Decent work in global production networks: a study of Eswatini's sugarcane outgrower schemes

Abstract

Research on Eswatini's sugar industry has expanded rapidly over the past few years, which has provided information on increasing efficiencies under climate change, market competitiveness, and business integration in the industry. Such studies explore opportunities to increase profitability and sustainability in the sugar industry; motivated by low world sugar prices and rising costs of production. However, studies on farmworkers' conditions of work at the production node of the sugarcane production network are limited. Often, suppliers/producers in the agricultural sector are faced with a dilemma of meeting market demands and maintaining secure work for their employees "“ but the market and institutional pressures in Eswatini's sugar industry, because of the country's participation in the global sugarcane production network, continue to contribute towards decent work deficits on sugarcane farms. This study, being informed by the Global Production Network (GPN) framework, evaluates workers' conditions in the context of local embeddedness. The GPN framework enables a deeper analysis of the role of labour and the value workers add to the production process. Imperative to this study is to recognise workers' struggles as they participate in the sugarcane production network as an effective way of locating decent work in Eswatini's small- and medium-sized sugarcane outgrower farms. Using seven indicators adopted from the International Labour Organisation's Decent Work pillars, this study shows how the specific conditions at the production node of the network (farms) are embedded in a particular historical, institutional, and regulatory context, which included non-firm actors (in particular, Eswatini's government) who, in combination, shape the dynamics of the sugar industry. The study concluded that decent work deficits include informal and flexible employer-employee relations between farmers and farmworkers; the unfair treatment of women farmworkers on small-scale sugarcane farms; Eswatini's political climate and its impact on trade union representation on farms; and the effects that climate change has on farmworkers' conditions of work.