At the cutting edge: precarious work in Brazil’s sugar and ethanol industry

Garvey, Brian

doi:10.4337/9781781954959.00014

Cited by 29 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 8 publications

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“…(Daniel Damas, 33 years old) For Daniel Damas, the income expectations of Haitians were attached to the American dollar to calculate migration costs and the value of remittances they could send to Haiti. However, Brazil's 21st century development strategy has not addressed historical inequalities, which substantially deepened during almost four decades of military dictatorship in Brazil (DIEESE, 2011;Garvey and Barreto, 2016). For instance, the national minimum wage had increased from R$200 in 2002 to R$880 in 2016.…”

Section: Direct Indirect Wages: Beyond the Workplacementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Haitian employment in the local labour market has been predominantly concentrated in the sectors that expanded most markedly in the first decade of the 21st century, such as civil construction and agribusiness. These sectors are known for having persistently extracted value from workers based on innovative forms of super-exploitation rather than on technological innovation in Brazil (Braga, 2015;Garvey and Barreto, 2016;McGrath, 2013), illustrated by the involvement of these sectors in approximately 33% of all cases of slave labour in Brazil between 2010 and 2016. In these cases, black workers predominate and international migrants disproportionally constituted 35% of those who were found to be subject to slave labour, despite representing less than 1% of the working population (MTE, 2017).…”

Section: The Flexibility Trap In the Super-exploitation Of Haitians I...mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Unpacking Super-Exploitation in the 21st Century: The Struggles of Haitian Workers in Brazil

Virginio

Stewart

Garvey

2022

Work, Employment and Society

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Emerging patterns of south–south migration and rapid economic growth in developing countries have highlighted the need for new conceptual contributions accounting for the experiences of migrant workers in the Global South. The concept of super-exploitation has been among those contributions with reference to appalling working conditions and the dependence of developing countries on the export of commodities. However, this article argues that the understanding of contemporary forms of super-exploitation experienced by migrant workers remains underdeveloped. Drawing upon 42 semi-structured interviews with Haitian workers in Brazil, this study makes an innovative contribution to the conceptualisation of super-exploitation in the 21st century, particularly from the perspective of social reproduction theory. This article argues that super-exploitation can be defined more accurately as a combination of economic and non-economic forces that entangle productive–reproductive–exploitative relationships, thereby shaping the dependence of workers on wages below the value necessary for their social reproduction.

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Section: Direct Indirect Wages: Beyond the Workplacementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Flexibility Trap In the Super-exploitation Of Haitians I...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Unpacking Super-Exploitation in the 21st Century: The Struggles of Haitian Workers in Brazil

Virginio

Stewart

Garvey

2022

Work, Employment and Society

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“…Where large enterprises have relatively high sunk, fixed costs; sugar-ethanol distilleries for example (where a satisfactory return on investment may take as much as 10 years), corporations have avoided dependence on a sedentary labour force living in tight knit communities in close proximity to the factory. Toyota-inspired ‘lean’ techniques see (Stewart et al 2016) converge with historically elitist employment relations to facilitate just in time and continuous production alongside conventional methods of harassment, such as blacklisting of trade union members and wage theft (Garvey & Barreto 2016). The cumulative of effect of these introduces a certain ballast to expectations of industrial insurrection in large, populous countries of the global south (Ness 2015).…”

Section: Neoliberalism and Social Controlmentioning

confidence: 99%

Extending the conceptualisation of class across field and city: Transgressing servitude towards an emancipatory praxis

Thomaz

Garvey

2022

Capital & Class

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This article advocates the transgression of incumbent theoretical divisions between rural and urban abodes of production and draws on new analyses of contemporary spaces of capital and labour antagonisms in Brazil. It does so to articulate a broadening of the definition of class and class struggle towards an emancipatory praxis that does not necessarily prioritise industrialised workers. The study has a particular focus on the reconfiguration of socio-spatial arrangements linked to 21st century commodity cultivation, extraction and trade and subsequent class tensions on the material and epistemological frontier between (hydro, agro and mineral) mega projects and the autonomous territories of rural subjects. The renewed degradation of conditions for a labour force that has always been precarious, the dissolving dichotomy between proletarianised and peasant labour, and the ongoing resistance to corporate capture by communities is evoked to contrast distinct metabolic relations within rural territories with the objectification of labour and nature under capitalism. The analysis reveals new configurations of class domination, tension and counter movements. Many critical scholars, particularly those in the Global South, have been attentive to alternate readings of the world by indigenous, African descendent, peasant and agro-extractivist communities that may be unfamiliar yet underpin vociferous, and often fatal, resistance to capital accumulation. The task to effectively situate these struggles within a theory of broader, heterogeneous class struggle and integrate this ‘wealth’ of collective struggle and knowledge towards societal transformation remains important work in progress. In this spirit, the paper offers some possibilities for making new conceptual and material connections between rural and urban productive spaces and across currently fragmented class formations and identities.

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“…Negative equality outcomes because of inequitable access have been reported in relation to renewable electricity programmes (e.g. Mazorra et al, 2017;Shoaiba & Ariaratnam, 2016;Yaqoot, Diwan, & Kandpal, 2016), forest protection initiatives (Bhatta et al, 2008;Robinson, Albers, Lokina, & Meshack, 2016) and biofuel cultivation (Ekener-Petersen et al, 2014;Garvey & Barreto, 2016). However, mitigating strategies such as subsidies, exemptions and various types of revenue recycling mechanisms can often be utilized effectively to prevent or minimize adverse economic outcomes.…”

Section: Health Equalitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Social impacts of climate change mitigation policies and their implications for inequality

2019

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The Paris Agreement and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) set ambitious targets for environmental, economic and social progress. Climate change mitigation policies play a central role in this process. To maximize the benefits and minimize the negative effects of climate change mitigation policies, policymakers need to be aware of the indirect and often complex social and inequality impacts that these policies may have and the pathways through which these impacts emerge. Better understanding of the distributional and inequality impacts is important to avoid negative social and distributional outcomes as countries ratchet up their climate policy ambition in the post-Paris context. This paper synthesizes evidence from the existing literature on social co-impacts of climate change mitigation policy and their implications for inequality. The analysis shows that most policies are linked to both co-benefits and adverse side-effects, and can compound or lessen inequalities depending on contextual factors, policy design and policy implementation. The risk of negative outcomes is greater in contexts characterized by high levels of poverty, corruption and economic and social inequalities, and where limited action is taken to identify and mitigate potentially adverse side-effects. Key policy insights. The risk of adverse social outcomes associated with climate change mitigation policies, including worsening inequality, increases as countries ratchet up their ambition to meet the Paris Agreement targets. Many policies that have so far only been piloted will need to be up-scaled.. Negative inequality impacts of climate policies can be mitigated (and possibly even prevented), but this requires conscious effort, careful planning and multistakeholder engagement. Best results can be achieved when potential inequality impacts are taken into consideration in all stages of policy making, including policy planning, development and implementation.. Climate change mitigation policies should take a pro-poor approach that, in best case scenarios, can also lead to a reduction of existing inequalities.

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At the cutting edge: precarious work in Brazil’s sugar and ethanol industry

Cited by 29 publications

References 8 publications

Unpacking Super-Exploitation in the 21st Century: The Struggles of Haitian Workers in Brazil

Unpacking Super-Exploitation in the 21st Century: The Struggles of Haitian Workers in Brazil

Extending the conceptualisation of class across field and city: Transgressing servitude towards an emancipatory praxis

Social impacts of climate change mitigation policies and their implications for inequality

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