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Introduction: How David Beat Goliath

Marshall Ganz

in Why David Sometimes Wins: Leadership, Strategy and the Organization in the California Farm Worker Movement

By 1977 the United Farm Workers (UFW) had successfully negotiated more than 100 union contracts, recruited a dues-paying membership of more than 50,000, and secured enactment of the California ... More

By 1977 the United Farm Workers (UFW) had successfully negotiated more than 100 union contracts, recruited a dues-paying membership of more than 50,000, and secured enactment of the California Agricultural Labor Relations Act, the only legislative guarantee of farm workers' collective bargaining rights in the continental United States. Why did the UFW succeed at such a daunting task—a task at which other far more powerful organizations had repeatedly failed? This book argues that the UFW succeeded, while the rival AFL-CIO and Teamsters failed, because the UFW's leadership devised a more effective strategy, in fact a stream of effective strategies. The UFW was able to do this because the motivation of its leaders was greater than that of their rivals; they had better access to salient knowledge; and their deliberations became venues for learning. The three elements of strategic capacity—the ability to devise good strategy—are discussed.Less

Epilogue

John Weber

in From South Texas To the Nation: The Exploitation of Mexican Labor in the Twentieth Century

This chapter examines the continued importance of this form of labor relations in the years since the 1960s, as South Texas has continued to serve as a model for employers elsewhere eager to avail ... More

This chapter examines the continued importance of this form of labor relations in the years since the 1960s, as South Texas has continued to serve as a model for employers elsewhere eager to avail themselves of poorly-paid workers who lack the ability to claim the basic rights of citizenship. The lessons learned in the fields of South Texas, in other words, were not only borrowed by agricultural employers. Instead, employers have increasingly sought to use the model of farmworker treatment and apply it to workers far removed from the fields. Industrial and service employers continue to try and emulate the enforced powerlessness of agricultural workers, even if they no longer consciously point to South Texas as their explicit model. The Epilogue examines the continued resonance and importance of this model of labor relations as it has moved beyond the agricultural realm and into service and industrial employment.Less

Last Things

R. Douglas Hurt

in Agriculture and the Confederacy: Policy, Productivity, and Power in the Civil War South

This chapter discusses the aftermath of the collapse of agriculture in the Confederacy following the end of the Civil War. The winter of 1864–1865 brought despair and the realization that the ... More

This chapter discusses the aftermath of the collapse of agriculture in the Confederacy following the end of the Civil War. The winter of 1864–1865 brought despair and the realization that the military and agricultural power of the Confederates had vanished. Hunger persisted, food prices soared, and resentment festered against the government for the impressment of agricultural provisions, mandated low prices for army purchases, and the tax-in-kind, as well as for the impressment of slaves and conscription policies. The rest of this chapter examines the uncertain future of farmers and planters across the South after the war; the problems that southern farmers had to deal with in the postwar era, including livestock diseases; how white farmers and planters struggled to adjust to a new order for agricultural labor; and the transition from slavery to freedom in the Confederacy.Less

Stability and Change in Towns and Cities, 1770–1810

C. A. Bayly

in Rulers, Townsmen and Bazaars: North Indian Society in the Age of British Expansion 1770-1870

This chapter considers the stability and change in towns and cities in north India and examines the relationship between political power and flows of revenue and trade which lay at the heart of the ... More

This chapter considers the stability and change in towns and cities in north India and examines the relationship between political power and flows of revenue and trade which lay at the heart of the new kingdoms. It explains that it was during this period that the dominant urban landholding and trading groups, which were to persist through until the 1930s and 1940s, were able to establish themselves. The chapter suggests that during the later eighteenth century, agricultural labour, capital, and the investment of the political elites were redistributed across the north Indian countryside. This gave some groups like gentry, warriors, and merchants significant social advancement. The local decline in the agriculture of unstable tracts was matched by the expansion of marketing and cultivation on the fringes of tracts. The search for legitimacy within the Mughal polity; the expression of piety within the caste system; and the elite expenditure buoyed up towns and cities.Less

‘Slaves of the Soil’: Caste and Agricultural Slavery in South India

in Slavery, Abolitionism and Empire in India, 1772-1843

In 1811, nine children were found to be working at the Randaterra plantation set up by the East India Company in Anjarakandy, South India. The Anjarakandy episode has important implications for the ... More

In 1811, nine children were found to be working at the Randaterra plantation set up by the East India Company in Anjarakandy, South India. The Anjarakandy episode has important implications for the EIC's labour policy and attitudes to social and agrarian relations in South India. This chapter suggests that the EIC and its representatives exploited and distorted local customs in order to utilise agricultural labour for their own interest. Using the debate over slavery at Anjarakandy, it explores colonial conceptions of caste within South Indian agricultural relations and how colonial officials provided a point of reference against which coercive colonial labour systems such as indenture could be constructed as ‘free’. The chapter also examines the suppression of slavery at a time of stable revenue collection and an emerging plantation economy that demanded a reliable labour supply.Less

Changing dynamics of exploitation in rural South India

Jonathan Pattenden

in "Labour, state and society in rural India": A class-relational approach

This chapter focuses on the changing dynamics of exploitation in rural India. It explores different forms of informality and fragmentation, and shows how the dominant class reproduces its control ... More

This chapter focuses on the changing dynamics of exploitation in rural India. It explores different forms of informality and fragmentation, and shows how the dominant class reproduces its control over rural-based labour when it is i) working in agriculture, ii) commuting to nearby cities, and iii) migrating to distant cities primarily to work in the construction sector. Although labour relations in agriculture have become less personalised they continue to be characterised by various ties and forms of unfreedom (bonded labour, neo-bonded debt-tied labour, sharecropping and piece-rate labour are all discussed). Meanwhile, construction capital uses forms of ‘remote control’ over circular migrants - using intermediaries to discipline labour, and ensuring widespread marginalisation from pro-labour state regulations and programmes. The final part of the chapter considers the possibility for pro-labouring class change, and changing socio-political dynamics and how they vary across commuting and circulating labour.Less

Hidden Hands of the Harvest

Adam Tompkins

in Ghostworkers and Greens: The Cooperative Campaigns of Farmworkers and Environmentalists for Pesticide Reform

This chapter examines the growth of a large marginalized, often migratory, workforce that was systematically disempowered by growers and government: the farmworkers. The modernization and ... More

This chapter examines the growth of a large marginalized, often migratory, workforce that was systematically disempowered by growers and government: the farmworkers. The modernization and professionalization of agriculture reshaped many farm owners’ thinking about labor and production. Beginning in the twentieth century, multitudes of migrant laborers shouldered the burden of work on large farms that used to be handled by families and local hired hands. This chapter considers how farm owners, acting in concert with the government, denied farmworkers political power in order to maintain a cheap and plentiful supply of agricultural labor. It argues that farmworkers, who acted as the “hidden” hands of the harvest, fell out of view of the public eye and did not benefit from the protection of the growing body of labor laws introduced in the mid-twentieth century. It shows how farmworkers sought allies outside of the agricultural industry in their pesticide reform campaigns.Less

Western Collapse

R. Douglas Hurt

in Agriculture and the Confederacy: Policy, Productivity, and Power in the Civil War South

This chapter focuses on the collapse of agriculture in the Western Confederacy as the Civil War drew to a close. As Union forces occupied more and more territory in 1864, farmers and planters could ... More

This chapter focuses on the collapse of agriculture in the Western Confederacy as the Civil War drew to a close. As Union forces occupied more and more territory in 1864, farmers and planters could see that the end was near. Isolated Confederate forces and partisans still disrupted agriculture in some areas, but for most farmers and planters in the region the war had ended. As they turned their attention to cotton, sugar, and daily subsistence, they continued to adjust to a new system of free labor that had been instituted in 1863. The rest of this chapter discusses the improvement in the supply of agricultural commodities in the river towns from New Orleans north to Memphis where Federal soldiers controlled the river valley; the food shortages suffered by many Confederate towns in Louisiana and elsewhere; the question of agricultural labor after the war; and the increase in agricultural prices throughout the Confederacy.Less

‘’Tis agreeable to see what use he has made of his Reading’: Writing ‘The Thresher’s Labour’

Jennifer Batt

in Class, Patronage, and Poetry in Hanoverian England: Stephen Duck, The Famous Threshing Poet

This chapter explores a question which has preoccupied readers of Stephen Duck’s writing from the eighteenth century to the present day: how would a man who had spent much of his life working on a ... More

This chapter explores a question which has preoccupied readers of Stephen Duck’s writing from the eighteenth century to the present day: how would a man who had spent much of his life working on a farm write about rural life and agricultural labour? Duck’s most critically acclaimed work is ‘The Thresher's Labour’, a poeticized account of a year in the life of an agricultural labourer. This chapter offers a new reading of this much-discussed poem by considering it in the light of the literary sources and models with which Duck was familiar. The chapter argues that Duck’s artfully crafted labourer’s-eye view of the agricultural year drew on his reading as much as it did his lived experience. Duck’s poem challenged conventional poetic idealizations of rural life and labour not because—as some of Duck’s readers have assumed—it was the work of an uneducated thresher; rather, that challenge was the deliberate result of Duck’s careful study of those very poetic conventions.Less

The Nature of Agricultural Labor

Damian Alan Pargas

in The Quarters and the Fields: Slave Families in the Non-Cotton South

The nature of agricultural labor in various southern localities had important consequences for enslaved people's time and flexibility in reconciling their status as forced laborers with their duties ... More

The nature of agricultural labor in various southern localities had important consequences for enslaved people's time and flexibility in reconciling their status as forced laborers with their duties as family members. This chapter explores and explains the daily and seasonal work of enslaved people in each of the three chosen regions of the non-cotton South. The aim of this chapter is to provide a broad understanding of enslaved people's agricultural labor, as well as a basis from which to further examine the boundaries and opportunities created by work for slave families in the subsequent chapters.Less

When China Runs Out of Farmers

Luc Christiaensen

in Food Security and Sociopolitical Stability

China’s success in feeding itself has defied the expectations of many. But, rising agricultural labor costs, increasing competition from imports following renminbi appreciation, and growing ... More

China’s success in feeding itself has defied the expectations of many. But, rising agricultural labor costs, increasing competition from imports following renminbi appreciation, and growing agro-climatic uncertainty in the face of tightening land and water constraints and rising cereal feed demand for increasingly protein-rich diets are challenging its smallholder and cereal self-sufficiency model. These farm income and food problems could be overcome by a moderate relaxation of the cereal self-sufficiency ambitions (especially for maize) and institutional innovations in the land, labor, and capital markets, keeping smallholder farming commercially viable. These would help maintain sociopolitical stability at home (by containing food price inflation and reducing the rural–urban divide) and abroad (by avoiding sudden entrance into the world food markets).Less

Work and the Irish District Asylums during the late nineteenth century

Oonagh Walsh

in Work, Psychiatry and Society, C. 1750-2015

This chapter examines work and its uses – therapeutic, punitive and productive - in the Irish District Asylum system in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Through a number of case studies, ... More

This chapter examines work and its uses – therapeutic, punitive and productive - in the Irish District Asylum system in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Through a number of case studies, the chapter discusses the utilisation of work in a number of asylum settings, and evaluates its usage for specific patient cohorts. Labour, paid or unpaid, served several purposes within Irish institutions, and its status as well as the manner in which it was assigned changed, depending upon the individual patient. Indoor work was prized over outdoor agricultural labour, and an informal hierarchy of roles developed within the asylum, with often intense competition for especially valued occupations such as support for asylum staff. While the asylum physician frequently used a willingness to work as a test of sanity, it was also often embraced by patients themselves as a means of re-establishing a connection to their former life in the outside world, affirming their identity as a coherent, productive individual. The chapter also examines those who did not, or could not, work, and assesses the criteria applied by medical and nursing staff to determine whether any patient should be compelled to labour for their keep.Less

Rural Tamil Nadu in the Liberalization Era: What Do We Learn from Village Studies?*

John Harriss and J. Jeyaranjan

in The Changing Village in India: Insights from Longitudinal Research

Review findings of villages conducted in Tamil Nadu over the last 20 years, the authors conclude that the state might be described as ‘post-agrarian’, in view of the declining importance of ... More

Review findings of villages conducted in Tamil Nadu over the last 20 years, the authors conclude that the state might be described as ‘post-agrarian’, in view of the declining importance of agriculture in rural livelihoods, the extent of diversification of employment, and reliance on social welfare provided by the state. Formerly powerful land owning castes are leaving the villages, and those that remain no longer enjoy the power over others. Landlessness has increased in some villages but there is no evidence that it meant the consolidation of large holdings, and in some cases small-scale ‘family farming’, relying largely on household labour, may have strengthened. There has been a tightening of rural labour markets, to which welfare provisioning by the state has contributed, and farmers complain of ‘labour shortage’. Agricultural labour is increasingly dominated by Dalits, who are still discriminated against in access to other forms of employment, and by women.Less

Bangladesh: Jobs and Growth in an Urbanizing Economy

Mahabub Hossain, Binayak Sen, and Yasuyuki Sawada

in Jobs For Development: Challenges and Solutions in Different Country Settings

Bangladesh provides a successful example of a country that has been able to support sustainable and inclusive growth through the creation of jobs that are productivity enhancing and poverty reducing. ... More

Bangladesh provides a successful example of a country that has been able to support sustainable and inclusive growth through the creation of jobs that are productivity enhancing and poverty reducing. Jobs have had significant positive social and economic externalities even in the face of the relatively low governance typical of low-income countries. This chapter delves into the long-term dynamics of sectoral transformation—underpinned by the modernization of agriculture supported by vibrant outward-oriented non-agricultural growth. Bangladesh’s story also involves the growing economic participation of women, youth, and the extreme poor. Bangladesh’s success has been premised on a realistic policy mix of blending domestic factors of modernization with a relatively open stance on the role of manufactured exports, international labor migration, and rapid urbanization. It provides important insights as to how to promote inclusive growth through sustained and diversified job creation in the context of an industrializing low-income, high-density, labor-surplus economy.Less

‘Various Beauties overpay my Toil’: Reimagining Landscape and Labour

Jennifer Batt

in Class, Patronage, and Poetry in Hanoverian England: Stephen Duck, The Famous Threshing Poet

This chapter explores how Stephen Duck’s approach to writing about rural landscapes and labour changed in the years after he was awarded patronage by Queen Caroline. The Queen’s support meant that ... More

This chapter explores how Stephen Duck’s approach to writing about rural landscapes and labour changed in the years after he was awarded patronage by Queen Caroline. The Queen’s support meant that Duck moved from the agricultural fields of Wiltshire to the polite and royal gardens of Richmond and Kew. This chapter traces Duck’s journey from a landscape of labour to a landscape of leisure. How far was it possible for the former farm labourer to reimagine his relationship with the agricultural environment? As this chapter argues, Duck’s writing of the 1730s was preoccupied with examining his newly transformed relationship to agricultural landscapes and polite gardens, and to work and leisure. This was a key means by which he attempted to demonstrate his gratitude to his patrons: he used his writing about labour and landscapes to show how well he had taken advantage of the opportunities they had made available to him.Less

Hop-Picking Time

Peter A. Kopp

in Hoptopia: A World of Agriculture and Beer in Oregon's Willamette Valley

Because of the West’s scarce labor situation, hop growers early on recognized the need to hire workers from all walks of life, including men and women, old and young, and across racial and ethnic ... More

Because of the West’s scarce labor situation, hop growers early on recognized the need to hire workers from all walks of life, including men and women, old and young, and across racial and ethnic lines. From the beginning, the three-week hop harvest was a multicultural affair that revealed the diversity of the West. The first half of this chapter explains the English origins of the American harvest season, including the actual demands and the festiveness of the harvest that many called a paid vacation. The second half of the chapter explains the opportunities and challenges that American Indian and East Asian agricultural workers faced while working in the Pacific Northwest hopyards during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.Less

Women and agricultural labour in China

Alan de Brauw

in The Oxford Companion to the Economics of China

This chapter discusses the feminization of agricultural labour in China. Data from the China Health and Nutrition Study shows that the average share of farm work performed by women increased from 53 ... More

This chapter discusses the feminization of agricultural labour in China. Data from the China Health and Nutrition Study shows that the average share of farm work performed by women increased from 53 per cent in 1997 to 59 per cent in 2009. Women also did all of the farm work in a rapidly increasing proportion of households, reaching 29.1 per cent of households in 2009. The feminization of the agricultural labour force is expected to continue at least in the relatively near future, particularly as Hukou restrictions remain in place, tying rural labourers to their land.Less