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Food AND Medicine (FAM)'s mission is to organize, educate, and empower workers and our communities in the fight for economic and social justice. FAM believes that by working together with unions, farmers, community groups, small businesses, and faith-based organizations we will create solutions and positive change.
History
In 2001, an avalanche of layoffs in Eastern Maine began, with over 1,000 jobs lost to outsourcing by year's end. Union members teamed up with allies to reach out to those workers who had lost their jobs due to trade. Out of this organizing arose what became Food AND Medicine (FAM), a committee of laid-off workers and union members whose goal was to fight for laid off workers and build a broad coalition for working families.
Our name is our position; we believe it an outrage for people in the richest country in the world to be forced to choose between food, medicine or other basic necessities. We launched with an increasingly militant, creative campaign to win health care benefits for workers laid off from Trade Adjustment Assistance certified plant closings. After a series of escalating tactics, Senators Snowe and Collins consented to support the measure, which was pivotal in passing the first health aid to laid off workers in US history. Along the way, public consciousness of the reality of laid off workers grew. Politicians, media and union members all responded-union members by donating (over the years totaling over $80,000) to give direct aid to laid off workers.
Since then, FAM has built a powerful, creative movement for worker justice in Eastern Maine. Throughout our growth, we have strived to enable those directly affected by poor conditions and inadequate social policies to take an active, leadership role in changing the. Our work has been informed by a knowledge of our community gained through research and outreach. Our accomplishments have included well-attended events and educational programs, victorious legislative and workplace organizing campaigns, and creation of alternative economic and cultural structures.
Structure
FAM has emphasized a high level of member and community participation from the start. We have focused our work on issues that directly affect our region, and involved the people of our region in the solutions. At the beginning, decisions were made by committees of laid-off workers, who at that time made up most of FAM's membership. Most programmatic decisions continue to be made by consensus in member-led committees. As the organization grew, however, the need for a more formal structure to attend to our long-term vitality became apparent. In 2006-07, FAM staff worked with leaders from among the membership to form a twelve member Board, elected by and from the membership to make budgetary and other decisions affecting the whole organization. In 2008, four highly active Board members formed a Steering Committee, which meets monthly to give guidance to staff.
Research & Outreach
FAM staff and volunteers regularly go door-to-door and set up tables at fairs and other events, distributing information and conducting surveys about social and economic issues affecting our community. This enables us to reach new potential members, and to have conversations with working people who may not have the time or desire to attend meetings. In 2007, we conducted over 600 surveys on job conditions. On Election Day 2008, we organized 12 volunteers to distribute information on the right of workers to organize at 9 polling places, gaining over 3,000 signatures in support. As part of our our Worker Center of Eastern Maine project, we maintain a toll-free workers' rights hotline (1-866-933-WCEM), with a team of volunteers trained to answer it. We also research the economic and social forces affecting our community, becoming a resource to both the media and elected politicians on the situation of laid off workers. In Fall, 2008, we combined first-hand interviews of laid-off workers with secondary research on conditions for former manufacturing workers in today's service-based economy to publish the report Where Are They Now?
Worker Rights
Our regular contact with our community informs our decisions on where to focus campaigns for social change. Conversations with workers alerted us to worker struggles at DHL delivery, Verizon, and Eastern Maine Medical Center, enabling us to organize community support leading to a new union at DHL, a better contract at Fairpoint (Verizon's new owner), and improved conditions and wages for EMMC workers. Our outreach alerted us to the need for healthcare benefits for laid-off workers in 2002, and to the improvement in healthcare access due to federal legislation we helped pass. The interviews leading up to the Where Are They Now? report showed us a host of structural changes that could benefit laid-off workers, and we are now in conversation with our laid-off worker committee to determine priorities.
Local Food
We have particularly focused on relating the struggle for worker rights to support for fair, local agriculture. We created the Union Supported Agriculture (USA) farm share program in 2004 to make organic, local produce available to working people and support local farms. King Hill Farm, one of the program's two original suppliers, has taken on the model developed by FAM to run its own farm-sustained CSA program, while Happytown Farm has remained with USA and is supporting most of the basic operations of the program. This has freed FAM to do more expansion, including growth from 30 to over 65 expected in 2009, and to deepen the involvement of low-income and working people, with two food pantries now buying shares, and several unions publicizing the program to members. Our annual Solidarity Harvest, every year since 2003, has brought healthy, local food to laid-off workers and their families through cooperation between farms, unions, religious groups, and local businesses. In 2008, 4 small businesses and bakeries, dozens of area unions and congregations, and 22 local farms worked together to bring locally-produced meals to over 150 laid-off and low-income families.
Events
Our several annual events provide an alternative social outlet that builds community and solidarity as well as a good time. The largest is the July 4th Solidarity Celebration, which in 2009 attracted over 300 people despite a driving downpour to eat homemade food, and hear live music from Sarah Lee Guthrie & Johnny Irion. We also celebrate Labor Day with a large event, in 2007 drawing 1,500 people to the Bangor waterfront to hear James McMurtry.
Education
Education is part of and complements all of FAM's work. We have organized innovative educational programs both with our members and to engage the general public with issues of economic justice. Internal education has included formal programs such as our Community Steward Trainings, which brought together unorganized workers, union members, and students over two sessions to learn about worker rights law and organizing strategies. Volunteers also gain training and leadership development through participation in our programs. For example, our community events have involved 50-100 volunteers organized in teams to coordinate different aspects of the event, such as food, set-up, and the "Get Active" table with information on issues and programs. Our newspaper, Solidarity News, published three times per year, involves members in writing articles about the issues affecting our community. Our direct aid programs, such as Solidarity Harvest, also involve members in speaking to the media and the public from their own experience. We also supported several student members in forming a Student Labor Action Project at the University of Maine, which has grown to do its own educational work with students.
Our educational work for the general public has included direct actions, publications, conferences, concerts, and other events. Actions are a major part of our Worker Center project, and always include a theatrical component. In October 2008, we staged a "Citizens' Arrest" of a Wall Street Banker and his Politician Crony, attended by 40+ people, to illustrate the injustices of the bank bailout. On May Day 2009, we brought a voting booth to Wal Mart to ask for workplace democracy. The member-created performances at our July 4th, Labor Day, and May Day events also educate about issues in a fun way-in 2006, the play focused on Wal Mart, tying together the retail giant's violations of worker rights and destruction of local economies. Other successful events have included youth-focused concerts and a community symposium on worker rights with over 300 people, featuring workers and author Barbara Ehrenreich.
For a sampling of media coverage, see Recent News.