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Labour geography is tedious: Of contracts, grievances and the nitty-gritty of worker agency in United Farm Workers-era California

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Listed:
  • Don Mitchell

    (Department of Human Geography, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden
    Department of Geography, NTNU-the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway)

Abstract

Responding to the oft-asked question, ‘what counts as labour’s agency?’ this paper engages with recent developments in labour geography to argue that labour geographers would benefit from paying close attention to the nitty-gritty struggles over – and not only for – the contract. Taking the case of the United Farm Workers’ efforts to administer its newly-won contracts in the agribusiness fields of California in the 1970s, it suggests that labour’s agency is often not just expressed, but made to count, in the midst of the most mundane – and often tedious – of circumstances, like late night-grievance procedure meetings. The paper argues that not just labour’s agency, but its class power, is often formed and deployed – and sometimes countered – in the details of how the collective interests of workers, on the farm or across a region, and handled.

Suggested Citation

  • Don Mitchell, 2024. "Labour geography is tedious: Of contracts, grievances and the nitty-gritty of worker agency in United Farm Workers-era California," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 56(8), pages 2070-2088, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:envira:v:56:y:2024:i:8:p:2070-2088
    DOI: 10.1177/0308518X241265805
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Diarmaid Kelliher, 2023. "Disruption and Control: Contesting Mobilities through the Picket Line," Annals of the American Association of Geographers, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 113(9), pages 2252-2268, October.
    2. William C. Terry, 2009. "Working on the Water: On Legal Space and Seafarer Protection in the Cruise Industry," Economic Geography, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 85(4), pages 463-482, October.
    3. Miriam J. Wells & Don Villarejo, 2004. "State Structures and Social Movement Strategies: The Shaping of Farm Labor Protections in California," Politics & Society, , vol. 32(3), pages 291-326, September.
    4. William C. Terry, 2009. "Working on the Water: On Legal Space and Seafarer Protection in the Cruise Industry," Economic Geography, Clark University, vol. 85(4), pages 463-482, October.
    5. Fred Krissman, 1995. "Farm labor contractors: The processors of new immigrant labor from Mexico for Californian agribusiness," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 12(4), pages 18-46, September.
    6. Don Mitchell, 2023. "Taylorism Comes to the Fields: Labor Control, Labor Supply, Labor Process, and the Twilight of Fordism in California Agribusiness," Economic Geography, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 99(4), pages 341-362, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

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