Policies, economic forces, class relations and unions in the strawberry fields:
the Andalusian (Spain) experience of globalized agriculture.
Alicia Reigada
Dept. of Social Anthropology
University of Seville
1. Introduction.
In her analysis of the political construction of the labor market in the California
agriculture, Wells (1996) offers an exemplary explanation of the relationship among
political pressures, economic organization, and class relations. For this, the author
understands that the place of work obliges to reconnect economic and political forces,
the experiences of the farmers and the working class, actor-oriented models and Marxist
structural models. At the same time, the author comprehends the social classes as
formed in the process of struggle. From a similar perspective, Pedreño, Gadea and
Castro (2014) analyzed the political construction of the model for the social regulation
of work in the intensive agriculture export sector in Murcia (Southern Spain), and its
articulation with the forms of resistance and conflict expressed by the workers. As
Rosberry (1996) remembers, the social history of food products helps to illuminate the
widest analysis of the social and cultural transformations that take place in the current
phase of capitalism. The systems for the regulation of work and the forms of collective
action constitute, without doubt, some of the aspects on which said history can cast
light.
This paper focuses on unions and collective action in the context of globalized
agriculture in Andalusia, in Southern Spain. To understand the arena in which this form
of collective action takes place, its structures and goals, and the roles it plays, this paper
explores the relationship among political pressures, the national and European policy
and legal framework, economic organization, and class relations. Starting from a social
anthropological approach based on qualitative fieldwork, we analyze experiences in the
strawberry fields in the province of Huelva. This agriculture, based on a family farm
model characterized by small-scale farming, has led to Andalusia becoming the biggest
regional exporter of strawberries in Europe, and second in the world after California.
1
Without losing historical perspective, the analysis is undertaken in a context marked by
the changes produced as a result of the implementation of contracting policies based on
quotas of female immigrants, via the temporary farm workers program1.
To develop an understanding of unionism and collective action it seems
necessary to begin to offer some keys that enable us to establish the historical formation
of the model. For this, we examine the social system of strawberry growers and pickers
(primarily comprising farm workers from Andalusian families, followed by Moroccan
and Sub-Saharan male migrants, and finally by women from Eastern Europe and
Morocco). The experiences and history of both farmers and farm workers allow us to
take into account the paradoxes, contradictions, and conflicts derived from the
integration of this family farm model into global agri-food chains. Below, we focus on
the forms of unionism present in this crop, comprising farmers unions, which represent
farmers’ interests and rights, and that which is defined as class-based unionism in its
representation of the demands and interests of farm workers. A local perspective will
enable the observation of the particularities, positions and tensions characteristic of this
trade union fabric and the political and legal framework in which it makes sense.
Finally, some specific problems will help to show the tensions that run through the
forms of collective action and the position and type of action carried out by the distinct
actors and social forces involved: farmers’ unions, management, policy and laws, public
institutions, NGOs, workers unions, workers.
In this sense, the following issues should be considered: the impact of global
processes on the local system, the particular history of this crop, the interactions
between the actors’ responses and structural dynamics, and the relationship between
political and economic forces. This perspective contributes to the consideration of the
framework in which the development of labor processes, class formation, and interethnic and gender conflicts make sense, and, therefore, contributes to the context in
which unions and collective action operate.
1
This paper is based on the results obtained in a wider study undertaken between 2005 and 2008 (funded
by the Regional Government of Andalusia) using a qualitative methodology based on in-depth interviews
(a total of 83) and participant observations. To develop work in the field, the researcher moved to the
strawberry-growing region and lived there for a period of one year and nine months (2006-2007). On
limiting itself to said period, the analysis does not contemplate the changes in the composition of the
labor market, public policies and the forms of collective action that took place subsequently, with the
advent of the current phase of economic recession.
2
2. The historical formation of the model: family farming, day labor, and agrarian
capitalism.
A look at the history of agrarian capitalism in Andalusia reveals, in the first
instance, the crystallization of their dependent position in the territorial division of labor
during the First and Second Food Regime, in line with Friedmann and McMichael’s
definition (1989). There are various factors which explain this peripheral position: the
specialization in activities broadly linked to the exploitation of natural resources; a
foundation in a cheap and abundant work force; the role as a supplier of raw materials,
food and agricultural goods; the conversion into a market for equipment; and, the inputs
required by the industrialization of agriculture (Delgado 2002).
The advent of the Third Food Regime corresponds to the implementation in
Andalusia of intensive agriculture for export, also known as the ‘new agriculture’. This
began in the 1960s and 1970s along the length of the coast, with the principal nuclei of
production being the following: the horticultural zone of the Poniente Almeriense
(Martín and Rodríguez 2001; Delgado and Aragón 2006), the strawberry monoculture
in Huelva (Gordo 2002; Gualda, 2004; Delgado and Aragón 2006; Reigada 2012), the
tropical crops of the coast of Granada, and, finally, the cultivation of flowers on the
coast of Cádiz (Cruces 1993). The first two regions cited above have become the main
agricultural exporters in all of Europe.
The strawberry crop, which extends over a length of 7.000 ha along the coast of
the province of Huelva, was driven in the 1960s and 1970s through the introduction of
most advanced agricultural technology coming out of California and proof of the
advantages of its use in the climatic conditions (a warm dry temperate climate) and soiltype (sandy) (Márquez 1986). The climatic factors and the process of technological
innovation must be understood in relation to the other three elements fundamental to
understanding the formation of the model.
Firstly, that the history of this crop, as with the rest of the intensive crops in
Andalusia, differs drastically from the other model central to the development of
agrarian capitalism in our territory, the latifundium model. As the dominant system
since the middle of the Nineteenth Century, this embodies some of the principal
processes and conflicts that have marked the transformation of the Andalusian
countryside: land concentration; proletarianization; the rural exodus and migration;
modernization and mechanization; specialization-disqualification; new systems of
3
control; and, strikes and repression. Converted, in turn, into a space and symbol of the
struggles for the land, the Andalusian latifundium represents, in the collective memory,
the conflicts and injustices of the history of agrarian capitalism. It seems logical,
therefore, that it is in the framework of this model that the unionism of agricultural
workers in Andalusia is based, in which the day laborer movement is born and formed
as a political subject, and the most important forms of collective action take place.
Both from the point of view of the structure of the ownership of the land and
routes of access to it, such as in terms of the origin of the landowning class, differences
and particularities can be observed that help in the understanding of the complexity of
the scenario found under intensive agriculture. In contrast to the land-owning
agricultural bourgeoisie of the latifundium, the strawberry-growers, commonly known
as freseros, mainly come from the working class. Fishing, construction, commerce and
agriculture, either as day laborers or small landowners, are some of the sectors in which
they work before growing strawberry under plastic. Their life stories are involved, in
many cases, in internal and also international emigration projects.
It is the early and unexpected success of this crop and the ease of access to the
land which explains the rapid conversion of these workers into producers. In this period
more than fifty percent of the land was in the hands of the State and Local Government.
The weight of public policy is of special relevance in that it established the concession
of small lots of between one and two hectares, in the form of tenant farming, to those
neighbors who had nothing more than their workforce (Martín 1995). However, the
tenant farming was accompanied, especially in the 1970s and 1980s, by the aggressive,
disorganized and illegal occupation of lands designated for communal use.
The expansion of the model takes place based on the small family property and,
as we have seen, the role played by the state in its implementation is highlighted.
Through the agrarian policy of colonization, the Franco regime encouraged family
farming founded in the principle of the over-exploitation of the labor of the members of
the households and, subsequently, the wage workforce. Although today, the progressive
differentiation among small, medium and large landowners is more palpable than
before, with a certain observable tendency toward the concentration of property, smallscale farming continues to predominate2.
2
According to data extracted from field work, it is possible to establish the following classification: small
(less than 7 ha), medium (between 8 and 25), and large-scale farming (more than 25 ha).
4
From the 1980s onwards, a series of advances and changes took place that
created the conditions for the consolidation of the crop and the stabilization of the
sector. Public institutions assumed the pending task of regulating both the ownership of
the land and the process of acquiring it. From this emerged the first trade associations
through the legal model of the cooperative, which went on to play a decisive role in the
formation and functioning of the sector. The farmers unions were then established,
organizations comprising farmers and formed to defend their rights. We will deal with
these later, on approaching the forms of unionism linked to this sector.
Precisely, the second element that we must consider in order to understand the
formation of this model and the current situation regarding the position it occupies in
the global agricultural chain. Basically, it is possible to outline three phases within the
global system of strawberry production: the first dedicated to technological research and
innovation; the second dedicated to the cultivation, handling and packing of the
strawberry; and, the last related to commercialization and distribution. These phases
extend from the laboratories to the fields, and from there to the large distribution chains
– from California to Andalusia, and from there to the European markets. These would
be the three hubs that articulate the agri-food chain, with the first and last being those
that generate a greater capacity for the accumulation of wealth.
The subordinate position occupied by farmers is expressed, on the one hand, in
their dependence on the Californian varieties, which obliges them to pay royalties each
year to American companies, and the industrial inputs required from the multinationals.
On the other, it can be seen in their subordination to the large distribution chains, in
which the power to set prices for the sale of the fruit is concentrated.
The unequal structure on which the territorial division of labor is based is
translated, at the present time, into a progressive debilitation of the strawberry sector
(Delgado and Aragón 2006). The history of the crop reveals that the sector found itself,
during the 1970s and 1980s, in more favorable circumstances, in which the cost/benefit
relationship became much more profitable for this sector. It was during this period that
the expression ‘red gold’ was coined in reference to strawberry crop. The cost/benefit
difference has been decreasing, especially since the end of the 1990s up to the
beginning of the current decade, in accordance with the increase in price of plants,
inputs and labor, with the price at which the farmers sell their fruit remaining the same.
Like occurs in other areas of intensive agriculture, this has been accompanied by an
5
increase in competition both within the sector and in other countries (Morocco and
China among others), greater demand for quality certification, and the flexibility
required in order to respond to segmented demand (Barrientos et al. 1999; C. de
Grammont and Lara 2010; Bonanno and Cavalcanti 2012).
In order to understand the formation of the model, however, it has been
necessary to record the farmers’ experiences of the collection of processes, dynamics
and social and institutional agents (the State, local institutions, cooperatives and farmers
unions, the large distributors and multinationals) that occur in these enclaves. It is also
of fundamental importance to incorporate an analysis of the experiences of the other
principal actor in the strawberry fields: the working class. We must not forget that the
experience of the farmers takes its shape from their interaction with the experience of
the working class, and vice versa. This family-based system of agriculture very soon
began to be transformed into wage labor.
Ever since the labor provided by the farm households became insufficient, it fell
to the workforce of the province of Huelva and the day laborer families from other
provinces such as Cádiz and Seville, with a strong migratory and day laboring tradition,
to respond to this demand. This last group followed a circuit of the agricultural seasons
both in Spain and the south of France, within a framework of a type of temporary
migration. Subsequently, some of these families saw the possibility of acquiring a plot
of land and thus becoming small landowners. The Andalusian day laborer families that
continue to work the strawberry season remember the poor living and working
conditions that they suffered during the early years. The lack of habitable
accommodation and school places for the children of temporary workers, the
deregulation of labor, the low wages and the absence of a countryside agreement for the
Huelva province are some of the principal problems faced by those that undertook the
work each season. We cannot forget, in this sense, that the structural characteristics of
the labor markets in the context of the globalised agri-food industry – flexibility,
precariousness, temporary work, and a lack of contractual protection and security – are
those that have, historically, characterized the work of the day laborer in the countryside
(Gavira 2002).
In the 1990s, Andalusian families began to abandon the work in this crop. The
first foreign migrants, who began to arrive to the strawberry region in the middle of the
1990s, mainly comprised workers from Maghreb, the majority of whom were
6
Moroccan. By the end of that decade, migration from Mauritania and Sub-saharan
Africa (Senegal, Mali, Nigeria, and the Ivory Coast) had increased. In both cases, this
labor migration fundamentally comprised young men, was temporary in nature and
destination, comprised workers in both regular and irregular situations, and involved a
high level of mobility in geographic and labor terms. The large majority arrived at a
time of an absence of controls imposed by the Labor Inspectorate, which translated into
an environment of absolute permissiveness in relation to irregular labor and the
informal economy, as well as forms of labor exploitation and social exclusion. Those
that had their documentation in order were contracted in their place of work, while at
the same time, the towns’ streets and squares were converted into living spaces in which
the farmers were able to obtain immigrant labor in an irregular situation.
The migration from Africa was followed by labor flows from Eastern Europe. The
dawn of the 21st Century saw a key turning point in the processes of the evolution and
substitution of the workforce for this crop: the implementation of a policy of country of
origin contracting, known in other countries as temporary agricultural worker programs.
In contrast to other countries (Binford et al. 2004; Preibisch and Binford 2007), in
Spain, this program is regulated and managed by the Government, although the labor
selection process is carried out by representatives of the agricultural unions. If we
examine the legal-political framework, we can identify the role played by labor and
migratory policies in this process, along the lines that Burawoy conceptualized at the
time as Systems of Migrant Labor (Burawoy 1976). Working hand in hand with the
legislative measures, which have the objective of slowing irregular immigration, are the
agreements seeking to regulate this other form of immigration which is required to
cover the needs of the job markets. It is another branch of national and European policy
in which the signing of bilateral agreements in the area of labor migration has been
inserted (Trinidad 2005).
Similarly, the signing of this type of agreement must be understood within the
framework of the approval, in 2001, of the Global Program to Regulate and Coordinate
Foreign Residents' Affairs and Immigration in Spain (GRECO for its initials in
Spanish), that covers, among other aspects, the regularization of the arrival of
immigrants from their country of origin by means of the signing of bilateral agreements,
including repatriation agreements. It was no coincidence that through Law 14/2003,
article 39.6 was modified, establishing that seasonal job offers will preferably be
7
oriented toward those countries with which Spain has signed flow regulation
agreements (Terrón 2004).
Through a pilot project conducted in the year 2000, country of origin contracting
policies were generalized and consolidated into strawberry crop in 2002. In a few years
this become the main model for the Spanish state and one of the most important in
Europe, with the number of country of origin contracts multiplying each year: from the
600 carried out in 2000, to 7,000 in 2001, 21,000 in 2004 and an average of 35.000
workers in its period of peak activity (2006-2007). If the strawberry season requires a
volume of wage labor of 55,000 and 60,000 temporary workers, the data reflects the
importance of this program. Furthermore, it reveals a significant change in the gender,
ethnic and national composition of workforce. The demand for women (married with
children) firstly from Eastern Europe, and then Morocco some years later, relies on a
rapid process for the feminization of both immigration and work. It would be from 2009
onwards when, faced by the current phase of economic recession and the return of many
day laborer families to the fields, the Government began to limit these policies in order
to give priority to the national workforce and the foreign workforce already based in
Spain.
It is of fundamental importance to take into account, in light of the subject matter
addressed here, that these policies were introduced based on the push for, and
establishment of, agreements, at a local level, between the main workers unions, the
farmers’ organizations and public institutions. Similarly, as will be seen in the section
that continues below, a decisive factor in the consolidation and extension of these
contracting policies were the demonstrations, hunger strikes, and sit-ins undertaken by
Maghrebi and Sub-saharan workers in Huelva in 2001.
3. Agricultural unionism, class-based trade unionism and immigrant selforganization in the strawberry fields: specific issues, struggles and tensions.
The farmers unions in Spain were born at the beginning of the 20th Century,
encouraged by the church and linked to the local environment. González (2011)
analyzes, in a context marked by the repression of the labor movement, the role played
in the Andalusia of the 1920s by catholic agricultural unionism in the containment of
peasant protest actions and the achievement of harmonious collaboration between
capital and labor. It seems logical that, as observed by this author, these unions, founded
8
and controlled by the nobility and the latifundium bourgeois, had limited influence
among those peasants, converted, in practice, into day laborers.
If, during the Franco regime, these gave way to the vertical structures of
dictatorship, it would not be until the advent of democracy that the new fabric of
agricultural trade unionism was configured, and in which take place the activity of the
unions we deal with here: COAG, UPA y ASAJA3. These feature a greater level of
implementation at a state level. Among the main functions that drive this stage, and
which have been developing and widening over the course of these four decades, are
highlighted the following: the representation of the farmers and livestock breeders in the
agricultural policy negotiations in the contexts of the State, the autonomous community,
and, from the entry into the EEC onwards, the European Union; the negotiation of the
Countryside Agreement with the class-based unions; the establishment of relationships
with the agri-food industry, the cooperatives and the associative structures of the sector
itself; the representation in institutions such as the Chambers of Agriculture, the
Economic and Social Council, saving societies, and the EU Consultative Committees;
the provision of information, training and services (legal, technical, labor, management,
or commercialization) to partners (Turrado 2012).
Day labor unionism must be contextualized, equally, in the state process of
change known as “transition”, based on institutional (the Constitution), economic
(Moncloa Accords) and political-administrative (Autonomous Agreements) accords, as
well as the consequences derived from what was known as the “Green Revolution”
(Ocaña 2006). In this regard, Gavira (1992) highlights as one of the significant facts
conditioning the labor management model in rural Andalusia, the advent of democracy
in Spain, which enabled the consolidation of the systems of collective negotiation and
the participation of the unions in the management and regulation of labor. What stand
out, in this context, are the Moncloa Accords (1977), which were supported by the main
workers’ unions: Laborers’ Commissions (Comisiones Obreras, or CCOO) and the
General Workers’ Union (Unión General de Trabajadores, or UGT). Precisely, the food
regime established in this period enabled the constitution of structures for negotiation
and legitimation based on the alliance of the State, the unions and the agricultural
3
Coordinator of Farmers’ and Livestock Breeders’ Organizations (Coordinadora de Organizaciones de
Agricultores y Ganaderos, or COAG), Young Farmers’ Agricultural Association (Asociación AgrariaJóvenes Agricultores, or ASAJA), Union of Small Farmers and Livestock Breeders (Unión de Pequeños
Agricultores y Ganaderos, or UPA).
9
industry, in the same form as occurred in industry through the Keynesian pact (Gavira
1992).
That which is known as radical unionism is opposed, however, to these social
accords. In Andalusia, this is found in the form of anarcho-syndicalist organizations,
such as the General Confederation for Labor (Confederación General del Trabajo, or
CGT) and the National Confederation for Labor (Confederación Nacional del Trabajo,
CNT), and those Marxist-influenced and/or Andalusian nationalist organizations,
among which are highlighted the Field Laborers’ Union (Sindicato de Obreros del
Campo, or SOC), which drove the formation of and was then integrated into the
Andalusian Workers Union (Sindicato Andaluz de Trabajadores, or SAT) founded in
2007 (Roca 2014)4.
It was during this Spanish Transition, between 1976 and 1977, that this union
movement exclusive to Andalusian day laborers, the Field Laborers’ Union (SOC)5, was
born, with a strong level of take-up and activity, especially in the provinces of Cádiz
and Seville. Defined as a class-based union linked to Andalusian nationalism, among
whose historical demands are the following: the struggle for the land and the
Agricultural Reform; the struggle against mechanization; national sovereignty; the
protests against union repression and the prosecution of leaders and militants; the
creation and improvement of the agreements; salary increases; equality in terms of
salaries and working conditions between men and women; the agricultural subsidy; and,
most recently, the fight for food sovereignty. The role of the SOC as an agent of conflict
with public institutions, agricultural management and other union forces is highlighted
through such collective actions as: road and train blockades, sit-ins, strikes, sabotage of
machinery, hunger strikes, the occupation of public and private plantations, and protest
marches (Ocaña 2006:15). These actions have been accompanied by the search for
negotiation processes oriented around the signing of accords and agreements.
The framework of relationships established with the State, based on the different
policies of assistance implemented to guarantee the economic subsistence of the day
laborer families, such as the agricultural subsidy, will be decisive for the understanding
4
An analysis of the approaches, strategies and evolution of radical unionism in Andalusia from 1976 to
2012, based on the different theories of collective action, can be found in Roca (2014).
5
For an analysis of the origins, the SOC’s own dynamics of struggle and organization, taking in the
influence of the institutional, political and economic changes, and the collective responses to the
situations that are generated, see Ocaña (2006).
10
of the new forms of dependence and control that have been established. This will also
aid in understanding the manner in which this framework has influenced the way in
which the day laborer movement has evolved, and its actions and protests (Palenzuela
1992). This anthropologist analyzed the perverse effects of the dependence on
Government assistance on the organization of the day laborer class, such as the
demobilization and debilitation of some of the fundamental identity referents of the
Andalusian day laborer movement (Palenzuela 1996). To this reality, we can add new
problems that constitute an important challenge for class-based unionism in the
Andalusian countryside. Among these is the growing fragmentation of the working
class based on the construction of new categories of workers: Andalusian day laborer
families; immigrant workers in non-regularized and regularized immigration situations
(Maghrebis, Sub-saharans, Eastern Europeans, South Americans); and, female workers
contracted in their countries of origin (from Eastern Europe and Morocco).
Returning to the experience of strawberry fields in Huelva, and as we saw at the
time, the role played in the formation of the sector by the farmers unions, also known as
agricultural organizations, stands out inasmuch as these constitute the associations that
are comprised by and represent farmers. The development and importance acquired by
this productive enclave in the regional economy and the notable growth in the number
of farmers indicates that the main farmers unions in Spain, such as COAG, ASAJA and
UPA, recognize the necessity of constituting a union chapter in the strawberry sector.
Like the cooperatives, they are pursuing a double objective: supporting farmers by
offering them certain services and safeguarding their rights, thus ensuring the
fundamental unity of the sector. This last aspect would be the objective from which was
born the Onubense Association of Strawberry Producers and Exporters, Freshuelva,
1983.
Highlighted among the main services that they provide are the following:
technical services; a permanent training program; an information service on the
regulations and problems that affect the sector (such as those related to the measures
adopted by public administrations, the regulations introduced by the European Union
and the distribution chains, and the economic situation for the sector and in terms of
exports); and, an area dedicated to labor management. After the implementation of the
country of origin contracting policies, work began on the selection and management of
11
the foreign workforce recruited by this model, an activity which became one of the main
tasks of the agricultural organizations.
Generally, it is required that all members of a cooperative belong to the same
agricultural organization, although they can, in turn, belong to another on an individual
basis. This dynamic has basically come about from the objective of ensuring more than
one pathway through which to advertise for labor in the country of origin and guarantee
the volume of workforce required. This situation enables a broader connection with a
deeper problem: the generalized tendency to convert themselves into service unions,
thus losing the political sense and the link with the union project that sought to identify
farmers with certain agricultural unions as opposed to others.
Despite the weakening of this political dimension, protest work continues to be
present in other levels of action. The agricultural unions have been able to constitute
themselves as interlocutors with the public administrations, commercial agents,
consumers’ associations, the media, NGOs, and workers’ unions. They participate in
meetings of those organizations in which the policies of the sector are defined, at an
autonomous, state and, especially, EU level, such as: press communications; campaigns
against the abandonment of the CAP (which up to the present day excludes marketgarden crops from its assistance plans); campaigning against the “disloyal” competition
from Morocco; and, the campaign posters placed on the doors of supermarkets
demonstrating to consumers the abuse involved in the prices imposed by the large-scale
distributors.
In this, the protest work of the COAG, which was the most combative
agricultural union during the Transition, and which is currently one of the organizations
that make up La Vía Campesina (LVC), should be highlighted. Among others that have
been proposed, the organization is defined by its defense of small farmers, food
sovereignty and the specific rights of women farmers. For this last example, an
approach has been developed through the COAG Women’s Area and the Confederation
of Women of the Rural World (Confederación de Mujeres del Mundo Rural, CERES),
through campaigning for shared ownership, against gender violence in the rural world,
and training for farmers. They are distanced, in this way, from other agricultural
organizations more closely associated with the political parties of a neoliberal
inclination. Belonging to La Vía Campesina and participating, at the same time, in an
agricultural model based on ensuring wage labor and oriented around the global market
12
and exportation will generate, however, significant contradictions in the COAG union
chapters linked to intensive agriculture:
We work with the ordinary farmer that have ten, twelve, fourteen, twenty Romanians. I
have companies with one hundred and fifty or seventy, but the majority are small. We
work with the small farmer, and are not capitalists like other companies that work with
the very large ones” (Organizational Secretary COAG-Huelva).
The process of converting the work of cultivating the crop into salaried
employment will be accompanied by the implementation of another type of unionism,
that which is based on class, and which will champion the rights of farm laborers. With
its prior implementation in the Andalusian latifundium and, thus, the towns from which
a large part of the Andalusian day laborer families hail, the SOC is based in the regions
of the new intensive agriculture. To the historical protest for agricultural reform and the
fight for the land (“the land for those that till it”) is added the union work aimed at
social and labor relations advances in the medium and short term: the construction of
adequate housing in the countryside; the establishment of a collective agreement for the
province of Huelva; the contracting and costing of the working day by the institutions of
Social Security; the right to agricultural subsidies; and, the provision of childcare for the
children of the workers. It was in the 80s that the most significant mobilizations and
strikes occurred in relation to this crop, which paved the way for the achievement of
many of the union demands described above (Ocaña 2006). It should be noted that this
was the decisive period in the conflict that occurred in the Andalusian countryside. In
his analysis, Gómez Oliver identifies that, between 1983 and 1988, 1,654 SOC protest
actions occurred. Among these are highlighted the sit-ins at churches, union
headquarters, and Local Government facilities (28%), and the occupation of plantations
(24.4%), the majority of which were temporary and symbolic in nature (cited in Roca
2014).
Thus, a trades union fabric is configured, in which converge two structures and
forms of unionism that are fundamentally cut across by disagreements which depict a
scenario of the utmost complexity at the point of contemplating collective action. The
different paths and experiences taken by the life stories and social identities of the
collectives that make up these unions, of both farmers and workers respectively, and
their distinctive starting positions, contribute to the understanding of the unionist and
political stage.
13
The following are decisive factors in the understanding of the position occupied
by strawberry farmers and the model through which their identities are constructed: the
class origins of the farmers; the predominance of small ownership and pride of those
that are “self-made” compared with the agrarian bourgeois of the latifundium; the
subordinate position in the global chain of production; the feeling of grievance and
injustice in the face of the tyranny of the large supermarket chains; and, the
abandonment of the CAP. They can, also, be used to explain the place from which the
agricultural unions speak.
We must also take into account, that, while dealing with an agriculture inserted
into capitalist globalization and entrepreneurial logic, the orientation and objective of
the productive process respond in large part to a strategy for sustaining the land and the
farm household. We are faced, thus, with the social reproduction of the model, more
than an entrepreneurial rationality for the accumulation of capital and the configuration
of large scale capitalist exploitation.
Precisely, one of the paradoxes derived from this historical configuration refers
to the conception of the position to which the freseros belong. In accordance with the
process through which this form of agriculture has been professionalized and
intensified, this has been accompanied by the incorporation of forms of the organization
of production and entrepreneurial commercialization, leading some of these farmers
coming to define themselves as entrepreneurs. This is the term used by certain farmers
unions and political institutions. Another very significant part of the producers identify
their position, not with the figure of the entrepreneur, rather with that of the farmer.
This self-identification as farmers, which must be traced to the origins of the sector, is
significantly activated in the current climate in the face of the superior power exercised
by the multinationals and the distribution chains. This helps in the understanding of
their tendency to perceive themselves as being in a position closer to that occupied by
producers in the framework of family agriculture, than that which they have come to
occupy in the framework of an agriculture that is intensive in capital and labor terms. As
a consequence, the factors on which the formation and self-identification of the farmers
are conditional have contributed to diluting the asymmetrical capital/labor relationship
in the social imaginary.
For their part, the workers’ class origin and the position they occupy in relation
to the means of production, the collective identification and memory of the struggles for
14
the land, their condition as salaried employees and the difficult shared living and
working conditions contribute to an understanding of their self-definition as agricultural
workers and day laborers. They place at the center of the conflict the antagonistic nature
of their relationship with the farmers, although on this occasion this relates to small
landowners. The role performed by the Field Laborers’ Union should, therefore, be
mentioned, especially during the 1970s, 80s and 90s, in terms of the configuration not
only the political subject, but also of the strong social identity that combines the labor
dimension, and the link with both the countryside and the Andalusian identity. On the
other hand, the use of the term “field laborers” expresses the focus within unionism on
the industrial sector’s own laborer movement, and on the strength (of struggle, unity and
capacity for negotiation) that, during the Fordist stage, the laborer class had as political
actor in Europe.
The tensions that cut across the forms of collective action are expressed, among
other contexts, in the internal contradictions found in the La Vía Campesina in Spain.
As already described, La Vía Campesina comprises peasant and small farmers’
organizations (among which COAG is highlighted due to its importance at a state level),
although it also counts a field laborers union, SOC6, as a member. The confrontation
that occurs in the Andalusian fields between farmers and workers is transferred to the
internal organization and the forms of collective action of LVC.
Another example that illustrates such tensions can be found in the distinct
parameters which explain the growing abandonment of work in the cultivation of this
crop by Andalusian day laborer families. The representatives of SOC, some of whom
have participated, in previous years, in the strawberry season as salaried workers,
identify the precariousness of both labor and living conditions as the main reasons for
this abandonment. They consider that the fundamental factor stems not only from the
improvement in the quality of life for this collective and its insertion into the better paid
and valued labor sectors, but also to the dismal labor conditions stipulated in the
agreement made for the Huelva strawberry season. Together with the agreement for
Almería, these represent the worst living and working conditions in all of Spain. This is
6
There are four organizations that comprise La Vía Campesina (LVC): the Coordinator of Farmers and
Livestock Breeders Organizations (Coordinadora de Organizaciones de Agricultores y Ganaderos,
COAG); Euskal Herriko nekazarien Elkartasuna (EHNE-Bizkaia), which is a COAG member at a state
level; the Labrego Galego Union (SLG); and, the Field Laborers Union of Andalusia (Sindicato de
Obreros del Campo de Andalucía, SOC).
15
why many Andalusian families opt to move to work in the agricultural season in other
Autonomous Communities, such as Catalonia, and other countries such as France,
where they can find the best working conditions and where the salaries compensate for
the greater distances travelled.
On the contrary, from the perspective of the agricultural organizations, there is a
tendency to consider the economic development and growth that Andalusia has
undergone in recent years as the main factor that would explain the progressive
abandonment of work in the countryside. The emigration of Andalusians, who in their
day took the jobs that the Swiss, Germans, and the French rejected, can be compared,
therefore, to the current situation in the countryside where non-Community immigrants
arriving to our country have come to take the jobs that the Andalusians reject:
“fortunately, that Andalusian workers pass up, gives the idea that the country is
improving” (President of Freshuelva).
The workforce replacement that have marked the history of this crop reveal the
positions found in both union discourse and practice, as well as the incidence of
unionism of one type or another in the orientation of these processes. Although the
farmers unions have had to explain these substitution processes in terms of the scarcity
of labor, a holistic view points to the convergence of a group of interconnected
processes and factors that establish connections between origin and destination, between
the global and the local, and among economics, politics and society. For reasons of
space, we confine ourselves to one of the factors which, for us, appears fundamental to
an understanding of the union struggle and the forms of collective action.
The instability of the sector and the need to adjust oneself to the demands of
globalized markets are going to provoke, by a greater measure than before, that the
short-term commitment required and the qualities of stability and availability are
converted into the three fundamental qualities that the farmers search for in the wage
workforce. These are qualities they ceased to find in the Andalusian day laborer families
and the Maghrebi and Sub-saharan workers.
In the first case, owing to the fact that the Andalusian families were not prepared
to allow their working conditions to depend to such an extent on the demands of the
labor market, they demanded labor rights and organized themselves into a union. In
turn, the low salaries obliged them to combine their work in the strawberry fields with
other agricultural seasons or work sectors, which explains the fact that, on occasions,
16
they joined after, or left before, the season began, thus failing to provide the availability
demanded by the producers:
The Andalusians let you down, they went to the festivals and parties in their towns, in
Holy Week, besides complaining too much, and sometimes leaving you in the lurch.
This year, I brought five from Cádiz and they let me down because they have found
work in construction or, for example, this year I have brought in four from Algodonales
and... ¡uf!, they have only just arrived and are already complaining – it is as though they
do not know that they have come to work in the fields! However, the women are good
workers, this year, I have some Romanians that are fantastic (Mario Ruiz7, mediumsized farmer).
In the second case is due, likewise, to various reasons. On the one hand, the
precariousness and seasonal nature of the agricultural labor markets oblige the
Maghrebi and Sub-saharan workers to follow the tour dictated by the distinct seasons,
some of which coincide in certain timeframes with the strawberry season. In other
cases, this is due to the instability generated by the immigrants themselves due to their
lack of documentation and the high level of geographical and labor mobility, which
place them in a vulnerable and uncertain living situation. Nor should the cultural racism
rooted in our society and displayed especially with regard to the figure of Moroccan
workers, subjected not only to forms of labor exploitation and social exclusion, but also
to forms of symbolic violence.
A decisive factor, however, was the mobilizations undertaken by the Maghrebi
and Sub-saharan workers from 2001 to 2002, which led them to a direct confrontation
with Government, farmers unions and management. It was in the face of precarious
living and working conditions, and the systematic refusal of the regularization
applications presented by migrant workers, that the protests and demonstrations
undertaken by around 850 immigrants (featuring a large Maghrebi contingent) took
place during the season in Huelva in 2001, and which resulted in hunger strikes and sitins (Gualda 2004).
After a 19-day hunger strike, the sit-in at Lepe spelled a victory for
“undocumented” immigrants, given that they were able to attain the regularization of
their status. This was followed by five sit-ins in the capital of Huelva. After thirty-three
days of mobilization and thirteen days of hunger strike, an agreement was reached
between fresero management (Freshuelva) and the Platform Against the Law for
Foreigners in Huelva. Based on this agreement, commitments were made to process the
7
In order to maintain the anonymity of the interviewees, fictional names will be use.
17
pre-contracts necessary in order to regularize the immigrants’ status (through a process
of extraordinary regularization begun in June 2001 by Central Government) (CGT
2003). As some of the social and union organizations reported (CGT, ODITE and SU),
135 immigrants were not admitted into the pre-contract process given that the refusal
ruling by the Sub-Delegation of the Huelva Government was handed down before the
pre-contracts had been established (CGT 2003).
The demonstrations in the strawberry region of Huelva constituted the base from
which the 2002 sit-in of more than 500 immigrants (from Mauritania, Ivory Coast,
Senegal, Mali, Nigeria, Morocco and Algeria) was organized in the University of Pablo
de Olavide in Seville. One sit-in, which pursued the objective of “papers for all” and led
to hunger strikes, culminated on 7th August, after a long process of struggle and
negotiation, in the entry by police into the University and the detention and deportation
of those immigrants that had not abandoned the sit-in. In the end, 244 Algerians were
returned to their country (Martín and Castaño 2004)8. This sit-in coincided with the
European Summit held, in 2002, in the same city of Seville.
As indicated above, the increase in bilateral agreements, repatriation agreements
and country of origin contracting policies in strawberry fields must be understood in
this context, one that is marked by conflict and social mobilization. In this sense,
together with the factors that explain the refusal of the aforementioned workforce, it is
useful to consider the advantages found by producers, farmers unions and Government
in country of origin contracting policies. It is useful to compare the profile and
composition of workforce contracted under this public policy with that of the day
laborer Andalusian families, or the Maghrebei and Central and Southern African
workers, organized into class based unions or immigrant organizations.
This enables us to go deeper, in the section that continues below, into the
heterogeneity and fragmentation of the workforce, in the positions and incidence of
unionism and, with this, the configuration of an ever-more complex landscape posing
significant challenges for collective action.
8
Distinct visions and evaluations of the sit-in by immigrants that took place in the University of Pablo de
Olavide in 2002 can be found in Martín and Castaño (2004) and CGT (2003).
18
4. Country of origin contracting policies: consensus, protest and fragmentation.
A look at the position and type of action carried out by the farmers unions with
regard to new management policies for both work and immigration reveals, in the first
instance, the complicity between their interests and those of the Government.
Highlighted among the advantages found by farmers and agricultural unions in the
country of origin contracting policies are the possibility of planning the season with
sufficient anticipation in order to guarantee the profile and volume of the workforce
required. Both the circumstances of their departure in their countries of origin and the
conditions in which their contract was established (restricted to a geographical area,
sector and duration) place the workforce in a fragile position and subject to the
exigencies of both management and Government. As the farmers themselves assure, this
is about people who are the “most needed, who come only to work and who generate
fewer problems, in order that progress can be made with the season”.
The three criteria established for the selection of the workforce under these
policies reveal the advantages found in the profile denominated the “ideal woman
worker”: that they are women; that they come from rural areas; and, that they are middle
aged with children. The decision to request primarily women since this model was first
implemented is justified using three arguments: the existence of “feminine” abilities,
such as flexibility, agility and delicacy – ideal for the picking of an “early-bearing”
perishable product such as the strawberry; women are considered to be more responsible
and hard-working that men; and, thirdly, reference is also made to women causing less
conflict at work:
They prefer women because they cause less conflict, although they do go out, they go
out less and drink less. The farmers only ask for women, and more women (technician
from the farmer union, COAG).
Women cause fewer problems than men, you can manage seventy women better than
seventy men, because, well, it is not as if you are going to do whatever you want to do,
but... I tell you, maybe there aren’t many strawberries, or it rains and so on, and you
say, well, look, today there is no work... They are more humble I think, and they get on
better (Antonio Pérez, farmer).
The decision to hire women from the rural areas emerges through the arrival, in
the early years, of a significant volume of young women from Eastern Europe,
especially Poland, mainly from urban areas and with a high school or university
education. It is felt that women from rural areas that are middle-aged, married and/or
19
with children throw themselves into their work and avoid union-related conflict. The
workers who were contracted in the early years perceive the evolution of the profile in
this sense, as described by Ana Calinikos, an older temporary worker from Poland who
was selected in the second year in which county of origin contracting was applied, when
she was 21 years old:
It’s that now things are changing, because before we were very young, and each time
the women that arrive are older. In the early years they wanted younger women because
they thought that they were stronger and more motivated to work, but as they came to
see later, young women like to live, and not just work, and now they are looking for
women that are a little older.
By advertising for women with family responsibilities they are also looking to
guarantee one of the key objectives of these labor and migration policies: the return of
female temporary workers to their countries of origin once the season has finished. A
similar tendency can be seen in the Mexico-Canada Seasonal Agricultural Worker
Program (SAWP), in which the demand for female workers has led to the producers to
request workers with family responsibilities (Preibisch 2004). In this case, moreover,
the preference is to hire single mothers, divorcees or widows (Hermoso 2004; Becerril
2004). Government, farmers unions and producers coincide in establishing an automatic
connection between women’s responsibility for the maintenance and care of the
household and their return to their country when the season has finished:
Well, the selection is carried out by the business owners, and I believe that it is the
women who adapt best to the work and, above all, when they are hired in the country of
origin it is wise to obtain a commitment to return. Normally the women have more
family ties than the men, and it is more likely that the women return than the men,
which also favors the selection of women (Sub-delegate to the Provincial Government
of Huelva)
The profile is middle-aged people, neither excessively young nor excessively old. A 35
year-old with a family comes to earn money, and for no other reason, a 21 year-old
comes to earn money and if they can have a good time, then even better, which is of
course totally understandable. (...)[Those that are married or have children] are easy at
the moment of return, they have roots at home, they have a family, therefore, they are
going to return (…). Therefore, you have the guarantee of return and the guarantee of
work (technician from the farmer union ASAJA).
Practical experience will demonstrate, however, the contradictions that appear
between the model envisaged in governmental policy and the use to which it is put by
20
these women and their strategies for labor mobility9. That their sights are set on
permanent settlement in Spain and a future family reunion or the best chance of
augmenting their income explains the decision taken by many female temporary
workers not to return. Precisely with the objective of providing follow-up on female
temporary workers contracted in their country of origin, and guaranteeing, among other
things, their return, two initiatives emerge as set out by the agricultural union and the
public administration, respectively: the Area for Immigration service at COAG-Huelva
and the Aeneas-Cartaya project.
The specific profile presented by the organization explains why, at a certain
moment COAG saw the need to offer a specific program based on the follow-up and
accompaniment of the female workers contracted in their country of origin, an aspect
that differentiates COAG from the rest of the agricultural organizations. COAG
constituted a work team comprising the provincial organizational secretary, a female
Romanian ex-temporary worker hired as a translator, and a group of seven monitors
who were qualified social workers. The objective being pursued was the detection of
problems and necessities that emerge during the strawberry season on the part both of
the farmers and female workers, and the attempt to resolve them in order to guarantee
that the country of origin contracting system functions correctly.
The work undertaken by the monitors comprises three phases. The first phase
comprises the arrival of the female temporary workers in Huelva, their dispersal to the
various strawberry farms, the processing of their contracts and their installation in their
accommodation. The second comprises their day to day work and life in farms. The
third phase comprises the close of the season, and the organization of their return to
their places of origin. Routine follow-up, when there are no problems, is usually rapid
and limited. Among the day to day problems or necessities that present themselves to
the farmers are the following: complaints in relation to poor work performance,
complaints that the worker has a confrontational attitude toward the farmer, or
complaints that the worker has disrupted communal life on the farm.
Among the most common demands made by the female temporary workers are
over a lack of information related to the forms of payment, the conditions of the
agreement, and social services on offer, as well as the processing of the documentation
9
For an analysis of the idea of “good mothers” used beyond these guest workers programs, see
Morokvasic (2007).
21
required for an application for the right to residency and work in Spain. Their
fundamental complaints focus on the problems related to the lack of work, disrespectful
treatment on the part of management or the person in charge, non-compliance with the
agreement, poor living conditions, or difficulties with the process of being dispersed to
the towns.
The greatest sensitivity that, effectively, this organization has shown with regard
to the working and living conditions faced by the female temporary workers crashes
with its work on reproducing the model and improving its functioning. The
contradictions derive from the lack of compatibility among the principles that define
COAG, the interests of the strawberry producers, and those that it represents. These just
are some examples differentiating this organization from the rest of the agricultural
unions: the joint work undertaken by various NGOs, such as the Red Cross; the efforts
made to ensure that the workers who have not passed the fifteen day trial period are
contracted by another company; the predisposition to ensure that those who arrive with
a family member be placed at the same farm; and, the follow-up program itself, which is
undertaken by the monitors and which certainly constitutes a point of support for the
female temporary workers.
However, at the same time, we must consider those forms of intervention that go
in the opposite direction. These include the tendency to justify the actions of the farmers
when this leads to an excess of wage labor, which thus leads to problems with
insufficient work, or when they fire a female worker for not picking the expected
volume of strawberries. Other examples would be the obstacles they place in front of
the work of the union and the collective organization of the workers, with the intention
to stifle the dissident voices of certain female workers, or the scarcity of information
that, in practice, they provide the female workers on their labor rights or the
immigration laws.
Because the model is not questioned, and instead its improvement is sought, it is
understood that in practice its objectives are directed at resolving the “failures” that
these policies are considered to have. The search for consensus comes, finally, to
subject the rights of female immigrant workers to the farmers’ interests.
Some parallels can be drawn with the program developed from the AeneasCartaya project. This refers to an initiative launched by the public institutions in 2006,
which, while based in the local context, is set out in the policies of the European Union.
22
Defined as an Integrated and Ethical Project for the Management of Labor Migration
between Morocco and Huelva, and financed by EU funds10, the initiative is driven by
the Local Government of Cartaya, one of the most significant strawberry regions in
Huelva. It aims to reduce the high percentage of Moroccan women workers that do not
comply with the return requirements.
The project, consisting of a team of technicians, among which are nine
Reception and Accompaniment Mediators, aims to control the flow of migrants,
guarantee the continuity of country of origin contracting and attain a higher return rate,
as well as contribute to the training of women workers from Morocco. To achieve this,
they undertake the following actions: the accompaniment of workers during their
journey from Morocco to Huelva, with the aim of “raising their awareness on the risks
of illegal immigration and the advantages of country of origin contracting”;
accompaniment throughout their stay; training and awareness raising courses; and, the
organization of their return.
Those responsible for the project, the farmers union and representatives of the
public administrations, coincide in highlighting the achievements attained through
Aeneas-Cartaya. The return of almost 90% of the female Moroccan workers to their
country after the 2007 season is presented as the most evident sign of this success: of
the 4,632 Moroccan women hired for the 2007 season, a non-return rate of only 9.97%
(462 female workers) was produced, statistics which are notably different to the
previous seasons (in 2005, only 10% of workers returned and, in 2006, this was still
only nearing 50%).
The work of the monitors follows a similar dynamic to the COAG Immigration
Area. Throughout their work shift, they visit the farmers and the Moroccan women, in
order to follow-up on their stay in Huelva and attend to the needs and conflicts that may
have arisen. The workers usually demonstrate an open and close relationship toward the
monitors, those that they effectively perceive as a point of support. However, although a
supposed form of help, some of the mediators consider that Aeneas-Cartaya “does not
come from charity or because they are genuinely interested in the situation of Moroccan
women, being due instead to the situation of the farmers”.
10
The project owes its name to the European Union funds (AENEAS). The subsidy awarded increased
during the first phase to 1.29 million euros (information extracted from the project’s internal documents).
This paper deals solely with this first phase.
23
In harmony with the farmers unions, the main workers unions, CC.OO and
U.G.T, undertake a positive evaluation of the new contracting and work management
policies, further to playing a decisive role in their implementation. Together with the
four agricultural unions that work in the region, the sub-delegation of the Government
and Spanish Federation of Municipalities and Provinces (Federación Española de
Municipios y Provincias, FEMP), these workers unions sit on the Migration Forum,
which will be the space where those labor related issues that emerge in the season each
year will be negotiated and managed.
The agricultural unions, political institutions and main workers unions share the
idea that these policies enable the control and regulation of a labor migration that, until
recently, arrived to the strawberry towns in an “uncontrolled” manner. Similarly, they
understand that under this legal framework, which assures transport, accommodation
and employment, dignity in the workers’ living and working conditions are guaranteed:
Before you could not imagine what went on in the towns, at this time of day you would
come across thousands and thousands of workers in the street, asking for work, the fruit
was never of any kind of quality, because you had no time no time to pick it, everyone
was looking around and asking themselves, “if the inspector finds out this situation, I’ll
get sent to jail”, and nor was it safe. This system occurred to us because it was in El Ejido
where things blew up11, so it could have blown up here. So we said to ourselves “either
we get a move on and or this will blow up for us as well”, that experience helped us. The
truth is that everyone is much more relaxed (General Secretary for the Agri-Food Sector
for the Province, CC.OO-Huelva).
This country of origin contracting is what guarantees that these workers arrive in
dignified conditions, with work already arranged, and are not going from one area to
another looking for work (responsible for the strawberry sector and immigration at UGTHuelva)
It is on this point that the positive evaluations of this system of hiring by such
NGOs as ACCEM, the Red Cross, Cáritas and Huelva Acoge have been based.
Together with the main workers unions, these organizations see the regularization of
this large scale migration as a method of improving the immigrants’ living and working
conditions and avoiding the problems of discrimination that were occurring in the
African population in Spain previously. Among these social and union organizations, it
is considered that we are no longer faced with the characteristic profile of the capitalist
11
This alludes to the racist conflicts that took place in 2000 in El Ejido (Almería), the other main nucleus
for intensive agriculture in Andalusia. For an analysis that attempts to surpass the dichotomous
interpretation of conflict, see the work of the anthropologist Martín (2002).
24
businessman that “bullies his workers”, and instead the “small farmer who cares for
their female temporary workers and complies with their obligations”.
These NGOs undertake work that is fundamentally about providing assistance.
Their attention is focused on the shanty settlement populated by the Sub-saharan and
Maghrebi immigrants who arrive to the strawberry region looking for work, and on the
provision of an information service and legal advice on immigration law, Spanish
classes for foreigners, and a job search service.
Other social and union organizations, while recognizing these advantages related
to working and living conditions, place emphasis, at this time, on the negative aspects
that accompany the new policies. Minoritary workers unions, such as the SOC and the
Sindicato Unitario (SU), and social organizations such as the Seville Office for Social
Rights and the Huelva Pro Human Rights Association, sit on the Temporary Workers
Forum12. This was created as an alternative to the “official forum”, the aforementioned
Migration Forum, from which they have been excluded. It should be noted that, in
Spain, the criteria for establishing union representation in the spaces for negotiation is
the number of delegates obtained in the union elections. While found within radical
unionism, the unions of the Temporary Workers’ Forum maintain a critical position
with regard to the social capital-labor pact established by the channels of negotiation
among the State, management and the main workers unions (CCOO and UGT). Faced
with this, conflict and collective action are first in line, and only after which is found the
work of negotiation and consensus.
With regard to the experience with which we concern ourselves here, they
maintain that these policies subject the rights of the female workers to the interests of
the producers and the Government. Highlighted among their lines of action are the
following: the informative work, through direct contact and the distribution of leaflets
that outline labor rights and the conditions of the agreement; complaints and protest,
through campaigns, demonstrations and social action; grassroots organizational work,
which includes the attempt to coordinate with associated union organizations in the
countries of origin; and, social and legal advice services introduced to respond to labor
problems and those associated with immigration law. These actions ensure that,
12
In the period in which the field work was developed, the CGT union did not form part of the
Temporary Workers Forum, but its role in the previous struggles of immigrant strawberry workers is
highlighted.
25
although the Temporary Workers Forum aims to transform the basis of the model, its
main demands are oriented to the medium and short term:
-
Compliance with the agreement.
Translation of the contracts into the workers’ first language.
The payment of the minimum equivalent wage for days that are not worked due
to causes attributable to the producer.
Minimum living conditions in the accommodation provided.
Regular and punctual public transport during the season from the farms to the
nearest populations.
An increase in visits from the Labor Inspectorate.
The removal of the trial period from the contracts signed in the country of origin.
Compensation for dismissal to the value of 7% of wage payments, and
reinstatement in cases of unfair dismissal or the option of compensation at the
discretion of the worker.
Similarly, the Temporary Workers Forum considers that these policies serve as a
system to control and demobilize working class:
One form of ending the demonstrations in Huelva that demand documentation and rights
was to request country of origin contracting. Furthermore, women with family
responsibilities and people ignorant of their rights were brought over. These are people
who come to earn money, and, above, whose availability is total (responsible for the
Gender Area at SOC).
It seems to be necessary to remember, in this regard, the demonstrations in which
Maghrebi and Sub-saharan immigrant workers again became involved in Huelva after
the extension of country of origin contracting to quotas of female workers from Eastern
Europe. This ethnic and gender substitution in terms of labor provoked the displacement
from the labor market of those immigrant workers from previous eras who had work
permits limited to agricultural work in Huelva, and who were holders of pre-contracts
that had been introduced after the protests of 2001 (Gualda 2004). One event that stands
out is the March for Dignity, which was attended by around 1,000 immigrants, who
undertook a march on foot from a strawberry town, Moguer, to the capital of Huelva (25
km) (CGT 2003).
The construction, in this context, of shanty settlements inhabited by thousands of
temporary immigrant workers in inhuman conditions obliged the Local Government of
Andalusia to implement an emergency plan, supported by the work of the NGOs
(APDH-Huelva 2015). It should be mentioned that these shanty settlements have
occurred in each agricultural season and, currently, are populated by more than 7,000
26
immigrants. As has been reported by the Pro-Human Rights Association (APDHHuelva 2015) and the workers union, Laborers Commissions (CC.OO), these
settlements have been transformed into a chronic structural problem. Immigrants
arriving to the strawberry fields to live “in an inhuman and chaotic situation in the face
of abandonment by the various public administrations” (CC.OO-Huelva 2015).
More complex is the view held by the female strawberry workers themselves,
where the difference in terms of experience and evaluation is significant. To the extent
that it is the pathway through which they are offered the possibility of legally
emigrating to Spain, guaranteeing both work and accommodation and organizing their
transit between countries. The female workers also highlight the advantages that this
model has for them in principle. The differences appear through the experience of one
or various seasons, which enables them to evaluate it from a certain perspective.
Therefore, this is when many female workers demonstrate a greater level of
dissatisfaction in relation to mobility, working conditions in the fields, the impossibility
of emigrating as a family, their living conditions and their isolation from the towns. All
of this occurs in a context in which they are very aware of the consequences that any
type of complaint or demonstration would have on the chances of the farmer hiring
them again for the following season.
Despite the obstacles and the perception of the female workers as a docile and
demobilized source of labor, day-to-day experience reveals their actions. These
responses are channeled through various pathways. This should begin by focusing on
the female immigrants’ own support networks, which comprise solidarity networks to
confront many of the day-to-day problems they face. A sense of national and ethnic
belonging and kinship groups play a fundamental role in the formation of these
networks. The pro-immigrant social organizations and the workers unions, especially
those that make up the Temporary Workers Forum, are transformed into another of the
key spaces through which complaints can be made and protest actions organized. They
can also be the pathway through which negotiations with management are carried out in
the Center for Mediation, Arbitration and Conciliation, which is the stage prior to legal
action.
The subject of the complaint is usually the non-payment of wages corresponding
to the agreement, as relating to extra hours and lack of work. It was after the third and
fourth year of the implementation of these policies when the female immigrant workers
27
began to complain over the consequences for them of moving from their home countries
to work for only an average of fifteen days per month, which represents a very
significant reduction in their monthly salary:
The problem is that there are many people and there is very little work, this is the
problem, both last year and this one, and it is not resolved (Susana Sarbu).
And, for example, if there is no work tomorrow, Antonio tells us that there is no work
tomorrow. He tells us in the afternoon when the work finishes, or, for example,
yesterday we finished this parcel of land and Antonio says, “ok, go home”, at one
o’clock, we worked four hours (Dorina Craciunescu).
In light of this situation, the main workers unions (CC.OO and UGT), the
Government and management agreed to establish, in 2005, a minimum of 18 workdays
per month. Those producers not complying with this agreement would have their
requested quota reduced or would, even, be refused the right to request new workers. A
similar problem had to face the Mexican temporary workers hired in the strawberry
fields in Canada, by a guest workers program too (Verduzco 2004).
An illustrative case is that of Matzara Petrov, a Polish worker hired to do handling
and packing work in the store at one of the main cooperatives in the region. She
contacted the Temporary Worker Forum to complain, together with two immigrant coworkers, the failure to pay extra hours worked, something which had been occurring
over the years without any protest from the local female workers. In the previous
season, when Matzara worked picking strawberries in the field, she was the organizer of
a demonstration in which participated close to one hundred Eastern European workers
contracted in their country of origin. The collective action took place on the 1st May in
the Las Arenillas farm, in which the payment of the extra hours worked was also
demanded. This is one of the few collective mobilizations that have taken place in the
strawberry fields since the implementation of the country of origin contracting policies.
Similarly, the complaints of a group of women Romanian workers, after four
years of emigrating to work in the strawberry fields, due to the lack of information
received from the agricultural and farmers’ union, reflect this attitude of protest:
“All of the owners are obliged to have a lawyer...? We would like to talk to a lawyer
because we earn 32 euros and not 33, due to problems at work”. “The agreement is not
respected...” [complained one colleague, while another added:] “No, it is not respected by
any owner, not just this one. In Spain, there is more mafia than in Romania, in Spain they
think that the [female] Romanian does not speak a word [of Spanish], and they
understand well, they think that the [female] Romanian is stupid, that she does not know”.
28
“Here everyone believes that we do not understand” – insisted another colleague. “When
I leave for Romania, I go to the Ministry for Employment and ask”.
5. Conclusions.
This study has attempted to demonstrate both the particular function of this form
of production within the capitalist system, and the variability of concrete historical
processes, something which demonstrates the value of empirical localized analysis.
Similarly, it has also sought to collect, where possible, the complexity of the scenario
presented in the face of the forms of collective action and the heterogeneity of the fabric
of the associations and unions, which show the differences between the objectives,
approaches and actions carried out by each organization.
Some of the phenomena that help in the understanding of the difficulties for the
organization of a collective as heterogeneous and precarious as that of the strawberry
workers, and the tendency that has been observed toward their demobilization are as
follows: the role of the assistance policies implemented by the State to guarantee the
economic subsistence of the Andalusian day laborer families, such as the agricultural
subsidy; the growing fragmentation of the working class and the coexistence of
categories of workers that are hierarchical (in terms of class, ethnicity, gender, system
of recruitment, type of contract, and the regularity or irregularity of their situation); the
new forms of control and lack of protection; the conditions that establish the country of
origin contracting policies; the hiding of class conflict; or, the cost that some of the
protests and sit-ins had for the immigrant workers.
Added to the above are the following logical contradictions between the
organization and union structures that, in their representation of small farmers and
workers, respectively, pursue opposing interests. The effects of some neoliberal labor
and migratory policies are that they have entailed a clear loss of the labor rights attained
by the labor movement and have restricted the negotiating capacity of the workers
unions. The generalized tendency of both the farmers unions and a large part of the
workers unions to convert themselves into “service unions” leads to a consequent loss
of an attitude of protest and the capacity to apply pressure. The workers unions also
experience limitations in adapting and responding to the distinct positions occupied in
agricultural work by men and women, regularized and non-regularized immigrants,
foreign and local workers.
29
In a similar agricultural model, in the Murcia region, Pedreño, Gadea and Castro
(2014) identify different strategies developed by the producers to counteract union
actions and constrain the workers’ demands. Among these are the forms of temporary
contracting that impede worker unionization and limit their negotiating power, the
temporary nature of the work and the rotation of workers, as well as the pressure applied
to impede affiliation. Such strategies are also observed in the strawberry fields.
In any case, and despite the obstacles, this paper has demonstrated that the
spaces remain for struggle and collective action, for the responses of the self-organized
and union-organized workers, as well as the responses of the non-organized workers,
the immigrant workers and the female temporary workers. That is, the day-to-day
experience in the Andalusian strawberry fields reveals the place of the agency and
obliges us to go beyond an analysis that interprets the class structure and conflicts in
simplistic and polar opposite terms, as demonstrated in an exemplary manner by Wells’
analysis (1996) of the strawberry fields in California.
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