Starving Amidst Too Much

& Other IWW Writings on the Food Industry

edited by Peter Rachleff

with an introduction by Carlos Cortez
with contributions by Jack Sheridan, Jim Seymour, L. S. Chumley, and T-Bone Slim

Publication date: March 2005
Paperback: $12.00

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This is a book about the irrepressible conflict between the poorly paid workers who actually feed the world and the parasitical multi-billionaire corporate powers that make the rules and grabs the profits. Reproduced here are rare classic documents on the "food question" by four old-time members of the IWW. T-Bone Slim provides a detailed critique of the industry—chockfull of penetrating insight and knockout black humor. Organizer L.S. Chorley portrays the horrid living and working conditions of hotel and restaurant workers circa 1918, stressing the need for workers' direct action. Wobbly troubadour Jim Semour, with his inspired saga of "The Dishwasher" reflects on the possibilities of a radically different diet. Jack Sheridan's fascinating 1959 survey of the role of food in ancient and modern civilization, especially in economic development, is also a crash-course in the materialist conception of history at its Wobbly soapboxer best. In his introduction, historian/activist Peter Rachleff traces the history of the food-workers' self-organization and brings the book up to date with a look at current point-of-production struggles to break the haughty power of an ecocidal agribusiness and the union-busting fast-food chains. Plus a foreword by Carlos Cortez.