Plantation Workers by Definition: The Changing Relevance of the ILO’s Plantations Convention
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Published
Jan 4, 2010
David Lincoln
Abstract
The ILO’s Plantations Convention is intended to provide a standard for plantation labour. The Plantations Convention defines plantations – and thus plantation labour – in terms of the production of specific crops in the tropics and subtropics. This paper examines world production of these crops over time to determine the proportions accounted for by labour in countries that have ratified the Plantations Convention. The Convention is shown to have limited reach, with only a minor proportion of plantation crops produced by labour in ratifying countries. The structural conditions under which the Convention’s purpose was formulated have altered and the plantation’s significance in the global division of labour has diminished. Although the ILO’s general approach to agricultural labour is consistent with changes in the sector, the Organisation nevertheless continues to apply its inappropriate definition of plantations in its attempts to extend the reach of the outdated Plantations Convention. The article contributes to an understanding of the complexity of applying labour standards in the parts of global value chains that are located in the global South. It points to the need for revisions to better serve the South’s export agricultural workers.
How to Cite
Lincoln, D. . (2010) “Plantation Workers by Definition: The Changing Relevance of the ILO’s Plantations Convention ”, The International Journal of Sociology of Agriculture and Food. Paris, France, 17(1), pp. 51–71. doi: 10.48416/ijsaf.v17i1.267.
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SAJHAU, J.-P. (1986) Employment, wages and living conditions in a changing industry – plantations, International Labour Review, 125(1), pp. 71–85.
SAJHAU, J.-P. and VON MURALT, J. (1987) Plantations and Plantation Workers. Geneva: International Labour Office.
SEMBOJA, H.H.H., MBELWA, R. and BONAVENTURA, C. (2000) The Cut-flower Industry in Tanzania, Sectoral Activities Programme Working Paper 152. Geneva: International Labour Office.
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TALLONTIRE, A., DOLAN, C., SMITH, S. and BARRIENTOS, S. (2005) Reaching the marginalised? Gender value chains and ethical trade in African horticulture, Development in Practice, 15(3–4), pp. 559–571.
THOMPSON, E.T. (1975) Plantation Societies, Race Relations and the South: The Regimentation of Populations, Selected Papers of Edgar T. Thompson. Durham, nC: Duke University Press.
TILLY, C. (1995) Globalization threatens labor’s rights, International Labor and Working-Class History, 47(Spring), pp. 1–23.
UTTING-CHAMORRO, K. (2005) Does fair trade make a difference? the case of small coffee producers in nicaragua, Development in Practice, 15(3–4), pp. 584–599.
WEIS, T. (2007) Small farming and radical imaginations in the Caribbean today, Race and Class, 49(2), pp. 112–117.
ARRIGHI, G. (1994) The Long Twentieth Century: Money, Power, and the Origins of Our Times. London: verso.
ASEA, P.K. and KAIJA, D. (2000) Impact of the Flower Industry in Uganda, Sectoral Activities Programme Working Paper 148. Geneva: International Labour Office.
BARRIENTOS, S. and SMITH, S. (2007) Do workers benefit from ethical trade? Assessing codes of labour practice in global production systems, Third World Quarterly, 28(4), pp. 713–729.
BECKFORD, G.L. (1972) Persistent Poverty: Underdevelopment in Plantation Economies of the Third World. London: Oxford University Press.
CID-AGUAYO, B.E. (2007) Frozen fates: the risky rationalization of a Chilean frozen vegetable company, Latin American Perspectives, 34(6), pp. 40–51.
COLLINS, J. (1993) Gender, contracts and wage work: agricultural restructuring in Brazil’s São Francisco valley, Development and Change, 24(1), pp. 53–82.
COLLINS, J. and KRIPPNER, G. (1999) Permanent labor contracts in agriculture: flexibility and subordination in a new export crop, Comparative Studies in Society and History, 41(3), pp. 510–534.
COURTNEY, P.P. (1965) Plantation Agriculture. new York: Frederick A. Praeger.
DOLAN, C.S. (2004) On farm and packhouse: employment at the bottom of a global value chain, Rural Sociology, 69(1), pp. 99–126.
DOLAN, C., HUMPHREY, J. and HARRIS-PASCAL, C. (1999) Horticulture Commodity Chains: The Impact on the UK Market of the African Fresh Vegetable Industry, IDS Working Paper 96. Brighton: Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex.
FRIEDMANN, H. (1991) Changes in the international division of labor: agri-food complexes and export agriculture,
in: W.H. FRIEDLAND, L. BUSCH, F.H. BUTTEL and A. RUDY (eds) Towards a New Political Economy of Agriculture, Boulder: Westview Press, pp. 65–93.
FRÖBEL, F., HEINRICHS, J. and KREYE, O. (1980) The New International Division of Labour. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
GIBBON, P. and PONTE, S. (2005) Trading Down: Africa, Value Chains, and the Global Economy. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.
GRAHAM, E. (with FLOERING, I.) (1984) The Modern Plantation in the Third World. London: Croom Helm.
GRAVES, A. (1986) Panel discussion, in: S. EAKIN and J. TARVER (eds) Plantations around the World, Baton Rouge: LSU Agricultural Center, pp. 275–291.
INTERNATIONAL LABOUR OFFICE (1966) Plantation Workers: Conditions of Work and Standards of Living. Geneva:
International Labour Office.
INTERNATIONAL LABOUR OFFICE (1996) Wage Workers in Agriculture: Conditions of Employment and Work. Geneva: International Labour Office.
INTERNATIONAL LABOUR ORGANISATION (1994a) Recent Developments in the Plantations Sector: Report 1. Geneva:
International Labour Office.
INTERNATIONAL LABOUR ORGANISATION (1994b) Note on the Proceedings of the Committee on Work on Plantations,
10th Session, 21–29 September. Geneva: International Labour Office.
INTERNATIONAL LABOUR ORGANISATION (1997) Effect to be Given to the Recommendations of the Tripartite Meeting
on Improving the Conditions of Employment and Work of Agricultural Wage Workers in the Context of Economic Restructuring, GB.268/STM/2. Geneva: International Labour Office.
INTERNATIONAL LABOUR ORGANISATION (2000) Note on the Proceedings of the Tripartite Meeting on Moving to
Sustainable Agricultural Development through the Modernization of Agriculture and Employment in a Globalized
Economy, TMAD/2000/13. Geneva: International Labour Office.
INTERNATIONAL LABOUR OFFICE (2003) Decent Work in Agriculture. Background paper for International Workers’
Symposium on Decent Work in Agriculture, Geneva, 15–18 September.
ISLAM, N. (1990) Horticultural Exports of Developing Countries: Past Performances, Future Prospects, and Policy
Issues, Research Report no.80. Washington: International Food Policy Research Institute.
JACOBY, E.H. (1961) Agrarian Unrest in Southeast Asia, 2nd edn. Bombay: Asia Publishing House.
JONES, W.O. (1968) Plantations, in: D.L. SILLS (ed.) International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, Macmillan & The Free Press, pp.154–159.
KIRK, C. (1987) People in Plantations: A Literature Review and Annotated Bibliography. Sussex: Institute of Development Studies.
KOROVKIN, T. (2003) Cut-flower exports, female labor, and community participation in highland Ecuador, Latin American Perspectives, 30(4), pp. 18–42.
LAMUSSE, R. (1980) Labour policy in the plantation islands, World Development, 8(12), pp. 1035–1050.
LEE, K.-H. and SIVANANTHIRAN, A. (1996) Contract labour in Malaysia: perspectives of principal employers, contractors and workers, International Labour Review, 135(6), pp. 75–91.
LITTLE, P.D. and WATTS, M.J. (eds) (1994) Living under Contract: Contract Farming and Agrarian Transformation
in Sub-Saharan Africa. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press.
MACKINTOSH, M. (1977) Fruit and vegetables as an international commodity: the relocation of horticultural
production and its implications for the producers, Food Policy, 2(nov), pp. 277–292.
MCCULLOCH, N. and OTA, M. (2002) Export Horticulture and Poverty in Kenya, IDS Working Paper 174. Brighton: Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex.
MCMICHAEL, P. (ed.) (1994) The Global Restructuring of Agro-food Systems. Ithaca, nY: Cornell University Press.
MCMICHAEL, P. (1996) Development and Social Change: A Global Perspective. Thousand Oaks , CA: Pine Forge Press.
MYERS, G. (2005) Banana Wars: the Price of Free Trade. London: Zed Books.
PAIGE, J.M. (1975) Agrarian Revolution: Social Movements and Export Agriculture in the Underdeveloped World. new York: The Free Press.
RAYNOLDS, L.T. (2000) negotiating contract farming in the Dominican Republic, Human Organization, 59(4), pp. 441–451.
RAYNOLDS, L.T., MYHRE, D., MCMICHAEL, P., CARRO-FIGUEROA, V. and BUTTEL, F.H. (1993) The ‘new’ internationalization
of agriculture: a reformulation, World Development, 21(7), pp. 1101–1121.
ROBEQUAIN, C. (1958) Malaya, Indonesia, Borneo, and the Philippines, 2nd edn, translated by E.D. Laborde. London: Longmans, Green.
SAJHAU, J.-P. (1986) Employment, wages and living conditions in a changing industry – plantations, International Labour Review, 125(1), pp. 71–85.
SAJHAU, J.-P. and VON MURALT, J. (1987) Plantations and Plantation Workers. Geneva: International Labour Office.
SEMBOJA, H.H.H., MBELWA, R. and BONAVENTURA, C. (2000) The Cut-flower Industry in Tanzania, Sectoral Activities Programme Working Paper 152. Geneva: International Labour Office.
SILVER, B. (2003) Forces of Labor: Workers’ Movements and Globalization since 1870. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
TALBOT, J.M. (2002) Tropical commodity chains, forward integration strategies and international inequality: coffee, cocoa and tea, Review of International Political Economy, 9(4), pp. 701–734.
TALLONTIRE, A., DOLAN, C., SMITH, S. and BARRIENTOS, S. (2005) Reaching the marginalised? Gender value chains and ethical trade in African horticulture, Development in Practice, 15(3–4), pp. 559–571.
THOMPSON, E.T. (1975) Plantation Societies, Race Relations and the South: The Regimentation of Populations, Selected Papers of Edgar T. Thompson. Durham, nC: Duke University Press.
TILLY, C. (1995) Globalization threatens labor’s rights, International Labor and Working-Class History, 47(Spring), pp. 1–23.
UTTING-CHAMORRO, K. (2005) Does fair trade make a difference? the case of small coffee producers in nicaragua, Development in Practice, 15(3–4), pp. 584–599.
WEIS, T. (2007) Small farming and radical imaginations in the Caribbean today, Race and Class, 49(2), pp. 112–117.
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