.

11:45 - Fossil fuel addiction intersecting with economic and environmental justice.

15:00 -How to develop strategies on resisting pipelines.

18:00 - The concept and notion of the sacred.

21:00 - The sacred as it relates to food systems.

25:30 - How are Native Americans reclaiming food sovereignty?

28:30 - Book recommendations?

To Be A Water Protector: The Rise of Wiindigoo Slayers, Winona LaDuke

The Night Watchman, Louise Erdrich

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2021 will be the year that we re-center working people in the food system. History shows that organized efforts and legally-binding contracts result in safer workplaces and better livelihoods for all supply chain workers, particularly women and people of color.

Sources for all information are available upon request. Major sources:

https://www.wholeworker.org/press/december-mass-email
https://www.businessinsider.com/whole-foods-worker-demands-hazard-pay-covid-benefits-mass-email-2020-12

https://www.grocerydive.com/news/disruptor-of-year-amazon-2020/588867/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Issue:%202020-12-11%20Grocery%20Dive%20%5Bissue:31376%5D&utm_term=Grocery%20Dive

https://cdn.ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/ILSR_PopEdforIndependentBusinessOwner.pdf

https://www.wsj.com/articles/amazon-competition-shopify-wayfair-allbirds-antitrust-11608235127

https://cdn.ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Amazon-Vs-The-People.pdf

https://www.vice.com/en/article/5dp3yn/amazon-leaked-reports-expose-spying-warehouse-workers-labor-union-environmental-groups-social-movements

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2020-12-17/amazon-amzn-job-pay-rate-leaves-some-warehouse-employees-homeless

https://www.al.com/news/2020/11/bessemer-amazon-warehouse-workers-take-official-step-toward-unionizing.html?fbclid=IwAR29VyHeVHKPmysB73fk2gJa3N6x_u-n494m61lL-x86ck8vqc-i0flGKXc
https://labornotes.org/2020/12/bamazon-union-anticipating-battle-bessemer-alabama

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/13/business/stop-shop-strike.html

https://www.winsightgrocerybusiness.com/industry-partners/ufcw-reiterates-call-mask-mandates-hazard-pay-reinstatement

https://www.grocerydive.com/news/shoprite-reaches-covid-19-hazard-pay-deal-with-ufcw/589799/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Issue:%202020-11-30%20Grocery%20Dive%20%5Bissue:31119%5D&utm_term=Grocery%20Dive

https://www.supermarketnews.com/issues-trends/ufcw-shoprite-reach-deal-covid-19-hazard-pay

https://www.ufcw.org/press-releases/ufcw-announces-covid-19-hazard-pay-deal-for-stater-bros-grocery-workers-in-california-as-surge-in-virus-cases-endangers-frontline-workers-nationwide/

https://www.supermarketnews.com/issues-trends/sen-bernie-sanders-ufcw-locals-urge-kroger-restart-hazard-pay

https://www.epi.org/publication/how-todays-unions-help-working-people-giving-workers-the-power-to-improve-their-jobs-and-unrig-the-economy

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Episode #27 Notes

1:00 - What’s your academic area of focus and what led you to it?

3:30 - Tell us about your work at Mondragon.

9:15 - On the New York City system of cooperatives.

13:15 - How are transitions to business cooperatives financed?

14:45 - Public finance and modern monetary theory.

29:00 - The difference between market based capitalism vs. modern monetary theory.

41:45 - On free trade and recent trade agreements.

49:45 - Food sovereignty and modern monetary theory.

52:10 - Modern monetary theory, socialist economics and the differences with Marxism.

1:05:45 - Modern monetary theory in practice in the real world.

1:08:00 - Modern monetary theory and food insecurity in the US.

1:10:00 - How can we expand worker ownership under MMT? Coops and ESOPs.

1:14:00 - Suggested readings?

The Deficit Myth, Stephanie Kelton

The Case for a Job Guarantee, Pavlina Tcherneva

Declarations of Dependence, Scott Ferguson

Winning The Green New Deal, Guido Girgenti and Varshini Prakash

A Planet to Win, Thea Riofrancos and Kate Aronoff

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Major sources include:

https://thefern.org/2020/12/documents-show-scope-of-covid-19-in-north-carolina-meat-industry/

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/2020/11/one-in-six-could-go-hungry-2020-as-covid-19-persists

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/business/hunger-coronavirus-economy/?itid=hp-top-table-low

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/12/10/pandemic-shoplifting-hunger/

https://inequality.org/great-divide/updates-billionaire-pandemic/

https://www.cepr.net/the-24-an-hour-minimum-wage/

https://www.epi.org/press/wage-inequality-gender-racial-pay-gap/

https://www.marketplace.org/2020/12/08/new-rand-study-quantifies-cost-of-rising-us-inequality/

https://time.com/5888024/50-trillion-income-inequality-america/

https://www.brookings.edu/essay/windfall-profits-and-deadly-risks/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/11/18/food-stamps-medicaid-mcdonalds-walmart-bernie-sanders/

Please let us know what you think of this episode’s information, format and areas of focus!

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Episode #25 Notes

1:00 - Immokalee, FL: Why is there so much food production in this region?

8:45 - How are retail and food chains responsible for the property and abuses in their supply chains and how does your work helping to change this?

14:45 - Fair Food Program - what it is and how it works.

28:00 - Food Buyers and holding power in the food system.

30:40 - How has COVID affected farm workers in Immokalee?

50:30 - How do we help support and protect farm workers outside of Immokkalee?

58:15 - COVID, labor, and meat processing issues.

1:00:15 - What is the future of food systems in the eyes of CIW?

1:14:00 - Book and music recommendations?

I Am Not a Tractor, Susan L. Marquis

Tomatoland, Barry Estabrook

Factories in the Field, Carey McWilliams

Food Chains, Sanjay Rawal

Nobodies, John Bowe

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Episode #24 Notes

1:00 - How did you get into the retail business?

4:30 - What are your customers shopping for?

7:15 - What do you sell that sets you apart from other retailers?

8:00 - Do you cooperate with other immigrant owned businesses?

10:15 - How does the cooperative work?

15:30 - How has your business changed with COVID?

18:15 - How does your assortment continue to change and evolve through COVID?

21:00 - Retailers, Bernie Sanders, and Social Justice.

24:30 - On defunding the Austin Police Department.

27:15 - On APD and diverting their budget.

31:15 - What does APD do with their budget currently?

36:30 - On wielding social media for activism.

39:45 - How has Austin responded to defunding the police?

45:00 - How have other small businesses responded to the Black Lives Matter movement?

52:00 - On juggling retailing and activism.

56:30 - Suggested readings:

All About Love, bell hooks

The Will to Change, bell hooks

Interpretative Maladies, Jhumpa Lahiri

Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic, Alison Bechdel

Stone Butch Blues, Leslie Feinberg

The Yellow Wallpaper, Charolette Perkins Gilman

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