Argentina: Rural Slavery at Time of Record Earnings

[Derechos]

The seasonal migration of farm workers is a centuries-old phenomenon in Argentina, one of the world's major agricultural producers. But in recent years it has taken on new characteristics, with global human resources firms operating as intermediaries for agribusiness corporations.
BUENOS AIRES, Mar 16, 2011 (IPS) - Crowded into precarious mud-floored dorms or sheet-metal trailers or forced to live in tents of plastic sheeting, with neither piped water nor electricity, after working 14-hour days: these are the harsh conditions faced by hundreds of thousands of rural workers in Argentina despite bumper crops and record earnings for agribusiness.

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The seasonal migration of farm workers is a centuries-old phenomenon in Argentina, one of the world's major agricultural producers. But in recent years it has taken on new characteristics, with global human resources firms operating as intermediaries for agribusiness corporations.

The recruiters offer the workers a contract for a fixed amount. But later they learn that the payment is conditioned on the entire group of workers earning a certain amount of arbitrarily set "points" based on performance and behaviour.

"The entire team has to work between 10 and 14 hours a day, Monday to Monday, even when it's raining, and without complaining because if someone protests, points are docked for every member of the group," Ledesma said.

In addition, the contractors discount the cost of transportation, clothing, work tools and food - at higher than market prices - from the worker's pay.

Ledesma said it is difficult for unions to advocate on behalf of migrant labourers, because although the workers are often organised in their hometowns, they are widely dispersed when they find work in the fields.

The worst jobs are the potato, asparagus, blueberry and olive harvests, he said, along with clearing out stumps and roots with picks, shovels and bare hands after the bulldozer has knocked down the trees and brush.

"They sleep on the ground under plastic roofs," he said. Most of the camps have no running water, electricity, toilets or showers. And in some cases, the workers are not allowed to leave the compound, under the threat of losing points.

http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=54871

[Judi Lynn]

1. Horrendous. Didn't know this about Argentina, Derechos. Clearly, unions are beyond their reach.

These conditions sound so much like what U.S. American workers had to endure 100 years ago or more, like this sentence:

In addition, the contractors discount the cost of transportation, clothing, work tools and food - at higher than market prices - from the worker's pay.

Reminds you of learning about the U.S. coal miners who worked so hard for nothing, got black lung, had to sleep in pathetic hovels owned by the mining company, and buy their food, clothes, etc. from "the company store," mentioned in the song which said, "I owe my soul to the company store."

Those mining companies employed extreme violence of ALL levels to prevent workers from being able to seek better conditions through unions, and as well know, miners here still have desperately hard lives, die so much earlier, after all this long, grief-ridden struggle over so many years.

Information about Argentina's agricultural work has been totally ignored by our own corporate media. The Argentinian land owners have created their own little kingdoms, haven't they? No doubt they bribed their local governments so long ago, they own them now, and meet NO resistance whatsoever to their gross mistreatment of their necessary human resources, an unlimited flow of desperately poor people always on tap when any of them drop dead in their tracks.

Another horrendous passage from the IPS report:

"The same companies that push peasants and native people off their land to expand monoculture plantations later employ them as slave labour," Ledesma complained.

According to the Labour Ministry, 50 percent of rural workers are not enrolled in the social security system.

Labour and living conditions are especially harsh among unregistered migrant farm workers from impoverished northern provinces like Santiago del Estero and Tucumán, and from the neighbouring country of Bolivia, who find seasonal work in provinces such as Sante Fe, Misiones, Buenos Aires, Córdoba, Mendoza and Río Negro.

Thank you for posting this.

I won't be able to forget it, which is appropriate.

Recommending.

[Judi Lynn]

2. Derechos, someone pre-empted my recommend. Wanted you to know there WAS at least 1 already. n/t