The Governance of the Horticultural Supply Chain in the United Kingdom: A Source of Forced Labour?

Abstract

Incidents of forced labour have been well documented in horticulture in the United Kingdom. This sort of human rights violation has been linked to fraudulent employment and recruitment practices by labour market intermediaries; legislation such as the 2015 Modern Slavery Act sentences fraudulent labour market intermediaries to life imprisonment when they are found to be guilty of having supplied workers into conditions of forced labour. However, while it is important to focus on the criminological aspects of forced labour, this article argues that it is key to adopt a broader perspective to fully understand the process in question; this is because labour market intermediaries do not operate in a vacuum, but are part of both product and labour supply chains. As such, it is necessary to understand how the governance of the fresh produce supply chain in UK horticulture may lead labour market intermediaries to propel their workers into conditions of extreme exploitation. To this end, this article begins by reviewing the rise of global supply chains and explains how the organisation of horticulture leads to a prevalence of labour market intermediaries. The article then explores two theories, namely global value chain theory and global production network analysis, to demonstrate how the process of forced labour may be approached from an economic-sociological perspective, before focus shifts to an empirical consideration of supply chain governance, based chiefly upon data gathered through 16 expert qualitative interviews with relevant parties.