In a recent article, I explored the world of the international farm worker market and the way many such workers fall through the cracks of local labor regulations, leaving workers marginalized and exploited.
The highly competitive nature of the food market means that wages generally have to be kept incredibly low for farms to be profitable. Consumers typically buy into this bargain as they want the lowest prices for their food, even if they say they would be happy to pay a bit extra for more responsible farming to become the norm, this seldom translates into changes in buyer behavior.
This results in migrant farmworkers often housed in extremely cramped conditions and given little opportunity to integrate into the host culture. These awful conditions are largely ignored by authorities, with recruiters doing all they can to prevent any collective bargaining that may improve the workers’ lot.
Informal labor
A recent study from UCLA suggests a similar picture exists for informal laborers in a wide range of sectors. The researchers examined the informal labor market in six countries and found a general picture of exploitation due to either weak labor protections or a general lack of enforcement.
The research, which focused on the construction and domestic sectors in India, China, Mexic, South Korea, South Africa, and the United States, found that many workers suffer from a lack of protection by standard employment laws, but can manage to organize one another and improve their work conditions.
The construction and domestic sectors were specifically chosen as men tend to gravitate towards construction work, with domestic work attracting women. The researchers suggest that the gendered nature of each section plays a big role in the types of legal protections offered to workers. For instance, the concentration of women in domestic work draws parallels with the traditional female role of caregiving, which the authors believe partly explains why such work is so often excluded from many labor protections.
“Domestic work continues to be plagued by patriarchal norms and gender discrimination,” the researchers explain. “Furthermore, even when legal protections are in place, domestic workers tend to fall through the cracks due in part to patriarchal biases in implementation of the law.”
Shut out
In the United States, for example, domestic workers are excluded from primary labor standard laws, such as overtime pay, meal breaks, and the standard eight-hour work day. This is also true in China, despite domestic workers in theory being covered by the Labor Contract Law, as a lack of enforcement is widespread.
Construction workers, by contrast, have much better protection and are covered by labor laws in all six of the countries studied. This doesn’t exclude them from exploitation, however, as things like union contracts and employment laws often go unenforced due to the positioning of the workers at a long chain of subcontractors.
“Between multiple layers of subcontracting and exploitation of vulnerable populations such as migrants and marginalized racial and ethnic groups, many construction jobs simply ignore basic legal protections,” the researchers say.
As with the farmworkers mentioned in my previous article, the migrant status of many construction and domestic workers is also a significant factor. This is especially so in China and India, where exploitation of migrant workers is significant.
The ethnic and racial status of the workers was also an important factor. For instance, in the United States, both construction and domestic workers are overwhelmingly people of color. Similarly, those occupying these roles in South Korea are overwhelmingly ethnic Koreans migrating from China.
Joining forces
There were signs of hope, however, as across each nation, and indeed both sectors, informal workers were able to improve their lot by working together. For instance, domestic workers in Mexico and South Africa have managed to form unions, with their peers in South Korea forming a cooperative.
These efforts have had some impressive results thus far. For instance, in India, the informal workers were able to pool together and gain access to vital state benefits. Similarly, in the United States, construction workers managed to establish day labor centers that were able to set wage standards.
The researchers believe that the commonality in both trends and strategies employed by informal workers across countries and industries offers not only inspiration for similar workers around the world, but also some direction for policymakers to begin plugging the gaps that leave so many people behind.
“Domestic and construction workers all over the world are standing up for their rights,” the researchers conclude. “A key goal in doing this research was to identify global best practices, but also diverse practices that work in diverse settings, so that organizers can learn from each other’s experiences.”
