Trapped workers, urban freedoms and labor control in Brazilian agriculture: Evidence from Southwest Goiás

Abstract

Labor entrapment in Brazilian agriculture is not limited to ‘marginal geographies’ or sectors, but is a troubling presence at the core of some of the country's most developed and urbanized agricultural regions. This paper looks at the conditions of labor resistance and control in a dynamic and highly urbanized agricultural region of central Brazil that may explain the use there by employers of entrapped workers from distant regions. Commercial agriculture is intensely seasonal and sensitive to the quality and timing of delivery, so the fulfillment of labor demand continues to be a central concern of rural employers despite arguments for surplus labor. In the context of rural exodus, Brazilian farmers can no longer count on a flexible supply of residential workers. The article considers the importance of two ‘urban freedoms’ derived from the migration of rural workers to cities during the last 35 years. One is the increasing presence of labor unions and regulation in wage markets. The other is the creative strategies that households develop to weaken their dependence on agricultural work. To understand these strategies, gender relations within and outside of the household are taken into account. The paper ends by critically examining the argument that wage compression is the reason that employers in Brazilian agriculture resort to labor replacement in dynamic regions.