FARMWORKER ORGANIZING IN U.S. AGRIBUSINESS: SYMBOLIC POWER PAVES THE PATH TO DIGNITY A Thesis Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Cornell University In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Science by Matthew McSorley Fischer-Daly August 2019 @ 2019 Matthew McSorley Fischer-Daly ABSTRACT Farmworkers have struggled for the recognition and respect of their labor rights throughout U.S. history. Under the doctrine of agriculture exceptionalism, labor and immigration policies have disenfranchised agricultural workers, exposing them to violence. Agribusiness restructuring and financialization have strengthened these barriers. Through interviews and secondary research, this paper analyzes the United Farm Workers, Coalition of Immokalee Workers, and Familias Unidas por la Justicia. These three farmworker organizations stand out for achieving substantial and enduring improvements in employment terms and conditions. I argue that symbolic power underpins their success. By countering normalized violations of fundamental human and labor rights with internal and public assertions of farmworkers’ humanity, they sharpened tactics of strikes, boycotts and political advocacy sufficiently to contend with agribusiness’s extraordinary political power. The process by which farmworkers organizations have established enforceable labor standards may provide lessons for workers in other sectors characterized by insecure and unstable employment. BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH Matthew Fischer-Daly is a M.S./Ph.D. student at the School of Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell University. His research interests include labor relations in agriculture and global accumulation networks, precarious employment relations, and labor empowerment strategies. He received a B.A. in political science and Spanish literature from the University of Michigan and an M.A. in international economic policy from the School of International Service at American University. Thereafter, he worked at Social Accountability International and as the Cotton Campaign coordinator at the International Labor Rights Forum. iii To the dignified women and men who work in the agricultural fields of the United States. iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS First, I want to thank everyone involved with the United Farm Workers, CIERTO, Coalition of Immokalee Workers, Fair Food Standards Council, Familias Unidas por la Justicia, and Community to Community. Their work made this study possible. In particular, Cathy Albisa, Lucas Benitez, Armando Elenes, Edgar Franks, Kent, Marc Grossman, Gonzalo Martínez de Vedia, Marley Moynahan, Erik Nicholson, Judge Laura Safer Espinoza, Sean Sellers, and Ramón Torres all generously shared their time and insights. Although I am unable to name them all individually, I equally thank each person who participated in an interview with me. I am deeply grateful to each of you for sharing your expertise. At Cornell I have fortunately benefited from a wonderful community of support. Thanks to the ILR Graduate Office for financial support for travel. In particular, my committee has encouraged and challenged me to sharpen my analysis. Throughout the project, Harry Katz, my committee chairperson, helped me navigate from idea to research question, on to thesis, and hopefully a future article. Sarosh Kuruvilla, my second committee member, regularly asked perceptive questions that helped me develop my thinking at each step. Thank you as well to Philip McMichael, who has been a source of inspiration for this project and helped me work through the ideas. I am also grateful to David Blatter, Manoj Dias-Abey, Virginia Doellgast, Shannon Gleeson, Ian Greer, Johnnie Kallas, Andi Kao, Joseph Mesfin, Phoebe Strom, Ethan Whitener, and Wendy Wolford for patiently providing feedback on drafts. Last but certainly not least, this project would not have been possible without Sabine Fischer-Daly and my entire family. Thank you for your love and support. v TABLE OF CONTENTS Biographical Sketch…………………………………………………………………………….iii Acknowledgements……………………………………………………………………………..v Introduction…………..………………………………………………………………………….1 Literature Review: Towards a theory of social power in agribusiness Value Creation in Production……………………………………………………………8 Value Creation in Circulation…………………………………………………………..19 Building Power: Farmworkers’ collective action in U.S. agribusiness………………...29 Methodology…………………………………………………………………………………...41 Findings………………………………………………………………………………………...46 The Agribusiness in which UFW, CIW, and FUJ Emerged…………………………...48 Stage 1: Building Associational Power………………………………………………...61 Stage 2: Building Coalitional Power…………………………………………………...74 Stage 3: Building Institutional Power with Agribusiness………………………………87 Stage 4: Exercising Political Power to Gain State Protection of Rights………………117 Discussion A New Common Sense in Agribusiness Labor Relations…………………………….131 Achieving Dignity: How UFW, CIW, and FUJ Shifted Consensus………………….133 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………………….143 References…………………………………………………………………………………….158 vi LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Power Resources Used by Farmworkers Organizations……………………………48 Table 2: Major Improvements to Terms and Conditions of Employment by the UFW, CIW and FUJ………………………………………………………………………………………….132 vii LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: Coalition of Immokalee Workers office entrance…………………………………….67 Figure 2: Coalition of Immokalee Workers office wall…………………………………………68 Figure 3: The UFW flag…………………………………………………………………………76 Figure 4: The Coalition of Immokalee Workers office wall mural, conveying the farmworkers’ message to society: “We are not tractors. We are human beings. We deserve respect and dignity.”…………………………………………………………………………………………80 Figure 5: FUJ member messaging to allies during a demonstration……………………………84 Figure 6: FUJ poster invitation to join the boycott, because “Sakuma Bros.” is “Bleeding Workers for YOUR Berries,” set against photos of FUJ members with banner “Campesino Power”………………………………………………………………………………………….85 viii INTRODUCTION As precarious work expands globally, the achievements of highly precarious workers to build enduring institutions that improve terms and conditions of their employment call our attention. The International Labour Organization (ILO) estimates that 40 million people are subjected to modern forms of slavery, and 42 percent of all workers have informal, uncertain and unpredictable employment – the definition of precarious work (ILO 2018; Kalleberg 2009). Precarious work implies disempowerment at work and in political and social life (Castel 2000). Among industries, agriculture remains one of the most dangerous occupations (ILO 2019). Violations of the fundamental human rights of workers in United States commercial agriculture remain pervasive. The U.S. farmworkers who have achieved enduring improvements, shifting from precarious to dignified employment, thus offer strategic lessons. Furthermore, the invisibility of farmworkers is a primary contributor to their abuse, while making themselves visible has been central to their achievement of dignity. Farmworkers’ strategies to improve terms and conditions are thus the subject of this paper. Herein, I argue that how far workers may improve their position depends on the structural and political power balance between them and capital in a particular conjuncture, and their capacity to sustain the tight representational ties between workers and their organizations’ leaders, on which effective use of symbolic power depends. The absence of rights protections enables the violence experienced by precarious workers, in both the overt and structural forms, e.g. physical coercion and super-exploitative remuneration.1 Simultaneously, the impediments to profit accumulation in agriculture intensify agribusiness employers’ focus on low labor costs, the 1 Super exploitation refers to paying workers less than the costs of the basic necessities for reproducing their labor power (Selwyn 2017: 38-39). Page 1 of 177 factor that they have been able to control with the help of the state. As the farmworkers studied in this paper demonstrate, precarious workers can improve the terms and conditions of their social position by developing solidarity among themselves and with diverse allies, consensus- shifting processes that depend on adept use of symbolic power. Symbolic power here refers to the ability to use the “instruments of knowledge and communication” to construct “a consensus on the meaning of the social world, a consensus which contributes fundamentally to the reproduction of the social order” (Bourdieu 1991: 170), i.e. an ideology or “common sense” (Gramsci 1971). The importance of symbolic power emerges from this study’s analysis of three of the most successful worker collective actions in U.S. agribusiness history. Against a long historical fixity in which farmworker organization has been violently suppressed and thus only temporarily successful, the improvements in employment relations in U.S. agriculture achieved by the United Farm Workers (UFW), Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW), and Familias Unidas por la Justicia (FUJ)2 stand out. Using data primarily from interviews of participants in each farmworker organization and secondary sources, I compare the three organizations and contextualize their struggles in the particular political-economic characteristics of their industry. Analysis of their strategies highlight the mediating role of symbolic power in their construction of associational power and capacity to act collectively and compel employers to negotiate