Contract, control and Contestation: Harvesting Lemmons for Export

ORTIZ, SUTTI; APARICIO, SUSANA

Journal of Peasants Studies

Taylor and Francis Journals

Lugar: London; Año: 2006 vol. 33 p. 161 - 188

0306-6150

The 1990s saw a significant shift in economic policies in Argentina. A shift which cheapened investment in new technologies that eventually allowed more effective and efficient managerial strategies. This was important to horticultural export industries as they encountered a growing number of entry regulation and purveyors demands in importing countries. At the same time, the dollarization of the economy escalated labour costs, challenging the competitiveness of fresh fruit exports. Producers became concerned about the slow pace of the promise of policies to liberalise and flexibilise labour market regulations. They also worried about the resurgence of the power of labour unions. Although all citrus producers and vertically integrated firms faced the above constraints, they used a range of labour process strategies to overcome these obstacles. The vertically integrated firms aiming to export a significant volume of fresh fruit invested in a technology which eventually made possible the use of self-monitoring work teams. This strategy was also used by some smaller producers active in the fresh fruit export market but they also relied on favours and social exchanges to gain the collaboration of their harvesters. In contrast, firms that concentrated on the industrialization of the fruit were less motivated to incorporate all of the technological solutions offered; they relied on sanctions to insure the quality of their exportable fruit. Size and degree of participation in the export fresh fruit were factors in producers’ choice of labour control trajectories.             We use the term trajectory because some of these choices have introduced new agents. Their presence restructured the work process often creating new tensions and new forms of protest. Subcontracting, for example, transformed the monitoring system in the large firms. It segmented the lines of communication and authority and triangulated the relation between firms’ monitors, contractors and foremen. While these changes had less impact on firms that concentrated on the industrialization of the fruit, it had more serious consequences for those firms concerned about the quality of the fruit exported. The failure of firms to recognise that payment incentives to contractors and foremen no longer reflected all of their interests, led to frictions that were difficult to resolve. Recriminations fell on the harvesters and tensions rose in the orchards. To these structural tensions we have to add those fostered by labourers´ anger and resentment about their poverty and substandard income.             A union that showed insufficient interest in the plight of harvesters, a labour force segmented by a subcontracting strategy, and competition amongst foremen deterred collective action. Harvesters were also hindered by their weak market power. Unable to renegotiate wages, harvesters struggled to address contractual abuses and rate adjustments. They expressed their complaints and frustrations through “everyday forms of resistance” which took the form of high rates of absenteeism and turnover as well as sloppy work performance. This strategy was ineffective as managers gave it a totally different reading. For them it demonstrated labourers’ social attitudes rather than their economic plight.  Consequently these forms of resistance exacerbated tensions and the transactional cost of subcontracting of the piece rate contract. The firms that were more affected were those with a higher percentage of unregistered young labourers. One result has been the development of “responsible autonomy” harvesting systems, regarded as more palatable than offering financial incentives to harvesters. When the firms using this system are efficient, willing to pay enough and to insure that their contractors register all labourers, the quality of fruit improves and crews are more reliable. The approach permitted harvesters to align their interests with those of the “owners of the fruit” and to adopt an ethos of “responsibility”. This change also reduced tensions between foremen and contractors. However, a full adoption of all technological improvements, when coupled with autonomous harvesting teams and computerised oversight, has increased the monitoring role of firms who “own the fruit” and undermined the ability of labourers to challenge sanctions.             The year 2002 marked the beginning of a new era for Tucumán’s lemon industry. On the one hand, the peso was devalued, which reordered the ranking of costs. Labour became cheap, while chemical inputs and transportation skyrocketed. On the other hand, it ushered in a government with a greater proclivity to dictate wage increases through decrees. It also marked a turning point in the decline of the market for industrial citrus products and a saturation of the global fresh fruit market. Given these developments, the industry will have to restructure itself once again and find new ways to sustain itself and remain competitive. No doubt there will be a range of choices and complex combinations of control strategies, some new and some old and familiar.