Farm Labor in Mexico

    The Los Angeles Times has published a series of stories—“Product of Mexico,” by reporter Richard Marosi, with photos and video by Don Bartletti—on the harsh conditions faced by farm laborers in Mexico who work to supply tomatoes, cucumbers, and other fruits and vegetables for sale in US stores.  Parts one and two of this four-part series are here and here. 

    Marosi and Barletti spent eighteen months traveling across nine Mexican states.  They observed conditions at thirty farm labor camps, and interviewed “hundreds” of workers.  They found that many farm labors “are essentially trapped for months at a time in rat-infested camps, often without beds and sometimes without functioning toilets or a reliable water supply.”  Some growers withhold weekly wages (in violation of Mexican law) “to prevent workers from leaving during peak harvest periods.”  And farm workers “often go deep in debt paying inflated prices for necessities at company stores.” Some go hungry.  Others face the threat of violence. 

    They also conclude that although many US companies have “social responsibility guidelines” that preclude buying goods from suppliers that do not comply with minimum labor standards, those commitments are poorly enforced.  That’s consistent with the general conclusion of some (e.g., Locke 2013) that, given complex cross-national supply chains, such private voluntary agreements are quite limited in their ability to ensure minimum labor standards.

 

--Sachin Pandya