The limits of flexibilization: wage labour relations in the horticultural sector

Abstract

This paper, based on small-scale sociological-ethnographic Teldwork examining labour relations in the forced vegetable production sector of a small town on the Hungarian Great Plain, aims to reveal how structural causes contribute to the labour shortage in this sector, what forms it takes on different types of farms and how they react to it. The analysis shows, from the employers’ perspective,how horticultural enterprises of various sizes and in different situations try to adapt to employment challenges that characterise the agricultural sector; that is, how they develop strategies to retain their workers. It also sheds light on the employees’ perspective by revealing the social situation and vulnerability of agricultural waged workers, and some of the characteristics they consider attractive or problematic in the work organisation of small and large horticultural enterprises.

Our results show that horticultural enterprises of different sizes and economic power can adapt unevenly to the introduction of mechanisation and flexible forms of employment. However,the success of their adaptation strategies does not depend only on their economic situation, the size of the farm and their relation toward technology. The results of our fieldwork show that labour shortages have become a major problem for all organisations in our field, and that this is a fundamental threat to the productivity and success of the sector. Our research also revealed that different farms have responded differently to changing employment conditions. Large-scale farms have primarily responded to labour shortage by mechanisation and expanding flexible employment conditions. By contrast, capital-poor, family farms rely on the advantages of being small-scale scale and try to retain workers through the strength of patron-client relationships based on interpersonal relations and the family work organisation.

However, our research has also highlighted the limitations of these coping strategies. We argue that the flexibilization characteristic of agricultural wage-labour relations in recent decades has reached its limits in all types of farms in the horticultural sector in our field. Although large-scale farms are better able to apply flexibilization, the lack of a stable and reliable workforce with professional experience has already had a negative impact on their productivity. In small-scalefarms, it is difficult to integrate flexibilization into work organisation, and capital-poor enterprises find it more difficult to take advantage of these innovations. Inequalities between farms can thus be seen not only in terms of different economic and market positions and technological development, but also in terms of labour relations, which further reinforces polarisation.