Troubling the Fields: Choice, Consent, and Coercion of Canada's Seasonal Agricultural Workers

Enhancing detection of labor violations in the agricultural sector: A multilevel generalized linear regression model of H-2A violation counts

Agricultural workers are essential to the supply chain for our daily food, and yet, many face harmful work conditions, including garnished wages, and other labor violations. Workers on H-2A visas are particularly vulnerable due to the precarity of their immigration status being tied to their employer. Although worksite inspections are one mechanism to detect such violations, many labor violations affecting agricultural workers go undetected due to limited inspection resources. In this study, we identify multiple state and industry level factors that correlate with H-2A violations identified by the U.S. Department of Labor's Wage and Hour Division using a multilevel zero-inflated negative binomial model. We find that three state-level factors (average farm acreage size, the number of agricultural establishments with less than 20 employees, and higher poverty rates) are correlated with H-2A violations. These findings offer valuable insights into where H-2A violations are being detected at the state and industry levels.

Labor exploitation in the Italian agricultural sector: the case of vulnerable migrants in Tuscany

Labor exploitation of agricultural migrant workers is a well-documented phenomenon by investigations and field research in several Italian regions, both in the North and the South. Despite the agri-food excellencies of the "Made in Italy" brand being a source of pride for Italian entrepreneurship, including the viticulture sector, evidence shows that many of these products are the result of different levels of illegal recruitment and labor exploitation. In this article, the authors analyze the impact of recent waves of vulnerable migrants entering the Italian labor market and present the results of a qualitative field research, conducted in Tuscany between 2021 and 2022. Through 60 interviews with exploited migrant workers and 40 interviews with relevant stakeholders, the authors focus on the recruitment process of vulnerable migrants into the agriculture sector and the labor conditions granted to them regardless of their particular migratory status. The article concludes with the analysis of the peculiarities of the Tuscan case study, characterized by the presence of a legal system of labor exploitation.