Abstract
This article examines precarious employment in the context of the mushroom industry in Northern Ireland. Migrant workers engaged in mushroom picking were interviewed in the context of wider research investigating forced labour in Northern Ireland. The research found that, while the boundaries between exploitation and forced labour are complex and difficult to discern, there was some evidence of borderline forced labour, according to ILO definitions. However, workers found themselves on a ‘continuum of exploitation’, where initial engagement with the prospect of decent work was superseded by increasing endurance of exploitative practices, brought about by unequal power relationships with employers originating in immigration status. This is examined in the wider theoretical context of precarity, of which precarious employment comprises a part.
Introduction
This article explores the experiences of migrant workers in the mushroom industry in Northern Ireland and places them within a conceptual framework of precarious employment, making them vulnerable to exploitation and, it is argued, susceptible to forced labour.
While there have been significant developments in policy approaches to reduce exploitative labour in the UK, such as the licensing of labour providers in certain sectors of the economy, criminalization of forced labour and trafficking and tighter controls on employment agencies, Northern Ireland’s rural isolation and proximity to a porous border present potential opportunities for the exploitation of workers with limited knowledge of UK employment rights and language barriers. The findings of this paper are based on a series of interviews conducted with migrant workers from EU states working in the mushroom industry in Northern Ireland, subject to temporary restrictions to the right to work in the UK, and examines their experiences as part of a wider project looking at forced labour in Northern Ireland (see Allenby et al., 2011).
‘Precarity’ and ‘precarious employment’
Guy Standing (2011), building on an established theorization of precarité in francophone literature (see, for example, Bourdieu, 1998; Fréchet, 1993; Wresinski, 1987), develops the notion of a ‘precariat’, which has been created by the promotion of labour market flexibility that transfers risks and insecurity onto workers, a significant proportion of whom are migrant workers (Standing, 2011: 1, 90, 114). According to Standing (2011: 12): The precariat can be identified by a distinctive structure of social income, which imparts a vulnerability going well beyond what would be conveyed by the money income received at a particular moment.
This ‘precariat’ lacks the work-based identity that other strata of the workforce possess, whether the trust relationships with capital or the state of the ‘salariat’ or the social contract relationship of the ‘proletariat’ (p.8). Hence, workers in this condition can be used and discarded by employers without any sense of security or obligation. Indeed, Standing (2012a) maintains that this is what the global market wants: a class system of flexible, insecure workers, but not sufficiently cohesive to be a ‘class in itself’.
This structuring of the labour market generating worker vulnerability is also raised by Lloyd and James (2008) and MacKenzie and Forde (2009). They outline how supermarkets and employers, on the one hand, commit to positive ethical practices and praise the industry of workers, but, on the other hand, focus on cutting production costs, placing pressures on workers to deliver at the expense of work conditions and safety.
Standing has been challenged in that he fails to provide evidence for his claims, precarity is nothing new, that he makes a false distinction between ‘labour’ and ‘work’ and that he is unclear about solutions (Spencer, 2012), having no strategy to achieve what he calls a ‘politics of paradise’ (Kalleberg, 2012). It is also claimed that the main assumption of Standing’s work is that neo-liberalism is immoral and flawed and that popular resistance is ‘alive and kicking’, but there is little clarity on whether insecurity is an undesirable consequence of the global system or a necessary consequence of labour flexibility (Conley, 2012).
Standing’s (2012b) response is that the critiques have focused only on employment insecurity, not the wider understanding of precarity brought about by multiple factors. The theoretical understanding that underpins the analysis in this paper is that precarity based on residency status makes people vulnerable to precarious employment, demonstrated in the empirical evidence of the research.
The notion of ‘precarious employment’ is much contested, especially in the UK and US contexts, where it is often conflated with the related notion of job insecurity (Vosko et al., 2009: 4, 6). Rodgers and Rodgers (1989: 3) offer four dimensions to precarious work: the degree of certainty of continuing work; control over work; worker protection; and low income. As well as demonstrating these factors in the mushroom industry in Northern Ireland, this article also shows that what holds individuals in a state of precarity is an unequal power relationship brought about by restrictions associated with residency status, making workers vulnerable to exploitation.
In the context presented here, the concept of power is drawn from Walter Korpi’s (1985: 37) discussion of power. According to this theory, labour markets assume an exchange process where parties have access to alternatives; yet where actors have different power resources, the actor with the least power will continue an exchange relationship despite decreasing returns if there are limited alternatives. On the one hand, actors will do as well as they can with prevailing structures, which they will change where possible to their long-term advantage. On the other, large differences in power lead to weaker parties not resisting and modifying their levels of aspiration (Korpi, 1998: viii). In this case, residency criteria for migrant workers limit workers’ alternatives, thereby giving them an unequal exchange relationship with employers.
The research described here draws on the theoretical basis of ‘precarity’. Interviewees occupied an economic and social stratum, making them vulnerable to forces that do not affect the UK nationals around them and leaving them susceptible to exploitation.
Context of the research
This article draws on data from a research project investigating the incidence of forced labour in Northern Ireland. The definitional framework for forced labour is provided by UN legal instruments and International Labour Office (ILO) Conventions No. 29 (on forced labour) and Number 105 (on the abolition of forced labour). Convention No. 29 (1930) states that forced or compulsory labour shall mean (Article 2.1): All work or service which is exacted from any person under the menace of any penalty and for which the said person has not offered himself voluntarily.
The ILO has identified six basic indicators of forced labour (ILO, 2005: 20):
Threats or actual physical harm to the worker;
Restriction of movement and confinement, to the workplace or to a limited area;
Debt bondage (where the worker works to pay off a debt or loan, and is not paid for his or her services. The employer may provide food and accommodation at such inflated prices that the worker cannot escape the debt);
Withholding of wages or excessive wage reductions that violate previously made agreements;
Retention of passports and identity documents so that the worker cannot leave or prove his/her identity and status;
Threat of denunciation to the authorities, where the worker is in an irregular immigration status.
Indicators of forced labour in practice are grouped according to a lack of consent to work, or the ‘route into’ forced labour, and a menace of penalty, or the means of keeping someone in forced labour (ILO, 2008). As will be discussed below, the line between labour exploitation and forced labour is ambiguous. Indeed, Skřivánková (2010) refers to a ‘continuum of exploitation’, by which there is a range of employment situations that extend from ‘decent work’ to forced labour. Coghlan and Wylie (2011: 1514) argue that in Ireland many migrant workers experience difficulties along this ‘continuum of exploitation’. Individuals may begin at a point of actual or promised acceptable work and conditions, but find the reality leaves them with few choices when these deteriorate or do not live up to expectations. This is where differential power relations in the labour market exchange arrangement, facilitated by precarious residency status, readily leads to exploitation.
Forced labour is described as a process which leads from deception into more direct forms of coercion. The use of coercion and deception are generally believed to be useful indicators of whether or not an exploitative labour practice can be deemed to be one of forced labour (Craig et al., 2007: 17; Skřivánková, 2006).
Coercion is often subtle and can involve manipulation, psychological pressure and threats (Skřivánková, 2006: 16). The element of coercion may affect migrant workers in different ways and to varying degrees, but what is common to many cases is that the victims believed that they were not free to leave or change their present employment relationship (Anderson and Rogaly, 2005: 40). In an exploitative relationship involving one person controlling another in some form, the exploited individual may not necessarily perceive themselves to be a ‘victim’, but rather as someone who has no option but to do what is demanded of them (Craig et al., 2007: 17).
Migrant labour and the mushroom industry in Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland is a largely rural region of the UK, geographically separated from the rest of the country by the Irish Sea, and is the only part of the UK with a land border with another state, the largely unmarked and unmonitored border with the Republic of Ireland. Recent years have seen a trend of outward migration from Northern Ireland reverse to become a destination region for migrants working in local industries. The mushroom industry on the island of Ireland has become reliant on migrant labour, mostly working in isolated rural settings.
The exploitation of migrant workers in the workplace has been well documented. Working conditions, hours and overtime, lack of training and development, health and safety arrangements, treatment and expectations of work are reported to be significantly less favourable than for the indigenous population. This has been demonstrated in the literature of the UK (Dickens and McKnight, 2008; Ryan, 2007: 20; Winckler, 2007: 5; Zaronaite and Tirzite, 2006: 106–8), Republic of Ireland (Migrant Rights Centre Ireland (MRCI), 2006: 4, 2007: 6) and Northern Ireland (Holder, 2007: 30). Among the other issues reported for migrants in Northern Ireland are the impact of migration on health and access to health provision (Animate, 2005; Sobieraj, 2006; Southern Investing in Health Partnership (SIHP), 2007; South Tyrone Empowerment Programme (STEP), 2007), lack of recognition of experience and qualifications, working well below migrants’ skills levels (Down Diversity in Action Forum (DDAF), 2008: 22; Dungannon and South Tyrone Borough Council, 2008: 6; Potter, 2006: 44; SIHP, 2007: 13), lack of support to children in schools (Holder, 2007: 59) and lack of opportunities for integration (Allen et al., 2008). All these factors combine to disadvantage migrant workers and set them apart from the host population, making them more vulnerable to exploitation.
The agricultural sector in the UK generally is characterized by a declining local or ‘primary’ labour market and an increasing temporary ‘secondary’ market (Scott, 2008: 5). The increasing reluctance of local labour to engage in agricultural work has led to the demand for migrant labour, which has also made new opportunities in the sector viable. While lower than other sectors, wages are often higher than in home countries. Working in agriculture can be a platform for later upward mobility and some migrants take the work out of desperation (Scott, 2008: 5–8). The low wage, high turnover nature of agriculture and the limited potential for making the work more attractive through raising pay or improving conditions, coupled with the labour-intensive nature of fragile crop production which is not pre-disposed to mechanization (such as mushroom production), has led to the high concentration of seasonal migrant labour in agriculture (Anderson and Ruhs, 2008: 7, 29, 42; Chappell et al., 2009: 6; Sumption and Somerville, 2009: 27).
The mushroom industry in general is characterized by intensive use of migrant labour in European and US contexts (Garcia, 2007; Rezaei and Goli, 2008: 21). In addition, there is a long history of significant concerns raised about working conditions and health impacts on workers in the industry, such as long working hours, poor housing, low wages, unsafe working conditions, abuse and isolation (Martinez, 1978; Rezaei and Goli, 2008: 25). The nature of the work – labour-intensive hand picking in confined and often unhealthy environments in isolated areas by migrant workers – increases the vulnerability of individuals to exploitation in the industry. Scott et al. (2012: 47) discuss that within the food industry, including farming, there is a sense of ‘dehumanizing’ of workers by management and that management put supervisors under pressure to meet demand, who in turn put extreme pressure ‘on those who are most vulnerable’.
These circumstances have been confirmed in research on the mushroom industry in the Republic of Ireland (Baltruka et al., 2009; Comerford, 2007: 29; MRCI, 2006, 2008; Pillinger, 2007, 2008). This research has indicated that workers engaged in mushroom picking are often employed well below their qualifications and experience levels, are subject to excessive social isolation due to the industry being largely unregulated, invisible and located in remote areas, and that the pay tends to be well below the minimum wage. Workers often do not receive overtime pay or holiday pay, but are expected to work long hours, often subject to 24-hour call-out. Documentation problems are widely reported, such as lack of contracts and issues around tax, Work Permits and Pay-Related Social Insurance (PRSI), and poor or unsafe working conditions have been noted, including accidents due to fatigue, strain or poor health and safety arrangements, and illness due to exposure to chemicals or fungal spores (see Sakula, 1967). Many of these patterns are also reflected in the experiences of migrant workers interviewed in the research in Northern Ireland described here.
The specific situation of Northern Ireland has been identified as a transit point between the UK and Ireland, but there is little concrete information about the use and abuse of the border, in addition to the particular circumstances of Northern Ireland where there is reported involvement of paramilitary groups in trafficking (Skřivánková, 2006: 20). There have been cases reported of cross-border movement in the mushroom industry (MRCI, 2006: 17). This is an added difficulty for workers who may be unfamiliar with the language and their employment rights, where they are moved between two jurisdictions, leading to confusion, uncertainty and added vulnerability to exploitation, particularly if there are documentation issues resulting from crossing the border.
The literature of the mushroom industry in Northern Ireland is sparse. The Equality Commission for Northern Ireland carried out an investigation into agency work and uncovered a range of abuses, including of workers in the mushroom industry, picking up themes of language barriers, inferior terms and conditions of employment, payment problems and employment discrimination (ECNI, 2010).
Generally, work in the mushroom industry in Northern Ireland takes place on isolated farms in rural border areas owned and/or managed by people from Northern Ireland, using small teams of pickers of mostly migrant workers of different nationalities working in shifts, supervised by migrant workers, often of a different nationality to many of the pickers. The mushrooms tend to be ready for picking at irregular times, which leads to unpredictable, short-notice shift patterns.
The experience of mushroom pickers in Northern Ireland
Following evidence from the Equality Commission report and indications from the case work of support organizations that there was a pattern of exploitation of mushroom pickers, research was undertaken, the findings of which demonstrate the extent of abuse of workers’ rights in the mushroom industry in Northern Ireland. In-depth qualitative semi-structured interviews with 17 individuals were conducted at times, locations and in languages of their own choosing, with confidentiality ensured. All interviewees were from new EU states for which transitional residency and employment restrictions were in place. These are classified as A8 nationals, meaning workers from the countries which joined the EU in 2004 (except for Malta and Cyprus) on whom restrictions were placed until 2011, and A2 nationals, meaning workers from Bulgaria and Romania, on whom restrictions remained in place until 2014.
The qualitative data derived from the interviews were subjected to manual coding along common themes that emerged from the interviewees’ experiences. These data were then analysed using grounded theory to derive general theoretical understandings from the interview data and to formulate potential policy recommendations (Glaser and Strauss, 1967).
Due to difficulties in access, the selection of interviewees was through clients presenting with problems with advice organizations and former workers in the industry, primarily through STEP in Dungannon, using a snowballing method to recruit other interviewees. In the event, this technique accessed workers from five farms located across three counties. The advantage of working through the migrant communities themselves allowed unprecedented access to vulnerable workers, although this also had disadvantages. Ethical considerations placed the safety of the workers and the researcher as paramount, as many workers interviewed expressed fear of losing their job, intimidation or even physical attack if they were known to be talking about their working conditions. This consideration also precluded interviews with employers to answer the claims made by their workers. Therefore, the limitations of the research are that objective sampling methods could not be used, a balance of views from employers could not be sought and the most vulnerable workers could not participate in the research due to safety and access considerations. Interviewees had knowledge of individuals in significantly worse situations, but these could not be accessed for the purposes of the research.
Routes into precarity
Most of the interviewees came to the mushroom industry with qualifications, skills or experience which equipped them for employment beyond the knowledge and skills levels required for mushroom picking. However, the economic context of their home country had compelled them to work in the industry as an avenue of earning more money than would have been possible at home. The majority, therefore, due to economic necessity, were working well below their skills levels: I was a qualified accountant working in industry. I was a supervisor – a customer service shift manager. Now I’m picking mushrooms! (Interview 11: Female A8 national)
While some were recruited into the industry through personal contact with friends or relatives, the majority were recruited in their home country by an employment agency offering opportunities in other countries. All of the agencies mentioned charged for this service, which is illegal in the UK, and workers paid their own travel costs on top, but most accepted this in order to gain employment.
Interviewees were often confused about who they worked for, particularly if they had passed through intermediaries or other agencies, and they were often not told, even if they asked: There are so many firms involved. I asked for information from [the manager] about who is who, like who is the employer, the agency, but it was never explained. (Interview 4: Female A2 national)
Workers were therefore often not aware of the circumstances they were coming into, as they had committed to regular, not precarious work. A combination of agency deception, lack of information and exploitative intermediaries created a context of uncertainty and vulnerability.
Levers of control
On arrival into precarity, employers used various mechanisms to hold workers in a situation of unequal power and control. Factors that reinforced this environment included manipulation of residency status, ambiguous documentation, control over accommodation and movement, utilization of language barriers and maintaining a climate of fear.
More than half of the interviewees were initially undocumented and around a third remained so at the time of interview for reasons beyond their control, either because they had not been informed they needed documentation or they had been promised documentation and this was not forthcoming or it was delayed: It was 18 months until I learned about the Home Office registration. I was told I had to register by law by an interpreter at my ante natal appointment. (Interview 2: Female A8 national)
When this was discussed, the majority did not realize the implications of being undocumented, such as their vulnerability and the lack of recourse to public funds and non contributory benefits should something go wrong. Information had been withheld by agencies and employers and used as a mechanism to prevent workers considering alternative options, making them reliant on a single place of work.
Contracts of employment were a confusing issue. Some had no contract, some had signed a contract but they did not have a copy, some had signed a document that was not in a language they could understand and others had a contract from the agency in their home country, but were employed directly by the farm, which did not uphold the conditions stated therein.
I signed a contract, but the employer kept it. I’m not sure what was in it. (Interview 5: Female A2 national)
Likewise, pay slips varied widely in their content or reliability (or even existence). All interviewees had pay slips of some sort. However, these varied in their usefulness, such as hours of work not shown, infrequent issue of pay slips, errors in details, such as National Insurance Numbers, or variations in tax or National Insurance without explanation.
These overlapping documentation issues led to insecurity and concern around the legality and openness of accounting procedures, but particularly concerning status, which remained a mystery for many who had just arrived in Northern Ireland, or even for many who had been in the country for some considerable time.
Securing appropriate accommodation was a key issue for many workers and their families. While the trend was for fewer workers to have accommodation provided by the employer, over a third of interviewees did so, and several of the others had initially been placed in accommodation provided by the employer, but subsequently went on to rent privately. Clearly such a situation created greater reliance on the employer and hence more vulnerability to exploitation.
The main accommodation-related issue that arose with interviewees was of living conditions, such as a lack of facilities, poor repair and reluctance on the part of the landlord to carry out repairs: I came with another girl and we shared a small, cold room with a leak in the ceiling. The room was very damp and wet. (Interview 11: Female A8 national)
Particularly poignant was the awareness of the employer/landlord that workers were vulnerable, but when they were less so in terms of status, the treatment improved: We had a problem with a window that didn’t shut for a year – even through the winter – and two years to fix the shower, which would change from hot to cold all the time. The landlord – who is the employer – didn’t bother. But now we have our blue cards [residency documentation], he comes quickly. (Interview 7: Female A2 national)
Once workers had formal residency status, they had options beyond a single employer, and therefore had the potential to move beyond an employer’s control, evening the power relationship.
Travel to and from work was problematic, as none of the interviewees could drive and there were no bus services that could take them to work, the farms being mostly in isolated rural areas and the hours irregular. Transport was often offered at a cost which sometimes verged on the exploitative: When the supervisor picks us up in his car it was £1.50 return, now it’s £2. The farm is 10 minutes away. (Interview 7: Female A2 national)
This was another aspect of control, facilitated by rural isolation, where interviewees were reliant on employers to get to and from the workplace.
Significant inter-group rivalry was reported, either as a consequence of different nationalities competing for work, which was not addressed by employers, or employers happy to play groups off against each other. Specific circumstances appeared to be where migrant worker supervisors showed favouritism for their own nationality or discriminated against certain other nationalities, which was either ignored or encouraged by employers.
The pressure to work, while sometimes intangible, was symptomatic of a context where people who were vulnerable were working in an isolated location in a workplace where they were not treated equally: There is a pressure present – it is hard to describe – from supervisors and the employer. There is a fear of losing the job. (Interview 1: Male A8 national)
This climate of menace was expressed both during interviews of the general working conditions, but also in the process of arranging interviews, where interviewees feared employers finding out that they had contributed to the research. This was the result of a combination of controlling factors, but also the maintenance of an atmosphere at the workplace that contributed to the insecurity of the workers’ position and the reinforcing of an unequal power relationship.
Communication problems also added to the sense of subservience and maltreatment, exacerbated by a language barrier in oral and written communication and a sense of being kept in the dark: The […] supervisors don’t make communication with the boss easy. The boss only speaks English, so sends us back to the supervisor. The supervisor sends us back to the boss. (Interview 13: Female A8 national)
This maintained a distance between the employer and the worker and gave supervisors undue power over subordinates, where there was the assurance that there would not be redress in the event of exploitation.
The threat of dismissal was always present and interviewees frequently indicated that they would lose their jobs if they challenged their treatment. Certainly there were reports of threats that if certain tasks were not performed, reasonable or otherwise, that there would be summary dismissal. Disciplinary letters, usually in English, had also been used for minor infringements, which, given the lack of contracts with details of what constituted misconduct, were often arbitrary.
The farms concerned supplied major supermarkets which lock employers into ethical working contracts, indicating that workers should be treated well and working conditions should be at a certain level. However, two interviewees reported filling in forms sent by a supermarket and being told what to write by the employer. In this case, the supermarkets did not have control over feedback from workers, who were open to coercion from employers, which undermined any assumption of compliance with ethical standards. This picks up on contradictions raised elsewhere (Lloyd and James, 2008: 726; MacKenzie and Forde, 2009: 155) that, while there is an interest in the part of major firms to be seen as ethical employers, the drive for lower production costs creates pressures on workers lacking in power in the labour market.
Trades union representatives were also reported to either be in fear of employers, and so ineffectual, or even colluding with the employer, for example, being used to hand out disciplinary letters. Interviews with trades union representatives, despite well-intentioned attempts to intervene, found considerable barriers to organizing mushroom workers, such as small, transient workforces, fear of employers and suspicions of trades unions originating from experiences in countries of origin. There were some attempts by unions to organize at the farms reported by interviewees, but this had been unsuccessful or ineffectual: The union rep wasn’t working and was fearful of the manager, so never took any action. We are no longer in the union (Interview 4: Female A2 national)
It is not intended here to examine the complexities of unionizing an unstable and isolated migrant workforce, which is briefly discussed elsewhere by Lloyd and James (2008: 726). Suffice to say, the experience of the workers themselves was that the unions were not in a position to provide support.
Parameters of exploitation
All of the interviewees reported being paid for piece work, that is, receiving pay for what mushrooms they picked. The average rate for mushrooms was around 10p per pound (20p per kg), but the rate of picking was affected by the size of the mushrooms, larger mushrooms being easier to pick and therefore earning the picker more money. Picking smaller mushrooms was more labour intensive and regularly resulted in pay below the minimum wage once the rate per hour was worked out. Another issue was the work that pickers were asked to do that did not involve picking, such as moving crates, cleaning equipment or preparing the work area. This was effectively work which was unpaid, as there were no mushrooms contributing to the picker’s quota: You can get £7–£8 per hour for bigger mushrooms, but £3 per hour for smaller ones. Then you have to spend time cleaning, for which you don’t get paid. (Interview 6: Female A2 national)
The work itself often paid very little, but the payment methods, delays or inconsistencies made the situation worse: There was money missing – about £25 – it was never the full amount. I wasn’t aware of the rate – I earned as much as I could. (Interview 5: Female A2 national) I worked more than 28 hours and got paid for 16 hours. I asked about it and I was sent to the boss, but I don’t speak English. (Interview 15: Female A8 national)
Excessive working hours were reported by the majority of interviewees, but interviewees also reported not being able to work enough hours to earn sufficient money. With piece work, there was a reluctance to take breaks and then only short ones, but breaks were not standardized or structured into the working day and shifts were not even across the week: Hours vary, but I was doing an average of 75 hours per week. I would start at 7am, then work at least until 6pm, sometimes 7pm, 8pm or 9pm. There are no set times for breaks – you would get lunch when you could, with someone covering until you got straight back to work. (Interview 1: Male A8 national)
Time off for some was problematic, with no set days off, weekends and bank holidays often worked at the same piece rate, or workers only being paid for the work they did and holiday and sick pay not being paid. There were also examples of more direct exploitation of workers’ time, such as calling workers in on a day off and not giving them the time back: There’s no overtime pay, holiday pay, sick pay, maternity pay or unsocial hours pay. (Interview 5: Female A2 national)
Long working hours, poor working conditions, poor communication and informal working patterns had major implications for health and safety. Complaints reported by interviewees included working in poor light, back pain, aching legs, smell of chemicals, lack of protective clothing, breathing difficulties, high temperature, nausea, headaches, skin complaints due to contact with chemicals, weight loss and fatigue: It was the fatigue – feeling very tired with the work and being afraid to take a day off in case there would be no work when you came back. (Interview 5: Female A2 national)
When there were injuries or difficulties as a result of the work, the response from employers was not positive, for example, not taking injured people to hospital, insufficient first-aid provision (interviewees tended to carry their own first-aid kits) or no arrangements for recording accidents. Indeed, health and safety arrangements were reported by interviewees to be minimal if not non-existent.
The impact of these working conditions, apart from on physical health, created a sense of a sub-stratum of worker who was not subject to the normal conditions and standards of work environment as the rest of the labour market. Indeed, what these workers had in common was that they were from elsewhere and they did not have security of residency. Therefore at best, employers did not feel obliged to give them the same terms and conditions of employment as a local person, and at worst, consciously exploited their vulnerability. The multi-dimensional nature of precarity, combining precarious employment and precarious residency status, with consequential social and economic precariousness, is demonstrated in the experiences of workers in the mushroom industry in Northern Ireland.
Discussion: exploitative labour, forced labour or precarity?
The research evidence has demonstrated that workers enter precarious employment in the mushroom industry in Northern Ireland through wilful deception, omission of information or unrealistic expectations, are held in a position of unequal power through dependence on the employer for residency status, accommodation and transport in isolated areas. They are also vulnerable to exploitation, maintained by a climate of fear, manipulation of documentation and language barriers. Consequently, workers frequently worked below the minimum wage in poor working conditions with illegal practices in terms of workers’ rights and appropriate documentation. Workers enter a ‘continuum of exploitation’ (Skřivánková, 2010). They have an expectation of decent work, but through a combination of control factors, find themselves subject to varying degrees of labour exploitation, the key element setting them apart from workers from the host population being immigration status (Dwyer et al., 2011).
In terms of the ILO indicators of forced labour, there were cases of deception or false promises about types and terms of work under the ILO’s (2008) guidelines and a threat of denunciation to the authorities in order to keep one interviewee in undocumented status. Evidence of what does and does not constitute forced labour in this case is ambiguous, however. Conceptually, using Korpi’s notion of unequal power relationships within the framework of Standing’s multi-faceted presentation of precarity, the workplace becomes a context where abuse can more easily take place due to worker vulnerability. This is where the continuum can be demonstrated, that workers’ vulnerability to exploitation has been acted upon by the employers of the interviewees in the research to the point of bordering on forced labour in some cases, which, while not obvious in this instance, can easily move across the ill-defined border into forced labour, where workers endure abuse because they have no other choice.
The interviewees were conscious of their situation of precarity, but at different levels of awareness. While in many cases there was misrepresentation of the working conditions workers were to face, some knowingly entered employment situations and accepted them on a temporary basis with aspirations of finding better employment, but found themselves without such options due to their residency status. Ultimately, awareness that employment laws were being broken and that they were enduring working conditions that were unacceptable came to interviewees at different stages. Their responses came in three categories: enduring abuse as a temporary measure until something better comes along; wanting working conditions in their current place of employment to accord with legislation and regulations so they are no longer exploited; or wanting to move to other employment as soon as possible.
Some were certainly transported by people who knew they were to be exploited for their labour. This is technically trafficking, but by no means at the harsher end of the continuum. However, one middleman associated with the transport of and extraction of money from three of the interviewees was convicted of a trafficking-related offence unrelated to his contact with the interviewees in 2010. The interviewees did not see themselves as having been trafficked, but as victims of exploitation.
While it can be argued that poor working conditions and pay are equally endured by non-migrant workers, there are significant differences. In addition to this, a local person would have a choice of employment, whereas a migrant would have been brought to Northern Ireland to undertake this work, where it has been difficult to recruit locally, and where local people have the advantage of linking into social capital networks to seek redress for abuses, alternative employment or support (see Behtoui and Neergaard, 2010).
The evidence demonstrates how a situation of unequal power in the labour exchange relationship leads to the endurance of exploitation on the part of the workers and to a re-positioning of aspirations, where what was intended as an unwelcome but necessary entry into the UK labour market has become a longer-term norm. The combination of control levers described above holds workers in a situation of dependency. However, the circumstances in which the interviewees found themselves goes beyond the description of ‘precarious employment’, but encompasses a wider precarity in social and economic terms where physical isolation and distance from the formal labour market maintains individuals in a situation of exploitation that occasionally, but not constantly, takes on the characteristics of forced labour. It is this ambiguity that is difficult to legislate for.
Conclusions and solutions
At the time of writing, immigration restrictions for A8 and A2 nationals had lapsed, bringing workers from those countries into line with other EU states. However, there are still non-EU nationals being exploited for their labour and the UK passed legislation in January 2013 to set the framework of restrictions on Croatian workers, forming a common pattern of restrictions that can be assumed for future accession states. The issues, therefore, remain current.
The traditional mechanism for challenging unequal power relationships in the workplace has been through the use of collective action. However, the evidence from the research suggests that, despite efforts on the part of trades unions, there has been a failure to organize effectively in the mushroom industry, which illustrates a further dimension of precarity, that of not being a ‘class-in-itself’ and therefore experiencing difficulties in mobilizing. Certainly, trades unions have a key role to play in addressing exploitation in these circumstances, but there will need to be flexibility to address issues of dispersed membership, isolated sites and perceived lack of effectiveness.
Lessons can be learned from the Republic of Ireland where multi-faceted approaches to dealing with labour exploitation were initiated in the mushroom industry through joint working between employers, trades unions, government agencies and rights-based NGOs, such as the Migrant Rights Centre Ireland (MRCI). Such arrangements have brought substantial changes to the treatment of workers in the industry and, while not perfect, provide a potential model for Northern Ireland. This approach has not been substantially evaluated and it would require further research to examine its effectiveness as a model.
The participation of employers is essential. Further research is necessary to examine more closely the motivations of employers and justifications for the employment conditions they preside over. Rather than Standing’s somewhat apocalyptic choice of ‘politics of paradise’ or ‘politics of inferno’, a more detailed examination of how an industry such as mushroom production can function effectively in the current economic conditions without exploiting its workers needs to be investigated.
Scott et al. (2012: 72–6) make a range of recommendations with regard to addressing forced labour in the food industry in the UK, and these are also applicable to Northern Ireland. In particular, the assertion that abuses are not isolated, but have structural economic causes, has resonance for the research findings, as exploitation is in this case apparently industry-wide. In this context, there are indicators that the enforcement of employment legislation is failing workers, with a lack of adequate inspection and verification. Reliance on whistle-blowing is insufficient, as workers are generally unaware of their rights, do not have access to complaint mechanisms and their circumstances of ‘precarity’ lead to a fear of losing employment, and hence residency status.
Supermarkets – the main recipients of mushrooms picked by exploited workers – are not adequately monitoring their claims to use only ethical supply sources. In terms of the power relationships in the exchange arrangement in this particular workforce, while employers have power over precarious workers, buyers have the power over employers to redress the balance, but it is not being utilized. Instead, pressures to exploit precarity are imposed upon employers, rather than bringing relief.
Beyond Northern Ireland, this study provides regional evidence for a much wider problem that places vulnerable people into precarious positions where they can be subjected at least to exploitation and in some cases forced labour, although it must be stressed that this study does not touch on the most exploited workers, evidence for whom is only second-hand via interviewees. An immigration system that sees people as temporary units of labour dependent on an employer for status is the prime generator of vulnerability to abuse. Guarantees of status for whistle-blowers and opportunities for mobility once an individual is brought into the labour market can go some way to address the difficulties faced by exploited workers. After all, according to the interviewees, they are not looking for special treatment, but, as one stated: ‘We want everything to be so that employers treat workers according to the law, with full employment rights’.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to acknowledge the Joseph Rowntree Foundation for funding the research project, the South Tyrone Empowerment Programme for its role in accessing participants and Neil Jarman, Colin Knox, John Offer and Síle O’Connor, and the anonymous reviewers and the editor, for their helpful comments and guidance throughout the development of this paper.
Funding
The research was funded by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, Ref. 2656.