At the Intersection of Productive and Reproductive Labor: Latina Apple Packers’ Pandemic Struggles

Abstract

Analyzing 2020 wildcat strikes by Latina fruit packers in a mid-size agricultural region in Washington State, this article demonstrates how Social Reproduction Theory illuminates productive sphere struggles, not only reproductive labor fights. The COVID-19 pandemic intensified a preexisting social reproduction crisis, catalyzing collective action across seven facilities. Workers sustained strikes while building “care-centered communities” that merged workplace demands with vaccination clinics, mutual aid, and collective mourning. Their organizing reveals how reproductive obligations both discipline workers into precarious jobs and provide affective networks fueling resistance, challenging assumptions about who organizes and how marginalized workers connect factory and community struggles.