Working in the Shadows, by Gabriel Thompson, offers a groundbreaking view of low-wage workers in the U.S. Thompson interweaves his real-time experiences as a worker alongside the reality of low-wage work across several demanding industries including lettuce harvesting in Arizona, poultry processing in Alabama, and flower and restaurant delivery in New York City. What started as an endeavor to discover and experience the lives of immigrants working in the U.S. opened up a broader view about the low-wage labor market.
Thomson’s firsthand accounts from 2008 continue to resonate today, offering much to discuss about the conditions of low wage work, how workers manage in scale industries, economic insecurity, immigration, local labor markets, and the challenges of understanding workers' experiences through both research and journalism.
This summer, Gabriel joined a book club of Duke University scholars hosted by Professor Lisa Gennetian for a conversation and Q&A about the book, his reporting process, and how the issues he encountered continue to shape his work.
Q&A with Gabriel Thompson
Alabama already had an ag-gag law on the books in 2002, years before you went undercover at the Pilgrim's Pride plant in Russellville. Did that law ever come up as a risk while you were there, or did it only become a more immediate issue for undercover food and labor journalism after your book came out and the larger wave of ag-gag laws emerged beginning around 2011?
Gabriel Thompson: I wasn’t aware of any ag-gag laws when I went to Alabama, and only after returning did I read a few long articles about the spread of such laws and the potential consequences that journalists or activists could face. (Including this feature from 2013 in Mother Jones.) So it wasn’t on my radar, which is good, because it was one less thing I had to worry about.
What aspects of workers' lives or experiences were hardest to capture in the book, either because they were difficult to observe or difficult to convey to readers who have never worked in these environments?
Gabriel Thompson: I would say that the hardest thing to capture is the monotony and ordinariness of low-wage and punishing work, best exemplified in the book with the poultry plant work. There is a journalistic tendency to really bump up the volume when describing the work—you know, to emphasize how gross or painful it is, how oppressive it is, etc.—not exactly exaggerating what you see, but describing it as you find it when experiencing it for a short period as an outsider. And that doesn’t capture at all what it likes for most workers, I don’t think. It’s hard and oppressive, yes, but it’s not experienced as foreign or exotic or remarkable. It is a slog that doesn’t pay enough to survive and does damage to your body, and goes on and on, and that’s perhaps one of the toughest aspects to capture... the boredom, the low-thrumming pain, the sense that the next day won’t bring anything surprising or particularly interesting. And how hard it can be to have your days structured around a job like that.
Your experience in Russellville, AL, painted a daunting portrait of the uphill battle facing local economies with only one or two 'games in town' in terms of work. How did your experience change the way you think about these towns and what they need to thrive?
Gabriel Thompson: I guess one answer is that of course there needs to be other opportunities for people...that Russellville points to the need for a diversified economy, with jobs that college graduates can come home to pursue, instead of having to go elsewhere. But what I’d also say is that, even if you imagine a city like Russellville with the poultry plant alongside a more robust white-collar sector, or just more middle-class jobs in general, you still haven’t solved the problem for people at the poultry plant, who presumably will still be there, still struggling. So you also have to still solve this first problem, which is making the jobs that are in town better jobs.
The different jobs you wrote about all seem to have relatively stable schedules, but some of the literature on working conditions has shed light on the prevalence of schedule instability and unpredictability in many occupations. Is that something you thought about when you were writing the book? Is that something you would consider if you were writing the book today?
Gabriel Thompson: Definitely, and it’s something I’ve written about more in recent years—the transformation of so much work into gig work, and the ways that breakdown of that employer-employee contract (as problematic as it can be) can leave workers even more vulnerable, stressed, and without even the weakest of safety nets. So much has changed in a short period of time.
If you were beginning the research and writing process today, in 2026, where would you start? Are there different industries, worker populations, or labor issues you would focus on? How might changes in technology, immigration policy, and the gig economy shape the story you might tell? Do you think it would be easier or harder to gain the same insights into workers' lives
Gabriel Thompson: I think the gig experience would be important to include, but while much has changed, there is still a whole lot that has remained relatively static. Farmwork, meatpacking, poultry—these are still industries that disproportionately employ immigrants. The backdrop would be different, as the Trump administration’s assault on immigrants has been central to immigrant’s daily lives and their work experiences. That alone would make it more difficult, I think, to make the sorts of inroads I made on the job. Nowadays, I assume there would be a lot more suspicion towards something like me showing up in the fields, for example.
Based on your experience as a delivery worker, how has that shaped the way you engage with delivery services and the gig economy today? In your view, has the arrival of Uber and similar platforms ultimately been beneficial for workers?
Gabriel Thompson: The delivery industry can be very confusing and very diverse in terms of worker experiences. A unionized driver for UPS can have good pay and benefits. The driver of an Amazon van who is wearing an Amazon shirt and drops off your package probably doesn’t even work for Amazon and likely doesn’t have any benefits and is just scraping by. In terms of platforms like Uber, a lot depends on whether workers are able to successfully organize. In California, there is now a recognized California Gig Workers Union that will negotiate with Lyft and Uber, but it’s too early to tell what the end result will be.
Thank you Gabriel for producing an informative and engaging book and bringing life to the realities of low-wage workers and their communities that are too often overlooked. We really appreciated your reflections about a book written more than fifteen years ago!
