Constructed, Constricted, and Contested Fields: Farmworker Legal Exclusions, Supply Chain Pressures, and Pro-Worker Interventions

• In Event: Regulation and Precarious Work

Abstract

Farmworkers are essential to the U.S. food system but remain excluded from important labor protections granted to industrial workers. This paper argues that farmworker precarity is produced through the interaction of sedimentary legal exclusion (layered and segmented rights across labor law, immigration governance, and legal representation access) and supply-chain pressures that allow for economic control with the lead firm while pushing down risk and compliance costs downstream. I develop a three-track model of agricultural labor governance around: 1) labor and employment law (NLRA/FLSA exclusions), 2) immigration and guest worker regulation, and 3) legal remedy access (legal aid funding and class action lawsuit restrictions). Drawing on policy and archival analysis, 34 interviews across multiple regions, and ethnographic observations, I show that the three-track model interacts with supply chain pressures and contracting and subcontracting schemes to hamper bargaining and facilitate shifting responsibility down the chain. I then compare three idea-typical intervention models – union, tripartite agreements, and worker-driven private governance models—to explain how movements “recouple” accountability.

Author

• Victor Yengle, University of Virginia