Workers Against Institutions Power Relations and Political Economy in the Irish Mushroom Industry

Workers against Institutions Power Relations and Political economy in the Irish Mushroom Industry By Francisco Mario Arqueros y Fernández Thesis submitted for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy National University of Ireland, Maynooth January 2011 Department of Anthropology, NUIM Thesis supervisors: Dr Séamas Ó Síocháin and Dr Chandana Mathur Head of the Department: Dr Abdullahi El-Tom 1 Table of Contents ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 6 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS 8 1. INTRODUCTION 10 A SUCCESSFUL INDUSTRY IS ESTABLISHED IN A CONTEXT OF ECONOMIC CRISIS 13 AN UNPRECEDENTED ECONOMIC BOOM OF THE IRISH ECONOMY CREATES A SHORTAGE OF LABOUR SUPPLY AND AN UPWARD WAGES TREND 18 LABOUR MARKET AND TRADE UNIONS IN IRELAND DURING THE ECONOMIC BOOM UP TO 2005 21 RACE TO THE BOTTOM AND DISPLACEMENT 24 GAMA 25 IRISH FERRIES 27 FILLING THE GAP LEFT BY UNIONS 36 SUBSTANTIVE ISSUES 39 POWER AND POWERLESSNESS 46 WORKERS AGAINST INSTITUTIONS 56 METHODOLOGY 57 ACTION RESEARCH 59 FIELDWORK 61 PART I: THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF CAPITAL 66 2. THE IRISH MUSHROOM INDUSTRY IN TRANSITION 67 MUSHROOM GROWING BEFORE THE 1980S: THE FAILURE OF THE LARGE TRAY FARM 67 THE SATELLITE GROWING SYSTEM 80 PROBLEMS WITH THE CONTRACT SATELLITE GROWING SYSTEM 92 SQUEEZE, CRISIS, AND STRUCTURAL TRANSFORMATIONS 95 SQUEEZE THEORY: (1) DISTRIBUTION 98 SQUEEZE THEORY: (2) REDUCING COSTS AND STRUCTURAL CHANGE 103 THE FALL OF THE CONTRACT SYSTEM 112 3. CONTROL, EXPLOITATION AND STANDARDS 118 I) A MODERN DOMESTIC INDUSTRY: A MARXIST VIEW 120 THE FIRST SATELLITE GROWERS 129 THE SMALL MASTER AND THE CAPITALIST GROWER 131 A CHANGING LABOUR PROCESS 139 SOCIALLY NECESSARY LABOUR TIME 145 HOW TO INCREASE PICKING RATES 150 II) QUALITY STANDARDS AND CONTROL 154 STANDARDS AS A NEW TREND 156 BIOTECHNOLOGY AND LABOUR PROCESS 158 WHAT ARE QUALITY STANDARDS? 160 CONTROL OF THE WORK PROCESS 164 QUALITY OR QUANTITY 167 4. THE RURAL ‘SWEATSHOP’ 172 TWO PERIODS 172 CONTRACT GROWERS; ‘PART-TIME’, CASUAL LOCAL WORKERS 173 2 CAPITALIST GROWERS; FULL TIME MIGRANT WORKERS 180 THE SWEATSHOP 190 MRCI REPORT 192 ATLANTIC MUSHROOMS, BELMULLET, CO. MAYO 194 KILNALECK, 2006 197 POWERLESSNESS AND WORKERS COMPETITION 204 POLITICAL ECONOMY, POWER, AND HEGEMONY 210 PART 2: THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF LABOUR 216 5. PARTNERSHIP UNIONISM 217 UNION STRUCTURES 218 PARTNERSHIP BETWEEN LABOUR AND CAPITAL IN IRELAND 222 AN ETHNOGRAPHIC HISTORICAL CASE OF PARTNERSHIP UNIONISM 237 THE 1994 STRIKE: THE BEGINNING OF THE END 238 SIPTU’S ‘SERVICING’ RECORD 244 THE LINK BETWEEN COMPETITION, PRODUCTIVITY, JOBS AND WAGES 249 THE LAST BATTLE: THE 2003 PROPOSAL 255 WORKERS’ MILITANCY 257 THE COMPANY, THE UNION, AND THE WORKERS 261 6. THE ORGANISING TURN 265 UNION POWER AND POPULAR POWER 266 OUTSIDE THE REMIT OF UNIONS 272 THE MUSHROOM INDUSTRY CAMPAIGN 275 APPEALING TO THE STATE 278 THE RECRUITING CAMPAIGN 284 AIRCOACH 293 LEADERSHIP AND CONSCIOUSNESS 297 7. THE MIGRANT RIGHTS CENTRE APPROACH 304 FROM NGOS TO (IMMIGRANT RIGHTS) WORKER CENTRES 305 PRELUDE TO AN IRISH WORKER CENTRE 315 WHAT MODEL SHOULD AN IRISH WORKER CENTRE FOLLOW? 316 MRCI 316 A CONFERENCE IN CASTLEBLANEY 324 PRELUDE TO THE MUSHROOM WORKERS SUPPORT GROUP 329 OUTLINING A STRATEGY 330 KEY PEOPLE’S MEETING 331 FEBRUARY 2006: THE FIRST TWO MEETINGS WITH MUSHROOM WORKERS 333 CHOOSING ALLIES 336 THIRD AND FOURTH MEETINGS: PROBLEM-SOLVING RATHER THAN ORGANISING 338 SIPTU LAUNCHES ITS CAMPAIGN 341 MRCI RECRUITS A ‘DEVELOPMENT WORKER’: THE MWSG STARTS FUNCTIONING 343 DIFFERENT APPROACHES BUT SIMILAR ISSUES 345 8. A MIGRANT-LED GROUP? 348 ‘THE INTERNAL LIFE OF WORKERS CENTERS’: DEVELOPING LEADERS 349 ‘PROMOTING AND SUPPORTING MUSHROOM WORKERS’ RIGHTS’ 350 WORKERS’ PARTICIPATION, CONTROL, AND SELF-DEVELOPMENT 352 MWSG: A MIGRANT LED GROUP? 356 DECIDING ON PRIORITIES 358 THE NATIONAL CAMPAIGN 359 COLLECTIVE ACTION 362 3 THE NEWSLETTER 368 FIRST STEPS TOWARDS TAKEN CONTROL OF THE GROUP 369 THE MEMBERS’ VOICE 373 A NEW TURN? MAY TO OCTOBER 2007 375 LEADERSHIP AND CONTROL 378 PART 3: THE TWO POLITICAL ECONOMIES 383 REFERENCE LIST 401 PERIODICALS 410 4 SUMMARY This dissertation focuses on the evaluation of the obstacles on the way towards a militant and democratic, grassroots trade unionism. Therefore, it is an ethnography of trade union organising. At a general level this study deals with the relationship between labour and capital in the Irish mushroom industry in the context of global capitalism and the Irish national institutional framework. This is reflected at a theoretical level in the opposition between the political economies of labour and capital. At a more concrete level, this dissertation centres on workers‘ resistance to exploitation and the struggle of capital to overcome it. While the first part of the thesis deals with that struggle on mushroom farms, the second part tells about the efforts of organised labour in Ireland to ‗clean up‘ the worst aspects of exploitation in the mushroom industry. In the second part of the dissertation, a second contradiction arises, that between the interests and dynamics of labour institutions, such as trade unions and workers‘ based Non-Governmental Organisations, and workers‘ collective interests. This second contradiction, which I consider a reflection of the main contradiction between capital and labour, motivates the title of this dissertation, ‗Workers against Institutions‘. This does not imply that I make a case against organised labour; it merely means that workers have also to fight against the influence of the hegemonic political economy of capital within their own organisations, which is reflected in tendencies such as ‗reformism‘, ‗partnership trade unionism‘, and bureaucratic tendencies as opposed to rank-and-file unionism, and ‗popular power‘. 5 Acknowledgments In relation to the academic and personal aspects involved in the development of this dissertation, which also constitutes a process of self-development, I owe my gratitude to my thesis supervisors Séamas Ó Síocháin and Chandana Mathur. Laurence Cox, from the Sociology Department at NUIM, read a full draft of the thesis and had an important influence in the second part of this dissertation. He made me think about how to integrate theory and ethnographic description. I conceived the title of this dissertation after a discussion with him in June 2010, during the weekend workshop ‗Learning from each other‘s struggles‘. Owen Doyle, from UCD, read chapters 2 and 3, and insisted on how important was the context of economic crisis and unemployment in the middle of which the Irish satellite system was created in the 1980s. My gratitude to Tom Corrigan, who has been a friend to me since I met him early in my fieldwork period, and who has made many and important contributions, without which Part I of this thesis would not look the same. Niamh McCree, a PhD candidate, read one of the chapters and took her time to make some comments about it. I had several very stimulating discussions with Sally Daly, another PhD candidate, on my research and her own research on agricultural workers in North Dublin. I also found very stimulating an evening‘s discussion with Dace Dzenovska, a PhD candidate originally from Latvia. Bryan Tyrrell read the last two chapters and made suggestions in matters of style. Evelyn Groark also read the final chapters. I thank her for her support and stimulating conversations. During my fieldwork time MRCI and SIPTU staff greatly facilitated my research. In Monaghan town, the Branch Organiser opened up to me SIPTU files on Monaghan Mushrooms, up on which chapter 5 is based. The staff of SIPTU Cavan were also very helpful. I frequently visited MRCI headquarters in Dublin and got to know and appreciate its staff and its work. I learned a lot from them and shared many good and bad moments. Some of my conclusions in this dissertation might take them by surprise since I offer a portrayal of some aspects of MRCI mushroom campaign that they might not recognise. I hope that my descriptions and comments are not decontextualized and taken as destructive criticism, or worse, used to attack this NGO for the wrong reasons. 6 While I have pointed at the excellent work that MRCI carried out on behalf of migrant workers, my criticism has been limited to only one but very important aspect that runs through this dissertation: ‗popular power‘, something that does not require only good intentions and cannot just be implemented from the top. I also owe my special gratitude to the staff of EXPAC and IWU in Monaghan town. I shared many memorable moments with the members of the MWSG. I felt united with them in the same struggle and the same class. I have written this dissertation with them in my mind, and on their side. Because I need to maintain their anonymity, I cannot name them. During my fieldwork time in Monaghan between August 2005 and November 2006 I shared memorable moments and I had the support of, and learnt a lot from my friends Immanuel, Radek, Gregor, Barbara, Beata, Irek, Dana, Svicek, Rudite, Enda, and Bernie. Above all, thanks to my parents for always being there. The names of my informants have been changed to protect their anonymity. I have not changed the names of the growers and ‗big‘ names of the mushroom industry who were never informants. I had a very good relationship with one grower in particular. I was very lucky to meet him. For the most part, and excepting TEAGASC, the industry was completely closed to me. From TEAGASC I must acknowledge Gerry Walsh, Tom Kellegher, and Jim Grant. My big thanks to Mairead Kilpatrick (Applied Plant Science Division, Department of

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