Assistant Professor Lola Loustaunau has published a new article in Labor Studies Journal titled “At the Intersection of Productive and Reproductive Labor: Latina Apple Packers’ Pandemic Struggles.” The article contributes to scholarship in labor studies, feminist political economy, and social movement research.
The study examines a wave of wildcat strikes that took place in 2020 across seven apple-packing facilities in a mid-sized agricultural region of Washington State. As the COVID-19 pandemic intensified already hazardous working conditions and deepened economic and caregiving pressures, Latina fruit packers organized collectively to demand safer workplaces and increased accountability from employers.
Drawing on Social Reproduction Theory, Loustaunau challenges the assumption that this framework applies primarily to struggles outside the workplace, such as those centered on housing, healthcare, or family care. Instead, the article demonstrates how social reproduction dynamics actively shape conflicts within paid labor. Workers’ reproductive responsibilities—often understood as factors that constrain them to low-wage, precarious employment—also generated networks of care, solidarity, and emotional support that sustained collective action.
By centering Latina workers, whose organizing is frequently underrepresented in labor scholarship, the article illustrates how marginalized workers connect workplace resistance with broader community struggles, expanding prevailing understandings of labor organizing during periods of crisis.