The Harvest of Farmworkers Never Ends: Farm Labor Contractors and the Reproduction of Precarity in the Willamette Valley
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Date
2022-10-26
Authors
Contreras-Medrano, Diego
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
University of Oregon
Abstract
Farm labor contractors are third-party employers and critical components ofinternational labor chains that prevail worldwide through the recruitment and
management of temporary workers. While the public often focuses on the dichotomy
between farmworkers and growers, the agriculture industry's reality is more complex.
This dissertation analyzed the reproduction of precarious labor conditions among
farmworkers employed by farm labor contractors in the Willamette Valley, Oregon.
Through on-site observations and in-depth interviews, I analyzed agricultural contractors’
and workers’ migration process with their experiences of labor conditions that lack
standardized arrangements, job security, living wages, union representation, nondangerous
workplaces, and well-funded enforcement institutions to prevent employers’
illegal practices. I address the reproduction of precarious labor in the agriculture industry
by asking: first, how do farm labor contractors reproduce precarious labor conditions?
The secondary questions I ask are: how does the process of becoming a contractor
reproduce precarious labor? What entrepreneurial and managerial strategies do contractors design to reproduce precarious labor? What are farmworkers’ tactics to
survive precarity through contractors’ employment?
The Willamette Valley offered a unique context for the study of precariousness in
agriculture: Oregon has some of the most significant agricultural productions in the
country, an industry where farm labor contractors provide from one to two-thirds of the
employment, unfunded enforcement institutions that lack personnel to punish abusive
employers, as well as state regulations that deny farmworkers’ access to labor benefits,
union representation, and collective bargaining.
Through the lenses of borders epistemology, I addressed different research
questions to understand how precarious labor conditions are reproduced in agriculture,
and analyzed the multiple borders that farmworkers and farm labor contractors have
crossed and those that have represented constant limitations: the borders between
countries and states, between strategies and tactics, between formal and informal
economy, and between precarity and standardized labor conditions.
Description
Keywords
Farm Labor Contractors, Farmworkers, International Migration, Labor Studies, Precarity