Dignity and bargaining power: Insights from struggles in strawberries

• Published date: 01 May 2022
• Author: Matthew M. Fischer‐Daly
• Date: 01 May 2022
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/irj.12365

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Dignity and bargaining power: Insights from

struggles in strawberries

Matthew M. Fischer-Daly PhD

Cornell University School of Industrial

and Labor Relations, Ithaca, New York,

USA

Correspondence

Matthew M. Fischer-Daly, Cornell

University School of Industrial and Labor

Relations, Ithaca, NY, USA.

Email: mmf242@cornell.edu

Funding information

Industrial and Labor Relations School

and Graduate Office at Cornell University

Abstract

While solidarity is widely understood as key to worker

capacity to improve terms and conditions of employ-

ment, the creation of solidarity has received less atten-

tion. This article advances the theory that dignity is the

creative process, based on a psycho-social understand-

ing of dignity not as an outcome but an interpersonal

exchange. Mutual recognition of each other's capacities

to participate in social rules creates solidarity, thereby

catalysing collective action and making workplace

improvements more likely. The argument is developed

through comparison of three cases of worker struggles

in the strawberry sector that produced varied out-

comes, from steady improvements through union col-

lective bargaining to persistence of poverty wages and

gender-based violence. The proposed model of dignity-

based worker power suggests both functional and psy-

chological effects of democratic practice within worker

organizations, coalitions and workplaces.

1|INTRODUCTION

Solidarity matters. It is the difference between shared exploitation and collective action to

improve terms and conditions of employment, between a ‘class in itself’and a ‘class for itself’,

in Karl Marx's (1847) classic observation. Where competitiveness reproduces and enhances an

employer's position in society, solidarity makes social uplift possible for workers. In other

The author's present address is 2924 W. Kiowa St., Colorado Springs, CO 80904, USA.

DOI: 10.1111/irj.12365

© 2022 Brian Towers (BRITOW) and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Ind. Relat. 2022;53:241–260. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/irj 241

words, workers' bargaining power depends on solidarity. The importance of solidarity in

employment relations has long been recognized. Considering its source, emergent solidarity,

bonds that bloom like so many lilies struck by morning sun, is perhaps the most agreed upon

understanding. In the intensity of collective action, solidarity arises from each worker's human-

ity, bonding coworkers in common struggle. Yet clearly solidarity is not automatic. If it were,

far more collective action and negotiations over employment would be expected than the levels

observed in much of the contemporary world. What then occurs between working people that

creates solidarity is the question considered in this article.

Human dignity, I argue, creates solidarity. By human dignity, I do not mean an outcome

but a process. Adapting the psycho-social definition of Axel Honneth (1995), here dignity refers

to the mutual recognition of each other's capacities to participate in the rules to which each is

subjected. Between mother and child, this process is the fundamental development of the

child's own humanity and of bonds of trust between the two. It is the exchange that provides

both the self-confidence to act interdependently, in interaction with each other and other

people. Between coworkers, the process is creative destruction, breaking down social constructs

of division and bonding the humans as participants in the construction of more desirable social

relations of work. The more the process of dignity continues among coworkers and with others,

the more likely and potent is their collective action. Instead of considering dignity as an

outcome, possibly granted from employers or a state, understanding it as workers' process of

creating solidarity helps to understand variation in actual class struggle.

Worker collective actions in the strawberry sector exhibit the operation of dignity in shifting

bargaining power and improving working conditions. Over the last 30 years, corporations, led

by retailers and marketers, and national states co-developed the international production and

distribution of strawberries that today makes the seasonal, perishable fruit always available.

International trade increased from zero in 1988 to 2 billion pounds of strawberries annually in

2020. Riding the wave, lead marketer Driscoll's grew from a sub-national distributor to a multi-

national valued at $3 billion. The largest seller, Walmart, set the terms of trade. Meanwhile,

most workers harvesting strawberries have faced wages suppressed below local living costs, no

job security and endemic labour law violations—all sustained by surplus labour markets, selec-

tive law enforcement and racial and patriarchal hierarchies (Fischer-Daly, 2022). Workers

resisted, demanding higher pay, legal compliance, decent treatment and collective bargaining.

Institutions and mass collective action do not explain different trajectories of workers in the

sector. The workers who achieved more improvements to working conditions are considered

‘illegal’by the national state and excluded from national labour law protecting freedom of

association and collective bargaining rights.

1

Workers used strikes, boycotts and lawsuits,

formed the union Familias Unidas por la Justicia and negotiated collective contracts with the

berry production company Sakuma Brothers in the US State of Washington. Further suggesting

the limits of an institutional explanation, in other cases, clear laws on labour rights and mass

collective action did not lead to good working conditions. The largest strike in agribusiness in

Mexico shut down strawberry production and transport from the export hub San Quintín in

Baja California, yet workers' demands for freedom of association, collective bargaining, living

wages and payment of legal benefits remain unfulfilled 5years later. In Europe's primary

1

The U.S. National Labor Relations Act protects private-sector workers' collective bargaining rights and excludes

agricultural workers, domestic workers, incarcerated workers, independent contractors and supervisors (29 U.S.C. §§

151–169).

242 FISCHER-DALY