The Harvest of Farmworkers Never Ends: Farm Labor Contractors and the Reproduction of Precarity in the Willamette Valley
| dc.contributor.advisor | Scott, Ellen | |
| dc.contributor.author | Contreras-Medrano, Diego | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2022-10-26T15:33:09Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2022-10-26T15:33:09Z | |
| dc.date.issued | 2022-10-26 | |
| dc.description.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. | en_US |
| dc.identifier.uri | https://hdl.handle.net/1794/27776 | |
| dc.language.iso | en_US | |
| dc.publisher | University of Oregon | |
| dc.rights | All Rights Reserved. | |
| dc.subject | Farm Labor Contractors | en_US |
| dc.subject | Farmworkers | en_US |
| dc.subject | International Migration | en_US |
| dc.subject | Labor Studies | en_US |
| dc.subject | Precarity | en_US |
| dc.title | The Harvest of Farmworkers Never Ends: Farm Labor Contractors and the Reproduction of Precarity in the Willamette Valley | |
| dc.type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation | |
| thesis.degree.discipline | Department of Sociology | |
| thesis.degree.grantor | University of Oregon | |
| thesis.degree.level | doctoral | |
| thesis.degree.name | Ph.D. |
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