Gender and Work in Global Value Chains: Capturing the Gains? 9781108492317

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Advance Praise We live in a world of global value chains, which link thousands of firms, large and small, across multiple cultural and political boundaries. Global value chains have changed how consumers interact with global corporations and their suppliers, and impacted the working conditions of millions of people employed in farms, factories and retail stores across the world. Building on years of detailed empirical research across different industries and in several countries, Barrientos shows how global values chains are also reshaping the gender profile of work across several middleand low-income countries. Gendered patterns of work in these global value chains can both relegate women workers to poorly paid and unrecognized labor or lead to economic empowerment and enhanced worker rights. The conditions and mechanisms that lead to these alternative outcomes are beautifully detailed in this cutting edge piece of research. Gender and Work in Global Value Chains is a tour de force that will fundamentally change the way we think of the world of work and the gendered dynamics shaping the global economy. Richard M. Locke, Schreiber Family Professor of Political Science and International and Public Affairs, Brown University Based on over 10 years of research across the globe and case studies from Africa, Asia and Latin America, Gender and Work in Global Value Chains provides an illuminating study of contemporary working relations and gender discrimination. Exploitation and low and uncertain wages are rife but not all is gloom and doom. Some women producers and progressive firms (as a consequence of the research) have recognised that women’s ‘socialised skills’ increase product quality and speed of delivery. While the firms capture most of the gains, by organising, some women have improved their working conditions and secured support for domestic work and care. Diane Perrons, Professor Emerita in Feminist Political Economy, The London School of Economics and Political Science Based on her excellent work on Capturing the Gains research programme, this book introduces global chains in a balanced, sophisticated and highly intelligent way. Barrientos is passionate about using GVCs to improve conditions of work of those who labour along these chains through advocating a stronger regulation of capital. She argues that this can be done only through a ‘constant process of engagement, bargaining and contestation’. This book will be an excellent

contribution to the debates on GVCs and their importance in understanding production, exploitation and the campaigns to improve the way we consume. Shirin Rai, Professor of Politics and International Studies, TheUniversity of Warwick This empirically rich, multi-layered and insightful book breaks down the barriers around global value chain analysis to demonstrate how these chains have been shaped by and are reshaping gender relations across the wage production and social reproduction divide. Importantly, it allows for women’s agency and for gender relations to open to change by exploring not only the very considerable evidence of exploitation and undervaluation of women’s work but also evidence of the contestation of these conditions and associated gendered norms. Jill Rubery, Professor of Comparative Employment Systems, The University of Manchester

Gender and Work in Global Value Chains

This book focuses on the changing gender patterns of work in a global retail environment associated with the rise of contemporary retail and global sourcing. This has affected the working lives of hundreds of millions of workers in high-, middle- and low-income countries. The growth of contemporary retail has been driven by the commercialized production of many goods previously produced unpaid by women within the home. Sourcing is now largely undertaken through global value chains in low- or middle-income economies, using a ‘cheap’ feminized labour force to produce low-price goods. As women have been drawn into the labour force, households are increasingly dependent on the purchase of food and consumer goods, blurring the boundaries between paid and unpaid work. This book examines how gendered patterns of work have changed. It explores who captures the gains, and the extent to which global retail opens up new channels to leverage more gender-equitable gains in sourcing countries. Stephanie Barrientos teaches at the Global Development Institute at the University of Manchester. She has researched and published widely on gender, global production, employment, decent work, trade and labour standards, corporate social responsibility, fair trade, and ethical trade. Stephanie has advised and provided training for a number of companies, NGOs and international organizations on issues concerning gender, agribusiness, ethical trade, decent work, and impact assessment. She held the Leverhulme Major Research Fellowship (2013–15) examining gender and work in global value chains.

Development Trajectories in Global Value Chains Globalization is characterized by the outsourcing of production tasks and services across borders, and the increasing organization of production and trade through global value chains (GVCs), global commodity chains (GCCs), and global production networks (GPNs). With a large and growing literature on GVCs, GCCs, and GPNs, this series is distinguished by its focus on the implications of these new production systems for economic, social, and regional development. This series publishes a wide range of theoretical, methodological, and empirical works, both research monographs and edited volumes, dealing with crucial issues of transformation in the global economy. How do GVCs change the ways in which lead firms and suppliers shape regional and international economies? How do they affect local and regional development trajectories, and what implications do they have for workers and their communities? How is the organization of value chains changing and how are these emerging forms contested? How does the large-scale entry of women into value-chain production impact gender relations? What opportunities and limits do GVCs create for economic and social upgrading and innovation? In what ways are GVCs changing the nature of work and the role of labor in the global economy? And how might the increasing focus on logistics management, financialization, and social standards and compliance shape the structure of regional economies? This series includes contributions from all disciplines and interdisciplinary fields related to GVC analysis and is particularly supportive of theoretically innovative and informed works grounded in development research. Through their focus on changing organizational forms, governance systems, and production relations, volumes in this series contribute to on-going conversations about development theories and policy in the contemporary era of globalization.

Series editors Stephanie Barrientos is Professor of Global Development at the Global Development Institute, University of Manchester. Gary Gereffi is Professor of Sociology and Director of the Global Value Chains Center, Duke University. Dev Nathan is Visiting Professor at the Institute for Human Development, New Delhi, and Visiting Research Fellow at the Global Value Chains Center, Duke University. John Pickles is Earl N. Phillips Distinguished Professor of International Studies at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

Titles in the Series 1. Labour in Global Value Chains in Asia Edited by Dev Nathan, Meenu Tewari and Sandip Sarkar 2. The Sweatshop Regime: Labouring Bodies, Exploitation, and Garments Made in India Alessandra Mezzadri 3. The Intangible Economy: How Services Shape Global Production and Consumption Edited by Deborah K. Elms, Arian Hassani and Patrick Low 4. Making Cars in the New India: Industry, Precarity and Informality Tom Barnes 5. Development with Global Value Chains: Upgrading and Innovation in Asia Edited by Dev Nathan, Meenu Tewari and Sandip Sarkar 6. Global Value Chains and Development: Redefining the Contours of 21st Century Capitalism Gary Gereffi

Gender and Work in Global Value Chains Capturing the Gains?

Stephanie Barrientos

University Printing House, Cambridge CB2 8BS, United Kingdom One Liberty Plaza, 20th Floor, New York, NY 10006, USA 477 Williamstown Road, Port Melbourne, vic 3207, Australia 314 to 321, 3rd Floor, Plot No.3, Splendor Forum, Jasola District Centre, New Delhi 110025, India 79 Anson Road, #06–04/06, Singapore 079906 Cambridge University Press is part of the University of Cambridge. It furthers the University’s mission by disseminating knowledge in the pursuit of education, learning and research at the highest international levels of excellence. www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9781108492317 © Stephanie Barrientos 2019 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 2019 Printed in India A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library ISBN 978-1-108-49231-7 HB Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

For Armando, Kim and Ricardo

Contents

List of Tables List of Figures List of Abbreviations Preface 1. Introduction

xi xiii xv xix 1

2. Retail Shift and Global Sourcing

22

3. Gender Patterns of Work in Global Retail Value Chains

49

4. Global (re)Production Networks Analysis

79

5. Smallholder (dis)Articulations: The Cocoa–Chocolate Value Chain

104

6. Mixed Outcomes: Downgrading and Upgrading in African Horticulture 135 7. Contested Terrain: The Limits of Social Compliance in Asian Apparel

167

8. Upgrading Strategies: Innovation, Skills and Rights

194

9. Governance Challenges: Promoting Gender-Equitable Value Chains

224

10. Concluding Reflections: Future of Work References Index

250 261 297

Tables

2.1 Simplified typology of global, brand and online retailers 2.2 Selected retailer profiles, 2014 3.1 Gender profile of selected supermarkets, 2015 (% of women by category) 3.2 Estimated number of horticulture workers and smallholders in selected countries 3.3 Number of apparel workers in selected countries 5.1 Cocoa–chocolate value distribution (% per tonne of sold cocoa) 5.2 Gender roles in small-scale cocoa farming in Ghana 6.1 Ghana fresh-cut fruit exporters: value chain gender profile 6.2 Estimated breakdown of table grape cost chain, South Africa to UK, 2011 6.3 Employment in South Africa commercial table grapes 6.4 River Valley table grape seasonal workers (September to April), 2013–14 6.5 Gender profile of work: South African fruit growers 7.1 Top emerging economy exporters of clothing (US$ billion and %) 7.2 Estimates of changing gender profile of Bangladesh RMG workers 8.1 Gender profile of employment of a large floriculture/horticulture export firm 8.2 Simplified matrix—economic, skills and social upgrading

29 31 59 64 65 108 116 145 150 154 155 156 171 180 209 216

Figures

2.1 Simplified fresh fruit and vegetable value chain 2.2 Simplified textile-apparel value chain 3.1 Illustrative gender mapping of supermarket agri-food gobal value chain 3.2 Typology of workers across different sectors 4.1 Gender G(r)PN simplified 5.1 Simplified cocoa-chocolate value chain 5.2 Comparing adjacent cocoa farms 5.3 Ranking of challenges in order of importance in female focus group discussions

39 42 67 68 91 113 128 132

Abbreviations

AACT AGOA AgriSETA APEC BCEA BGMEA BKMEA BRIC BSCI BSR CAD CAP CBA CCC CCP CIF CL CMT COCOBOD CSO CtG DC DFID DIP EDI EFTA EM EPOS EPZ ESTA ETI EU

Action, Collaboration, Transformation African Growth and Opportunity Act Agricultural Sectoral Training and Education Authority Apparel Export Promotion Council (India) Basic Conditions of Employment Act Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association Bangladesh Knitwear Manufacturers and Exporters Association Brazil, Russian, India and China Business Social Compliance Initiative Business for Social Responsibility computer-aided design community action plan collective bargaining agreement Clean Clothes Campaign Cadbury Cocoa Partnership cost, insurance and freight Cocoa Life cut–make–trim Ghana Cocoa Marketing Board civil society organization Capturing the Gains distribution centre Department for International Development (UK) delivered in port electronic data interchange European Fair Trade Association Equitable Manufacturing electronic point of sales export processing zone Extension of Security of Tenure Act Ethical Trading Initiative European Union

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FFV FGD FLA FLO fob FTAO FTE GCC GDP GEPC GPN G(r)PN GSCP GSP GVC HACCP HEBI HRW ICCO ICI ICT IDS IFAT IFC ILO IMF IP IPL IT ITC ITGLWF ITUC JETI JIT KEWWO KFC KHRC LBC MCF MFA

Abbreviations

fresh fruit and vegetables focus group discussion Fair Labor Association Fair Trade Labelling Organisations International free on board Fairtrade Advocacy Office full-time equivalent global commodity chain gross domestic product Ghana Export Promotion Council Global Production Network Global (re)Production Network Global Social Compliance Programme Generalised System of Preferences Global Value Chain Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point Horticulture Ethical Business Initiative Human Rights Watch International Cocoa Organization International Cocoa Initiative Information and Communication Technology Institute of Development Studies International Federation for Alternative Trade International Finance Corporation International Labour Organization International Monetary Fund implementing partner International Procurement & Logistics information technology International Trade Centre International Textile, Garment and Leather Workers’ Federation (now IndustriALL) International Trade Union Confederation Joint Ethical Trading Initiatives just-in-time Kenya Women Workers Organization Kenya Flower Council Kenya Human Rights Commission licensed buying company Make Chocolate Fair Multi-Fibre Arrangement

Abbreviations

MOFA MSI MWCD NCR NEWS! NGO NIC NOIDA ODM OECD OEM QIZ RMG RP SAI SAP SATGI SIZA SMETA SMSI SNV UK UNCTAD UNDP UNGP US USA USDA WCF WE WEE WFP WIEGO WISC WOW WRC WTO WWW

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Ministry of Food and Agriculture multi-stakeholder initiative Ministry of Women and Child Development (India) National Capital Region (India) Network of European World Shops non-governmental organization newly industrializing country New Okhla Industrial Development Authority original design manufacturing Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development original equipment manufacturing qualifying industrial zone ready-made garment retail price Social Accountability International structural adjustment programme South African Table Grape Industry Sustainability Initiative of South Africa Sedex Members Ethical Trade Audit Sourcing & Manufacturing Sustainability Index Netherlands Development Organisation United Kingdom United Nations Conference on Trade and Development United Nations Development Programme United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights United States United States of America United States Department of Agriculture World Cocoa Foundation Leadership Mindset and Worker Engagement Women’s Economic Empowerment Women on Farms Project Women in the Informal Economy Globalizing and Organizing Women in Supply Chain Work and Opportunities for Women Workers Rights Consortium World Trade Organization Women Working Worldwide

Preface Books are often the product of a long journey, and this one is no exception. In the 1990s, much was being made of the ‘Chilean economic miracle’ resulting from trade liberalization implemented under the Pinochet dictatorship. As a postgraduate student of international trade and development with an interest in gender and labour in Chile, I wanted to examine the costs of this ‘miracle’ in the fruit export sector for the large female temporary labour force (las temporeras) employed each season. As part of this research, I undertook focus group discussions with groups of women fruit workers in the lower reaches of the Andes north of Santiago. This encounter dispelled many naïve assumptions I had started out with and highlighted the complexities of globalization for women workers. Unsurprisingly, I found that, during the fruit season, las temporeras endured exceptionally long hours, with poor pay and few rights. In my discussions with workers, I enquired about their ‘bad’ experiences working in multinational and domestically owned export companies. However, I soon learnt from workers that, despite many problems, the work also provided them with economic independence relative to their previous situation. I met some very forthright temporeras, one of whom forcefully said, ‘We have always worked hard. NOW we are being paid for it.’ They preferred working for multinationals because they offered better pay and conditions than domestically owned companies. From then on, I have been more careful in my research to investigate both the challenges and opportunities for women working in global export production. This same research also opened my eyes to the changing dynamics of trade, which conventional economics and political economy at the time were not addressing. This came about initially through a misunderstanding. My learnt Castilian was a potential barrier to comprehending the local dialect of workers. A couple of times in one focus group, workers mentioned ‘la visita de tesco’. When I enquired what ‘tesco’ meant, I was met with disbelief and laughter—they were referring to the UK supermarket Tesco. I was amazed that temporary workers in the foothills of the Andes were aware of a UK supermarket located on a different continent.

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Perplexed, I enquired further. The story then unravelled that once a year, a man from Tesco visited the packhouse where they worked as seasonal labourers. They all knew when the Tesco visit was due, because a special toilet was unlocked and workers were given permission to use it. As soon as the visit was over, the toilet was relocked until the next visit. I was intrigued. First, what was someone from Tesco doing over 7,000 miles away from the UK in the foothills of the Andes? Second, why was he bothering to check the toilet? Third, if he (and in the mid-1990s it was invariably a ‘he’) was concerned about the sanitary facilities workers were using, could he not also investigate the fact that the women worked long hours, in unhealthy conditions, seven days a week during the season, for relatively little pay? On return to the UK, I did three things that set me on the path leading to this book. First, after some perseverance, I arranged a research interview with the Tesco buyer responsible for fruit procurement from Chile. He patiently explained the fruit value chain and why inspecting the sanitary conditions of the toilet was important for fruit hygiene and quality (I did not have the heart to tell him that in at least one packhouse, the toilet was locked outside of Tesco visits). Second, from this I realized the importance of understanding the changing commercial dynamics of trade through value chains that is ignored by conventional economic theory. This investigation led me to the academic writings of Gary Gereffi on global commodity chains (Gereffi 1994b), which have informed my research ever since. Third, I contacted the Fairtrade Foundation in London, which was at that time a small organization with only a few full-time employees. My question was whether Chilean fruit could in future come under Fairtrade certification. The response was that, ethically, it would be a good idea, but given its limited size and resources, Fairtrade could not possibly cope with fresh produce (how things subsequently changed!). All three of these dimensions have been at the heart of my research ever since. This book builds in large part on the long journey that followed. My research has advanced mainly through collaborative studies involving value chain research on workers in export production in many sectors and developing countries that is destined for large Northern supermarkets and retailers. These sectors have included fresh fruit, vegetables, flowers, cocoa, tea, garments and footwear in countries across Africa, Asia and Latin America. The research projects have all had a gender component (some have been more gender focused than others). This I deem essential, given the large number of women workers found in export production, often in countries with a limited history of female waged work. These studies have helped highlight the many problems and low incomes endured by workers and small-scale farmers in value Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Queen Mary, University of London, on 12 Jan 2020 at 09:22:09, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.001

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chains that can generate billions of dollars in profit. However, it has also helped unpack the opportunities created for some, particularly those who are able to secure better jobs and incomes. A value chain approach provides the potential to aid nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in leveraging improvements for workers in the global economy through advocacy and campaigns, to promote better conditions and returns for workers and small-scale farmers. Fairtrade has grown from its small beginnings to a large programme covering 1.65 million farmers and workers worldwide,1 with related initiatives such as Utz and Rainforest Alliance following in its wake. I witnessed the setting up in 1998 of a parallel programme, the Ethical Trading Initiative (ETI), as an alliance of companies, trade unions and NGOs focusing specifically on labour conditions in retailer value chains.2 The ETI code of labour practice, based on core International Labour Organization (ILO) conventions, now covers over 10 million workers in its company members’ supply chains across over 130 countries. Labour codes have set minimum conditions for Chilean fruit workers, and with social auditing I would be very surprised if the toilet door remains locked between Tesco visits today! Indeed, Tesco was a founding member of ETI. Yet, despite all these advances, pressing problems remain. Export manufacture has opened up job opportunities for tens of millions of women workers, often coming from rural communities. This can bring benefits for more skilled workers who are able to earn better incomes. But many women are concentrated in the most insecure low-paid work. Downward commercial pressures in value chains have contributed to labour casualization and subcontracting, with the use of undocumented migrant workers and even forced labour found in some locations. Long years of declining supplier prices, rising costs of quality standards and lack of public investment in rural communities have driven many small-scale farmers out of agricultural production. Automation and e-commerce are threatening jobs across global retail value chains. The wealth of information and knowledge that provides the foundation for this book has been acquired gradually through multiple research projects involving important collaborations with different researchers across organizations and countries. My early research in Chile led to a joint publication with Anna Bee, Anne Matear and Isabel Vogel (Barrientos et al. 1999). This led to a collaboration with Sharon McClenaghan and Liz Orton from Christian Aid in the late 1990s, which examined labour conditions in the South African fruit sector. This aimed to provide more substantive investigation of the country’s  See http://www.fairtrade.org.uk/What-is-Fairtrade/Facts-and-Figures (accessed June 2017).  See https://www.ethicaltrade.org (accessed June 2018).

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labour situation following concerns that Christian Aid’s supermarket campaign needed to be better informed (Christian Aid 1996; Barrientos, McClenaghan and Orton 2000). This was followed by a more in-depth study of gender and ethical trade undertaken with Catherine Dolan, Sally Smith, Anne Tallontire and Maggie Opondo in Kenya, South Africa and Zambia that provided important comparative insights into the challenges and benefits for women workers in African horticulture (Barrientos, Dolan and Tallontire 2003; Smith et al. 2004). I also benefited greatly from collaboration with Andrienetta Kritzinger and Hester Rossouw at the University of Stellenbosch examining the changing dynamics of labour in the South African horticulture sector. This provided insights into the dichotomy between improved conditions for permanent and packhouse workers versus the casualization of labour in response to legislative changes, as well as pressures on growers from supermarket buyers (Barrientos and Kritzinger 2004; Barrientos, Kritzinger and Rossouw 2004; Kritzinger and Barrientos 2004). An impact assessment for the ETI, which I led with Sally Smith from 2004 to 2006 while at the Institute of Development Studies (IDS), provided a better understanding of the commercial dynamics of value chains. This examined implications of the ETI Base Code for workers across retailer value chains in three sectors (fruit, apparel and footwear) sourcing from five countries (Costa Rica, India, South Africa, UK and Vietnam, with a scoping study in China). This involved a team of researchers, including Di Auret, Naila Kabeer, Andrienetta Kritzinger, Kanchan Mathur, Khalid Nadvi, Hester Rossouw and Atul Sood. This was one of the earliest studies to provide grounded evidence of both the benefits and limitations of corporate codes of labour practice (Barrientos and Smith 2007), complementing research undertaken by Richard Locke and colleagues in the USA (Locke 2013). Research commissioned by Cadbury on the economic and social resilience of the cocoa–chocolate value chain followed years of decline for cocoa farmers and their communities. I led this research in Ghana in collaboration with Kwadwo Asenso-Okere (now sadly deceased) and his colleagues at the University of Ghana and in India with Sukhpal Singh and Amanda Berlan. This informed programmes developed by Cadbury and later Mondelez to support cocoa farmers and their communities, and also women in cocoa production. These included Cadbury’s adoption of Fairtrade in 2008 and later Mondelez Cocoa Life, both indicative of the positive role companies can play (Barrientos 2014b; Barrientos 2016; Barrientos et al. 2008). The need for a stronger regulatory framework, at both national and international levels, has been a finding in most of my research. One of the most disturbing projects I have participated in (with Jennifer Frances and Ben Rogaly), following the death of 23 Chinese cockle pickers in Morecombe Bay in the UK, examined the role of ‘gangmasters’ in UK agriculture, often using undocumented migrant Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Queen Mary, University of London, on 12 Jan 2020 at 09:22:09, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.001

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workers (Frances, Barrientos and Rogaly 2005). The Morecombe Bay tragedy led to pressure from many quarters (including the Transport and General Workers Union, the ETI and some supermarkets) for more effective legislation. This led to the introduction of the UK Gangmasters (Licensing) Act, followed many years later by the UK Modern Slavery Act. Similar moves have occurred in other countries, demonstrating the need for better legislation to address the underbelly of poor working conditions in a globalized economy. I went on to collaborate with Gary Gereffi, and jointly we co-directed the Capturing the Gains research programme from 2008 to 2013. This was an international network of 40 researchers in 20 countries examining economic and social upgrading and downgrading of workers in global value chains across a range of sectors (apparel, horticulture, information technology and tourism).3 It was led by a research team also involving Michelle Christian, Barbara Evers, Gary Gereffi, Shane Godfrey, Joonkoo Lee, Fritz Mayer, William Milberg, Dev Nathan, John Pickles, Anne Posthuma and Arianna Rossi. Collaborators in many countries also made important contributions. Capturing the Gains highlighted the rapidly changing dynamics of value chains following the 2008 financial crisis and the rise of retailers and brands within Africa, Asia and Latin America (Barrientos, Gereffi and Rossi 2011; Pickles, Barrientos and Knorringa 2016; Barrientos et al. 2016). Capturing the Gains research provided an important foundation for the argument developed in this book. It demonstrated that social upgrading could occur in line with economic upgrading but this was not automatic. Enhancing conditions and rights for workers required proactive interventions by all actors, including companies, civil society, governments and multilateral organizations. This raised serious questions as to whether the private sector alone could address longer-term challenges of sustainable development in a globalized economy. My research has also long been informed by participation in a wider network of researchers in Europe and the USA examining similar issues. These include Mark Anner, Matthew Amengual, Jennifer Bair, Greg Distelhorst, Alex Hughes, Peter Knorringa, Richard Locke, Mike Morris, Florence Palpacuer, Stefano Ponte, Lone Riisgaard, Dara O’Rourke, Adrian Smith, and Cornelia Staritz. This brief overview provides just a glimpse of the importance collaboration has played in generating research on workers in global value chains across sectors and countries. Updating this wealth of information and bringing it together into a single monograph was made possible by a Leverhulme Major Fellowship (2013– 16) dedicated to researching and writing this book. The work was also facilitated by positions as a visiting scholar at Duke University (particular thanks to Gary  For more information see www.capturingthegains.org and the Duke University Global Value Chains Centre https://gvcc.duke.edu (both accessed June 2018).

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Gereffi and Mike Hensen), the University of Cape Town (particular thanks to Shane Godfrey and Margareet Visser) and the National University of Singapore (particular thanks to Neil Coe and Henry Yeung). Over many years, I have benefited from participation in an informal network of feminist researchers. Diane Elson, Ruth Pearson, Diane Perrons and Shirin Rai have all provided inspiration and feedback at critical times in developing my nascent ideas. Colleagues and postgraduate students at IDS (particularly Raphie Kaplinsky and Khalid Nadvi) have also stimulated my thinking and sometimes collaborated. Their work has informed my understanding of the challenges of promoting labour standards and sustainable development in a global value chain context (Kaplinsky 2005; Nadvi 2008). Likewise, colleagues, postdoctoral fellows and PhD students at the University of Manchester have provided a fertile environment since 2008 for the development of my arguments through ongoing discussion, seminars, workshops and conferences. In particular, those in the Global Production Network (GPN), Labour and Trade research group (led by rotating postdoctoral and PhD students), the Fairness at Work Research Centre, now merged into the Work and Equalities Institute, led by Jill Rubery, and Unfree Labour seminar network led by Nicola Phillips. I would also like to thank those who commented on draft chapters of this book, including Matthew Alford, Armando Barrientos, Lea Brockington, Neil Coe, Martin Hess, Rory Horner, Nick Jepson, Judith Krauss, Aarti Krishnan, Henrietta Lake, Khalid Nadvi, Dev Nathan, Eleni Sifaki, Margareet Visser, two anonymous referees and members of the Manchester GPN research group. A special thanks also to Roo Griffiths for her help with copy-editing drafts of my (often messy) writing. Finally, this book would never have come to fruition without the many discussions and long suffering patience of Armando, for whose support I am eternally grateful. I also want to thank the funding bodies that provided the main resources that supported my research over the years, particularly the Leverhulme Trust and UK Department for International Development (DFID).4 All shortcomings and errors remain mine alone. My work has also benefited from engagement with a number of practitioners (company and civil society) who have played key roles in driving change in global retail value chains. From companies these include Lakshmi Bhatia (previously at Gap), Giles Bolton (Tesco), Lea Brockington (Nike), Sara Clancy (previously  T he Leverhulme Trust funded research on Fairtrade with Sally Smith (2004–5) and my Leverhulme Major Fellowship (2013–16), which provided time to write this book. DFID funded research on the South African fruit sector with Liz Orton and Sharon McClenaghan (1998–9) and on ethical trade in the African horticulture sector with Catherine Dolan and Anne Tallontire (2000–4). DFID was the main funder of the Capturing the Gains research programme (2009–12) with additional support from the Rory and Elizabeth Brooks Foundation. I alone am responsible for all research and views presented in this book.

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at  Body Shop), Paul Cluver (Paul Cluver Wines), David Croft (previously at Cadbury), Louise Nicholls (Marks & Spencer), Adil Rehman (Next then Asos), Fiona Sadler (Marks & Spencer), Anna Swaithes (previously at Cadbury), Sophi Tranchell (Devine Chocolate) and Alison Ward (Cadbury then Cotton Connect). From civil society these include Magali Barraja (BSR), Cindy Berman (ETI), Maggie Burns (ETI), Martha Chen (WIEGO), Fiona Gooch (Traidcraft), Angela Hale (Women Working Worldwide, sadly deceased), Jenny Holdcroft (IndustriAll), Rosey Hurst (Impactt), Neil Kearny (ITGLWF, sadly deceased), Sue Longley (International Union of Foodworkers), Peter McAllister (International Cocoa Initiative then ETI), Aurelio Parisotto (ILO), Dan Rees (ETI then ILO/ IFC Better Work), Gerry Rogers (previously at ILO and initial driver of Capturing the Gains), Christine Svarer (Care then BSR), Alette van Leur (ILO) and Rachel Wilshaw (Oxfam). Also, more recently, my collaborators in the ETI gender assessment as well as Work and Opportunities for Women (WOW) programmes (particularly Charlotte Pallangyo). I also thank the many more practitioners whose engagement and debate over the years have helped my understanding of the complex issues and processes of change in global value chains. As researchers, we are trained to be as rigorous and impartial as possible. My early experience of being ‘put right’ by a group of temporeras in Chile taught me the perils of assuming particular positions or outcomes. It is important to gather information from as many sources as possible, including commercial actors and all categories of workers and small-scale farmers, taking careful account of different perspectives. Views inevitably differ and sometimes conflict in value chains that incorporate multiple actors, many with competing interests, but the role of research is to understand and analyse diverse perspectives. However, impartiality has never clouded one commitment—that my research will inform the attainment of a better life for all workers and small-scale farmers, particularly women and marginalized workers, who are so often overlooked but who represent the backbone of much global production. Research has taught me that, despite all the challenges paid work can present, access to jobs can also have an empowering effect for women, who have previously been largely excluded from labour markets or whose role is often overlooked in so many countries. Yet, although global retail value chains generate billions of dollars of revenue, the fact that many workers who produce the same goods are often barely able to capture sufficient gains to feed themselves and their families at a decent level of wellbeing needs to be redressed. The challenge for researchers is to critically assess both the opportunities and challenges and provide insights into how to leverage improvements. Years of research indicates that positive change for workers can happen, but it does not come about automatically; rather, it results from a constant process of engagement, bargaining and contestation. Global value chains open up new spaces Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Queen Mary, University of London, on 12 Jan 2020 at 09:22:09, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.001

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for contestation that often transcend individual workplaces, sectors and countries, providing new opportunities to leverage change. My hope is that this book will inform all those researchers, policymakers, practitioners and activists working towards a better world for workers. This book focuses on the changing gender patterns of work in a global retail environment associated with the rise of contemporary retail and global sourcing. This has affected the working lives of hundreds of millions of workers in high-, middle- and low-income countries. The growth of contemporary retail has been driven by the commercialized production of many goods previously produced unpaid by women within the home. Sourcing is now largely undertaken through global value chains in low- or middle-income economies, using a ‘cheap’ feminized labour force to produce low-price goods. As women have been drawn into the labour force, households are increasingly dependent on the purchase of food and consumer goods, blurring the boundaries between paid and unpaid work. This book examines how gendered patterns of work have changed and explores the extent to which global retail opens up new channels to leverage more genderequitable gains in sourcing countries. The book focuses only on work within global value chains, which have received insufficient attention in the literature from a gender perspective. It draws on research largely undertaken between 2000 and 2012, when the effects of e-commerce and automation were still at an early stage. It only touches on intra-household gender relations and does not examine wider issues beyond retail value chains, such as care work and informal and unpaid work. These are vitally important but have received more attention elsewhere in the literature (for example, McDowell 1999; Himmelweit 2000; Carr, Chen and Tate 2000; Chant 2011; Dunaway 2014). I realized in this book I needed to stay focused on specific knowledge gaps and could not cover all dimensions. The research behind this book would not have been possible without the generous time provided over many years by workers, suppliers and civil society organizations in the many sourcing countries in which I have worked. I dedicate this book to all the workers I have interviewed, especially women, now in paid work producing for global retailers. In particular, I owe a debt to the Chilean fruit workers who first opened my eyes to the need to carefully examine both the global commercial changes taking place and the complex gender outcomes for workers. Despite many initiatives, the issues they faced then remain pertinent today. However, I remain optimistic that, if harnessed proactively, opportunities exist to improve the rights and conditions of all workers, contributing to the economic empowerment of women.

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1 Introduction Rise of Global Retail The rise of global retail has transformed the production, distribution and sale of food and consumer goods with significant consequences for the gender profile of work in the Global South. Global retailers play a key role in the provision and global sourcing of a wide range of consumer goods across national borders through global value chains (Coe and Wrigley 2009; Hamilton, Petrovic and Senauer 2011). Global value chains are summed up as ‘the full range of activities which are required to bring a product or service from conception, through the different phases of production (involving a combination of physical transformation and the input of various producer services), delivery to final consumers, and final disposal after use’ (Kaplinsky and Morris 2002, 8). Well established in North America and Europe, global retail is rapidly becoming more prevalent in emerging and lowerincome economies (Reardon et al. 2003). Women are drawn into global value chains as farmers, wage-workers, employees, buyers and customers (Dolan and Sorby 2003; Hale and Wills 2005). As retailers expand their market scope, they are commercializing many unpaid activities previously undertaken by women within households. Global retail and sourcing generate paid work for hundreds of millions of workers in emerging and lowincome countries, drawing in a significant proportion of women with limited previous labour market access (ILO 2015b). Often they are involved in producing goods women had made or prepared in the home. Retail value chains link firms at each stage from production through distribution to final retail and final consumers (Kaplinsky and Morris 2002). A key argument of this book is that their growth has been based on commercialization of many activities previously undertaken, unpaid, by women in the home, helping to draw women into fragmented paid work in their production. They therefore blur traditional gendered boundaries between paid work in commercial production and unpaid work within households. These processes play out differently across geographical locations, where gender norms shaping the division of labour and women’s participation in productive and reproductive activities can vary greatly. Often, retail can disrupt long-established Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. The Librarian-Seeley Historical Library, on 19 Aug 2019 at 14:59:36, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.002

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Gender and Work in Global Value Chains

gender norms, but the outcomes for promoting gender equality appear mixed both across sectors and locations. Women workers are largely concentrated in low-wage, labour-intensive production. Their jobs are often flexible and insecure and part of a ‘low road’ linked to economic and social downgrading. However, some women workers benefit from better remuneration and conditions, particularly where their skills are recognized. They are part of a ‘high road’ linked to economic and social upgrading (Barrientos et al. 2011). Value chain participation can recreate gendered subordination in the commercial sphere (Dunaway 2014). It can also provide new channels for women’s bargaining and contestation aimed at improving their rights and conditions of work (Oxfam 2004; Barrientos 2013a). This has important implications for strategies directed at promoting social upgrading and gender equality within contemporary global development. There has been limited academic analysis of the transformations of gendered patterns of work in value chains. Complementary analytical frameworks of Global Value Chain (GVC) and Global Production Network (GPN) analyses are drawn on in this book. GVC analysis focuses on interfirm relations (Gereffi et al. 2001), while GPN analysis places more emphasis on power and embeddedness of global production (Henderson et al. 2002).1 These provide insights into the commercial dynamics of retail sourcing. However, they pay limited attention to work and, with a few notable exceptions, largely overlook the gender implications. Feminist political economy provides important insights into the changing gender dynamics of work in global production (for example, Elson and Pearson 1981; Pyle 1999; Kabeer 2000; Beneria, Berik and Floro 2003). This examines the relation between production for markets (through paid work traditionally undertaken by men), and social reproduction of current and future generations (largely undertaken by women within households) (Folbre 1994; Hoskyns and Rai 2007). Until recently, with some exceptions, feminist political economy largely overlooked the role of global value chains. This book addresses a critical knowledge gap. It is estimated that 55–80 per cent of world trade now passes through global value chains (OECD, WTO and UNCTAD 2013; UNCTAD 2013). Global value chains generate over 453 million jobs (42 per cent female) in 40 countries that are members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and emerging economies (ILO 2015a). This figure does not take into account low-income developing countries, where a large amount of labour-intensive global sourcing is located.  W hen referring to Global Value Chain (GVC) and Global Production Network (GPN) as analytical frameworks I use capital letters, in contrast to when I make empirical reference to the retail value chains as the channels through which retailers coordinate their supply, where I use lower case.

1

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Retail value chains play a significant role in this, globally and regionally, through expansion across the Global North and South. The book is guided by the core questions: How are global retail value chains shaping gender patterns of work, and what are the gendered outcomes for workers? To examine these questions, I draw on a combination of analytical approaches, including GVC and GPN analyses, feminist political economy, and labour and development studies. I advance the theory of gendered Global (re)Production Networks (G[r]PN) to explore how global retail value chains are reshaping the gender profile of work, especially in middle- and low-income countries. A G(r)PN approach emphasizes the gender embeddedness of global production supplying household and consumer goods (Kelly 2009). It examines articulations between the economic sphere of commercial production and the societal sphere of social reproduction. It explores how replacing many goods traditionally produced unpaid by women within households by commercially produced goods involving a large fragmented workforce is blurring the division between paid and unpaid work. It unpacks embedded tensions and contestation that can lead to different outcomes across value chains and locations. This approach provides new insights, I will argue, into diverse gendered processes of economic and social upgrading and downgrading within value chains that can lead to different outcomes for workers. This analysis provides a unifying framework for examining a number of comparative case studies on a selection of consumer products. These products include apparel2 and agri-food (flowers, fruit, vegetables and cocoa) sourced from different countries including Bangladesh, Ghana, India, Indonesia, Kenya, South Africa and the UK. These case studies are based on research that I have undertaken through different projects over many years. I have supplemented them by drawing on secondary information and other research studies undertaken in related countries and value chains. Combined, this work throws light on the changing context of retail and gendered outcomes for workers within diverse value chains and low-income economies. It provides comparative examples of the changing nature of women’s participation in value chains (as wage labour, home-based workers and smallholder producers), and the shifting boundaries between productive and reproductive work. This book unpacks interaction between the economic sphere of commercial production and the societal sphere of social reproduction in a value chain context. It argues that there are inherent tensions between a commercial dynamic of efficiency and profit in markets versus a social dynamic of caring and well-being.  ‘Apparel’ is the US term, also called ‘garments’ or ‘clothing’ in other countries.

2

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In retail value chains, linkages between consumers, buyers and producers are intensified in comparison to arms-length markets where they are more remote from each other. As commercial retailers have become more embedded in the localities within which they sell and source, they have responded to pressure to display greater concern for environmental and social dimensions of production. They need to not only sell at competitive prices but also deliver on a range of ‘quality’ dimensions. This underpins the retail mantra that suppliers meet requirements on cost and speed of delivery and also comply with quality requirements that include environmental and social standards (Barrientos and Dolan 2006). Suppliers juggle cost, speed and quality through the use of a fragmented workforce. Regular, more skilled workers help to deliver quality and consistency, and fragmented, flexible and subcontracted workers help to deliver on low-cost and quick response to orders (Barrientos and Kritzinger 2004). Regular workers can experience benefits, while fragmented workers face poor conditions and often labour abuse—even within the same factories and farms. Engagement in retail value chains can also open up new channels of contestation. Reputational risk to retailers from adverse campaigns provides leverage for civil society organizations such as unions and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) (for example, Oxfam 2004). Women’s entry into paid work can enhance their bargaining position at home and work, enabling participation in collective action and contestation. For women, shifting the boundaries between the economic sphere encompassing commercial production (paid work) and the societal sphere encompassing social reproduction (unpaid work) has far-reaching implications. The entrenched social subordination of women is reflected in the fact that their work has long been undervalued. Gendered patterns of work in global value chains often relegate women to providing a cheap labour force using socially acquired skills that are insufficiently recognized or remunerated. Yet, when some suppliers pursue economic upgrading by moving to higher-value activities, increasing their demand for skilled workers, it also enhances bargaining and contestation by women workers, which can lead to improved working conditions and remuneration. However, I argue that gender-equitable outcomes that enhance workers’ rights and women’s economic empowerment are far from inevitable but require strategic interventions involving private, public and civil society actors. Addressing systemic gender discrimination also requires a shift in the commercial model from one that privileges profit and share value over caring and well-being. A core argument of this book is that capturing more gender-equitable gains for workers will not be automatic, but involves a constant process of bargaining and contestation. In this introduction, I expand further on this perspective, which subsequent chapters then develop in more depth. In the second section, I examine the empirical context in order to highlight the rapid changes in gender patterns of work associated Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. The Librarian-Seeley Historical Library, on 19 Aug 2019 at 14:59:36, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.002

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with global retail value chains. The third section examines the analytical argument combining GVC and GPN approaches with feminist political economy and labour studies. The fourth section explains the concepts of economic and social upgrading and downgrading in GVCs. The fifth section outlines the research approach underpinning the empirical case studies presented. Finally, in the last section, I provide a summary of each chapter that follows.

Empirical Overview of Gender Patterns of Work in Retail Value Chains The retail shift underway since the 1980s is transforming the production, distribution and sale of most food and consumer goods (Coe and Wrigley 2009; Hamilton et al. 2011). Supermarkets and brand retailers are customer-facing, responding to and driving new consumer trends. They no longer buy through traditional wholesale markets. Large retailers coordinate value chains that link customers with large intermediaries and suppliers from which they source directly (Gereffi 1994b). Consumer-focused retailers monitor household purchasing patterns (through loyalty cards and similar schemes) to enhance their sales, and coordinate their upstream value chains to supply commercial goods on a just-in-time basis. Advances in e-commerce and marketing via the internet, smart phones and social media are further transforming shopping, as electronic linkages between customers and retailers become ever more interactive (Lewis and Dart 2014). Well established in North America and Europe, modern retail is becoming more prevalent in emerging economies, with regional value chains expanding across Africa, Asia and Latin America (Reardon, Henson and Berdegue 2007). A large number of women are drawn into value chains as customers, employees, suppliers, farmers and wage-workers. The changing gender profile of labour markets in developed and developing countries has been an important driver of retail growth. At the consumer end, women account for over 70 per cent of spending on most household goods and are the focus of much retail marketing (Beetles and Harris 2005; Silverstein and Sayre 2009). As more women have entered the paid workforce, their purchasing power has increased (Goldman Sachs 2009). Much retail expansion is based on the commercial provision of goods previously produced by women unpaid in the home, which they now purchase to support their households. These goods include processed food, ready prepared meals, readymade garments, personal care items and household items that facilitate cooking and cleaning. Studies have shown that women now spend less time on household chores, although this is often counter-balanced by more time on caring for children and elderly dependents (Himmelweit 2000). Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. The Librarian-Seeley Historical Library, on 19 Aug 2019 at 14:59:36, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.002

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The shift from high street and ‘mom and pop’ stores to large supermarkets and increasingly online e-commerce has meant the provision of ‘one-stop shops’ and reduction in time spent shopping. Meanwhile, as more women enter the labour force in emerging and lower-income countries, they also purchase more commercially produced goods sold through global and regional retailers within their own countries. Trends prevalent in Europe and North America are also becoming the norm in many countries within Africa, Asia and Latin America (Goldman Sachs 2009; Guarin and Knorringa 2014). Off-shoring and global sourcing have greatly improved the availability of a wide range of affordable consumer goods. Off-shoring of production from North America and Europe to lower-wage producers in developing countries really gathered pace in the 1980s following the liberalization of trade and finance (Gereffi 1994b; Collins 2003). Global sourcing from emerging and low-income countries underpins the year-round availability of goods independent of season or location. A large supermarket chain can sell over 40,000 product lines sourced through global supply networks that span over 80 countries (Petrovic 2011; USDA 2012). These can incorporate thousands of direct and indirect suppliers and millions of workers. Global sourcing by retailers has helped to generate paid work for hundreds of millions of workers, particularly women. In low-wage developing countries where female participation in the labour force has traditionally been low, this has generated new opportunities for paid work. Retailers help reshape gendered patterns of consumption, production and work, but are also embedded within gender norms in the countries they sell to and source from. The gender profile of retail value chains indicates the persistence of gender inequalities that have long existed in the wider society. At the retail end of the chain, women constitute the largest share of the retail labour force. The biggest global retailer, Walmart, for example, directly employed 2.2 million workers across their worldwide operations in 2015, making it the third largest employer in the world (Taylor 2015). Approximately 57 per cent of its workforce was female, and data for other global and regional retailers indicate similar gender ratios. However, senior and middle management positions are mainly male-occupied, with lower positions predominantly female, particularly in customer-facing jobs such as counter sales and cashiers. In many countries, feminized retail work in lower positions involves highly flexible and insecure casual, part-time and contract employment, including zerohour contracts, where employers are not obliged to guarantee minimum working hours (Marchington et. al. 2005; Grugulis and Bozkurt 2011; Weil 2014). As we move backwards through the value chain, available information indicates many of the large intermediaries directly supplying retailers with consumer goods such as food and apparel also have a similar gender profile: senior positions are Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. The Librarian-Seeley Historical Library, on 19 Aug 2019 at 14:59:36, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.002

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predominantly male-occupied, and female employment is concentrated in lower levels (Bank Munoz, Kenny and Stetcher 2018). In contrast, available evidence indicates that logistics employment remains predominantly male in all categories of work (Turnbull 2013; Newsome 2015), although women constitute over 50 per cent of workers in the wider provision of services needed to support value chains (WEF 2018). Women have traditionally produced food, apparel and household goods but mainly unpaid in household or small-scale production in developing countries (Boserup 1970; Beckert 2014). Through global sourcing, women have increasingly been drawn in as low-paid workers in commercial production. The ready-made garment industry has significantly increased employment in developing countries, with an estimated 60 million textile and garment workers globally (Beckert 2014). Approximately 60–80 per cent of them are female, with variations between countries. A similar pattern has occurred in agri-food, although there are fewer data available here. The expansion of year-round sourcing by retailers has drawn millions of workers and small-scale farmers into production and processing, with women playing a key role in many countries across Africa, Asia and Latin America (Barrientos 2001; Dolan and Sorby 2003; World Bank 2009). The gender profile at the production end is also highly skewed. Men are concentrated in senior management and supervisory jobs, whereas women constitute the majority of lower-paid wage-workers in many segments of labour-intensive production. In many emerging and low-income countries, the gender profile reflects entrenched gender norms and subordination of women. Women are often drawn in as internal migrants from rural communities where previously they had limited access to paid work. In some countries (particularly in Asia), where traditional norms used to confine women to the home, this often provides their first access to paid employment (Kabeer 2000b; Kabeer and Mahmud 2004). Subcontracting of specific tasks also draws smallholders and homeworkers into the lower tiers of retail value chains. Much of this work continues to be predominantly female work, either as unpaid family labour or as own account workers operating within their own homes (Schmitz and McCormick 2001; Chen 2014). Global retailers occupy a position of commercial power over suppliers, often applying strict commercial requirements and quality standards as a condition of supply (Hamilton et al. 2011; ILO 2017b). In order to generate year-round sourcing of goods at affordable prices, retailers pressure suppliers on cost and speed to market. However, quality also matters for high-end and even lower-end retailers. Suppliers are therefore constantly juggling cost, quality and delivery times in their employment strategies (Barrientos and Kritzinger 2004; Raworth and Kidder 2009). This contributes to both ‘low road’ and ‘high road’ outcomes for different groups of workers. Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. The Librarian-Seeley Historical Library, on 19 Aug 2019 at 14:59:36, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.002

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In ‘low road’ segments of retail value chains, the commercial pressures of low cost, volatile orders and short delivery times can drive increased casualization and use of third-party labour intermediaries, often using internal and international migrant labour. In some cases, this glosses over murky practices, including forms of ‘modern-day slavery’ (LeBaron and Ruhmkorf 2017). Information on the gender profile at this level is difficult to obtain, but case studies indicate both men and women are involved (Barrientos 2013b). In ‘high road’ segments of value chains, emphasis on quality and standards has stimulated the creation of betterpaid jobs for workers in some activities. Here, the gender profile is more mixed and varies by location, but women are often concentrated in some skilled segments of packing and processing. Much debate has focused on whether women gain or lose from commercial expansion under globalization. Does engagement in retail value chains generate new forms of exploitation and gender inequalities (Wright 2006; Dunaway 2014)? Or does it allow women to escape from the drudgery of unpaid household work and find greater economic independence (Lim 1990; Kabeer 2000b)? In ‘footloose’ value chains, where buyers can easily switch sourcing locations in search of lowercost production, this undermines traditional forms of labour organization (Peck 1996). However, research also indicates that access to paid work and independent incomes can enhance the bargaining position of women (World Bank 2012). In some locations, access to retail value chains has facilitated worker agency, with greater opportunities for bargaining and contestation involving global unions and civil society campaigns (Barrientos 2013a). In sum, a gender profiling of retail value chains indicates that new opportunities have opened up for women to enter paid work, but many women experience new forms of subordination within the commercial sphere. Retail value chains are complex, serving different consumer segments (both high-price niche markets and low-price volume markets) with differing requirements. Suppliers in all retail segments have to juggle the speed of delivery, cost and quality. In this context, the profile of work can disadvantage fragmented female workers involved in low-cost production and yet provide opportunities for women workers involved in the quality dimension of production. The aim of this book is to provide more nuanced enquiry into mixed and changing gendered outcomes in the different nodes of retail value chains and to identify channels for leveraging improvements that would enable all women workers to capture more of the gains.

Why Is a New Approach Needed? I draw on a combination of analytical approaches to analyse how contemporary retail value chains are associated with a transformation in the way markets function Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. The Librarian-Seeley Historical Library, on 19 Aug 2019 at 14:59:36, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.002

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and implications for gender patterns of work. Conventional economic analysis assumes competitive goods and labour markets involving arms-length transactions where supply and demand are mediated by price and wage movements. A marketbased analytical approach has proven to be of limited utility in studying global value chains where lead firms coordinate and control their sourcing across international borders (Milberg and Winkler 2013). In contrast, as analysed in Chapter 4, GVC analysis examines the linkages between all the stages of input supply, production, distribution and retail to the final consumer. This facilitates examination of the commercial dynamics of value chains coordinated by global retailers, with a focus on governance, upgrading and economic rents (Gereffi 1994b; Gereffi et al. 2001; Gereffi, Humphrey and Sturgeon 2005). The related approach of GPN analysis also examines the commercial dynamics of cross-border sourcing. It facilitates further examination of the societal embeddedness of commercial activity, which varies across locations. Embeddedness refers to how an actor’s behaviour is shaped by their social roots and background, as well as the institutional, legislative and regulatory environment in which they are situated. It also focuses on power relations and value creation, enhancement and capture (Henderson et al. 2002; Coe et al. 2008; Coe and Yeung 2015). GVC and GPN approaches are complemented by insights from labour studies that examine the implications for workers (Munck 2002; Coe and Jordhus-Lier 2011; Newsome et al. 2015). Feminist political economy provides important insights into the gender dimensions of productive and reproductive work (Elson and Pearson 1981; Folbre 1994; Gardiner 1997; Elson 1999; Himmelweit 2000). Combined, these approaches help analyse the gender implications of a shift away from traditional arms-length retail markets to buyer-coordinated global value chains. Until the 1970s, a ‘male breadwinner’ model prevailed in many countries, with men concentrated in paid productive work earning a sufficient income to maintain his family. Women undertook most unpaid household work, caring for children and other dependents (Crompton 2003). In that role, women also had primary responsibility for shopping and were buyers of most of the consumer goods needed by families (Alexander, Phillips and Shaw 2008). Feminist political economy critically analysed how conventional economic analysis perpetuates this gender division of labour by overlooking the economic contribution of women’s unpaid work in social reproduction. Conventional economics focuses solely on productive labour for markets as the main form of legitimate ‘work’. In contrast, the analysis of social reproduction incorporates the role of (often unpaid) work in family and community networks that sustain and reproduce workers (Bhattacharya 2017). Social reproduction is critical to the formation of current and future generations, through the household production of goods and services and the reproduction of Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. The Librarian-Seeley Historical Library, on 19 Aug 2019 at 14:59:36, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.002

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culture and ideology underpinning societies (Folbre 1994; Gardiner 1997; Hoskyns and Rai 2007). Social reproduction is not static, but a process that is constantly changing, especially with growing female participation in labour markets across many countries. This has led to a ‘universal worker’ model where two persons in paid work is more common in households (Stewart 2011). Women have less time for household activities yet often remain largely responsible for cooking, childcare and related domestic tasks. They have therefore become more dependent on buying ready-prepared food and time-saving consumer goods (Alexander et al. 2008). I analyse how retail value chains have contributed to a changing gender division of labour, intensifying interlinkages between the economic sphere of commercial production and the social sphere of reproduction. This contributes to academic analysis of the transformation in gendered patterns of work across global retail value chains, which to date has been limited, with some exceptions (Barrientos 2001; Dolan and Sorby 2003; Stewart 2011; Dunaway 2014). In order to analyse the gender implications, I develop the framework of G(r) PN drawing on the work of Kelly (2009). This facilitates the examination of how global retail value chains, especially supermarkets selling multiple product ranges and acting as brand marketers, are reconfiguring embedded gendered relations in the Global North and South. A G(r)PN approach emphasizes the embeddedness of commercial value chains in geographical locations and social contexts framed by gender norms, which vary greatly across rural/urban divides, across countries and regions (Africa, Asia, Europe, South and North America). This involves changing interconnections or articulations between commercial actors and the differing localities in which they source or sell (Bair and Werner 2011; Bair et al. 2013; Pickles and Smith 2016). This approach facilitates the exploration of power relations within commercial value chains and also in terms of how these intermesh with broader societal asymmetries of power that are highly gendered. Drawing on a G(r)PN approach, I analyse how interaction between global commercial dynamics driving production and the diverse socio-economic gender norms framing reproduction can lead to positive and negative outcomes across value chains and countries. I focus on three dimensions: embedded tensions, gender articulations and contested downgrading and upgrading outcomes. First, embedded tensions arise from strains between the economic sphere (driven by a commercial logic of financialization, profit maximization and cost reduction) and the societal sphere (driven by a logic of well-being, caring and nurturing future generations). I argue the interaction between these two spheres is reflected in pressure on retailers not only to provide goods fast at competitive prices but also to display ‘caring’ for the well-being of their consumers and workers through quality standards that incorporate environmental and social criteria. This underpins Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. The Librarian-Seeley Historical Library, on 19 Aug 2019 at 14:59:36, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.002

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tension between a ‘low road’ based on pursuit of low value, high volume and quick turnover and a ‘high road’ based on high value, quality and sustainability. Second, gender articulations reflect how management of this tension by retailers and suppliers is shaped by commercial interaction with traditional gender norms in which retail and sourcing are embedded. The prevailing gender division of labour in most countries has long meant the societal undervaluation of women’s work. Cooking or sewing in the home, for example, is deemed a ‘low-value’ activity for which women need little financial recompense. When these activities are commercialized within retail value chains, the same gendered norms facilitate a ‘low road’ source of cheap female labour. This informs the GPN analysis of value creation, enhancement and capture as gendered processes based on the undervaluation of women’s paid work. Embedded tensions between the requirements of cost, quality and delivery increase demand for women’s ‘intangible skills’ (Elson and Pearson 1981; Phillips and Taylor 1980). This affects articulations and disarticulations between women workers and global production, through participation as fragmented and flexible labour that moves between work and home, often on adverse terms (Phillips 2011; Werner 2012). Third, contested outcomes reflect the agency of workers, including women, to challenge their conditions. Women are often analysed as passive victims, employed in flexible work because of their perceived docility and lack of organization. Gendered power relations and subordination of women in most societies can affect or constrain their ability to bargain and engage in contestation. However, paid work in retail value chains has also provided greater economic independence for many women workers (Kabeer 2000b). It has also opened up new channels for contestation that affect low and high road outcomes (Barrientos 2013a). In a value chain context, I examine three dimensions of contestation: individual, collective and collaborative. Individual contestation arises from the constrained agency of workers, especially women, whose bargaining position at household and work levels is enhanced by access to independent incomes (Kabeer 2000a; Coe and Jordhus-Lier 2011). Collective contestation reflects the organization of workers either spontaneously through informal action or in independent trade unions based on collective bargaining or industrial action within production sites or sectors (Cumbers, Nativel and Routledge 2008; Anner 2015). In the case of smallholders and informal producers, it reflects the ability to organize and join cooperative groups that can bargain with larger commercial intermediaries or buyers (Vorley, Fearne and Ray 2007; Chen 2014). Collaborative contestation reflects national and global alliances between NGOs and/or trade unions to advance advocacy and campaigns against poor working conditions in retail value chains. These can include campaigns over the purchasing practices of retailers exerting undue pressure on suppliers and workers to lower costs (Oxfam 2004; FTAO 2014). It also reflects Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. The Librarian-Seeley Historical Library, on 19 Aug 2019 at 14:59:36, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.002

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retailer susceptibility to civil society pressures to address social and environmental issues and adopt standards such as organic, ethical and fair trade certification (Barrientos and Dolan 2006; Nadvi 2008; Hughes, Wrigley and Buttle 2008; Henson and Humphrey 2010; Bair and Palpacuer 2012; Bartley et al. 2015). Combined, these three dimensions help in analysing how changing gender boundaries between the economic sphere of commercial production and the societal sphere of social reproduction can evolve differently across value chains and locations. There is no binary divide between the ‘high road’ and the ‘low road’; rather, these reflect differing trajectories along a spectrum that can contain both dimensions in varying combinations (mixed outcomes). Both trajectories can play out in parallel within the same workplace or sector, generating tensions as suppliers adopt mixed strategies to cope simultaneously with cost, speed and quality pressures. Outcomes can often vary for differing groups of workers.

Economic and Social Downgrading and Upgrading The concepts of economic and social upgrading and downgrading facilitate further unpacking of these trajectories and their navigation by buyers and suppliers as well as workers and small-scale producers (Barrientos et al. 2011; Rossi 2013; Gereffi and Lee 2016). Economic downgrading, or the ‘low road’ for short, is defined as where suppliers move to lower-value, lower-price and higher-volume activities based on transactional pressures to reduce costs using low-wage labour. Social downgrading reflects the diminution of labour standards, both measurable dimensions such as wages and hours and enabling rights such as freedom of association and no discrimination. Economic upgrading, or the ‘high road’ for short, is defined in terms of suppliers moving to higher-value, higher-price activities involving rising productivity and quality. Social upgrading involves the improvement of both measurable labour standards and enabling rights. The upgrading and downgrading concepts have been problematized in the GVC and GPN literatures (Ponte and Ewert 2009; Bair and Werner 2011; Selwyn 2013; Coe and Yeung 2015). I argue that the concepts help to unravel diverging trajectories in GVCs. However, it is important to emphasize that they are relative and not absolute concepts that can often occur in differing combinations along a continuum from better to worse, nor do they preclude informality, ‘adverse incorporation’ or exclusion (Phillips 2011). In relation to workers, the key focus of this book, they provide a framework for analysing gendered trajectories in which better and worse conditions can be found for different groups of female and male workers, often working alongside each other in the same production site. Research has indicated that economic upgrading can but does not necessarily lead to social upgrading (Bernhardt and Milberg 2011; Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. The Librarian-Seeley Historical Library, on 19 Aug 2019 at 14:59:36, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.002

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Milberg and Winkler 2011; Barrientos et al. 2016). We need to better understand the conditions under which this can be achieved. I argue that embedded tensions between the economic and social spheres linked through global retail value chains generate systemic gender biases in upgrading and downgrading trajectories. Work undertaken by women is socially undervalued and poorly remunerated for their level of contribution, reducing commercial cost and driving downgrading for workers. In parallel, women’s socially acquired skills applied in production can be important in enhancing quality and ‘caring’ for consumers, enabling upgrading for workers. However, value chain dynamics mean gains in productivity and quality are rarely reaped proportionately by women workers but often captured by other commercial actors further along the value chain (for example, suppliers, agents or buyers). The extent to which this occurs can depend on a number of factors, explored in later chapters in different contexts. Influences include local socio-economic context, labour market conditions including supply and demand for skilled labour, levels of contestation, private governance and national regulation and institutions. An important difference between traditional market-led retail and contemporary retail value chains is that poor working conditions are traceable from the supplier to lead retail firm, facilitating new forms of contestation. This often has a gender focus, given women are concentrated in more insecure work with higher levels of exploitation (Oxfam 2004; ActionAid 2005). A key challenge is how to obstruct ‘low road’ and promote ‘high road’ outcomes through strategies that leverage more gender-equitable outcomes that benefit both women and men workers.

Role of Governance Governance can play an important role in influencing downgrading and upgrading trajectories and leveraging change. In global value chains, governance—setting the norms, rules and policies framing participant actions—involves three groups: private governance exercised by buyers, social governance exercised by civil society organizations (NGOs and unions) and public governance exercised by governments and multilateral organizations (Mayer and Posthuma 2012). Social governance involving international and national NGO and trade union advocacy and campaigns that often cross national borders and target lead brandname firms has come to play an important role in leveraging improvements in labour conditions (Mayer and Pickles 2010; Mayer and Posthuma 2012; ILO 2016b). Private governance has arisen as a response by global buyers to the risk of adverse publicity over poor labour conditions, even though they are not the direct employer and operate outside the legal jurisdiction of supplier sites. It has led to a plethora of codes of labour practice introduced by retailers and brand-name firms, Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. The Librarian-Seeley Historical Library, on 19 Aug 2019 at 14:59:36, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.002

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fuelling the growth of a multibillion social compliance industry involving social auditing and workplace monitoring (Terwindt and Armstrong 2018). However, research has highlighted the limits of social compliance as a means of substantively improving labour standards, particularly in relation to the enabling rights of freedom of association and no discrimination. Social audits and monitoring largely fail to pick up gender issues, such as discrimination in hiring, training and promotion or sexual harassment, and often overlook casual and contract labour where women are concentrated (Pearson and Seyfang 2001; Auret and Barrientos 2005; Barrientos and Smith 2007; BSR 2018). The role of public governance, which has long been overlooked in the GVC and a lesser extent in the GPN literature, is gaining greater prominence (Smith 2015; Alford 2016; Mayer and Phillips 2017). From a gender perspective, an important limitation of private governance exercised through social auditing is a focus on conditions within the narrow confines of the workplace (Pearson and Seyfang 2001). This reflects a longstanding gender division of labour between paid work (predominantly male) and unpaid work (predominantly female) as mutually exclusive activities. It replicates wider gender inequalities embedded in gendered norms that shape low societal recognition and valuation of women’s work. In contrast, social governance encompasses a range of diverse NGO and trade union initiatives and campaigns that are often more responsive to wider gender issues. These can include reproductive health, sexual harassment, lack of childcare, worker safety in transit to work, and the effect of long working hours and low pay on families and communities. However, contestation is often constrained by low levels of worker organization, power asymmetries in the workplace and wider gender norms that subordinate women. Global value chains provide a channel for innovative forms of contestation to raise issues affecting workers’ rights and conditions within and beyond the workplace, including gender inequality. Civil society organizations with a gender focus have had some success in alerting companies to the importance of addressing gender issues (Oxfam 2004; Action Aid 2007; Barrientos 2013a). Recognition of the limits of private governance has led to hybrid forms of governance to address poor working conditions. Hybrid forms of governance can take different forms. Some involve alliances between companies and social actors (NGOs and trade unions), normally labelled multi-stakeholder initiatives (MSIs). These provide more credibility than companies alone pursuing social compliance and are able to provide a ‘safe space’ in which contestation is contained or negotiated. MSIs associated with social compliance are critiqued by some for a failure to sufficiently promote worker empowerment, and often lack involvement of wider public authorities (Seidman 2007; Bartley et al. 2015). Increasingly, it is recognized that different forms of governance are interlayered at global and national scales, with public governance playing a critical role nationally (Bartley 2007). In this Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. The Librarian-Seeley Historical Library, on 19 Aug 2019 at 14:59:36, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.002

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book I argue that in the interlayering of private, social and public governance, gendered contestation by civil society organizations and workers plays a key role in driving improvements that capture gains for more precarious (largely female) workers. Returning to the perspective of gender (re)production networks, strains in global governance arguably reflect embedded tensions between commercial and societal trajectories in global value chains that have increasingly encroached into the sphere of reproduction. Contestation is no longer confined to workplace disputes. It can take multiple forms of individual, collective and collaborative contestation that traverses value chains, national borders, workplaces, households and communities (Waterman and Wills 2001; Anderson et al. 2010; Barrientos 2013). In this context, some global retailers and brands are becoming increasingly concerned about the social resilience of their value chains. These concerns are contributing to new forms of hybrid governance involving greater focus on gender concerns beyond the narrow confines of the workplace. They address the rights and welfare of workers, their families, smallholder farmers and wider communities. Examples are provided in Chapter 5 on the cocoa–chocolate value chain and in Chapter 8 on flowers and garments. However, even where social upgrading and women’s empowerment are promoted, questions remain as to whether hybrid forms of private and social governance are sufficient to address an underlying commercial model where profitable value capture depends on the societal undervaluation of women’s work? These concerns are leading to pressure for public governance to play a greater role in interlayered forms of multiscalar governance. The concept of ‘joint and several liability’ involves more than one actor being formally liable for workers’ conditions within a national jurisdiction or held to account by civil society or international organizations where they operate across national borders (Scholte 2004; Theron et al. 2005). In weak forms, this concept underpins the Bangladesh Accord addressing factory safety established after the Rana Plaza garment factory collapse (Anner et al. 2013) and the UK Modern Slavery Act (LeBaron and Ruhmkorf 2017) examined in Chapter 9. These are all ‘top down’ initiatives involving multinational companies and governments that to date have little gender focus. Public governance is also an increasing focus of grassroots contestation, with casual and insecure workers campaigning for governments to implement a legal living wage to ensure better remuneration respected by suppliers and buyers (Grimshaw and Munoz de Bustillo 2016; Anker and Anker 2017). Such campaigns often involve and are sometimes led by women workers. They require governments to set and buyers to accept higher labour costs for a largely feminized workforce. Living wage disputes have erupted in the South African fruit sector examined in Chapter 6 and in Asian garments examined in Chapter 7 of this book. As will be discussed, this is pressuring governments to reverse ‘cheap labour’ strategies as a Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. The Librarian-Seeley Historical Library, on 19 Aug 2019 at 14:59:36, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.002

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means of attracting global buyers. If social and private governance are insufficient to address commercial asymmetries of power in global value chains, could joint liability and accountability of suppliers, buyers and governments play a greater role in addressing gender inequality?

Key Research Questions The empirical and conceptual analysis outlined in the previous sections informs the core research questions of this book: How are global retail value chains shaping gender patterns of work, and what are the gendered outcomes for workers? Exploration of the empirical evolution of global retail value chains, analytical exploration of the implications for shifting gender boundaries and case studies are guided by three subquestions: • How are global retail value chains, linking commercialization of production and social reproduction, contributing to shifts in gendered patterns of work? • What are the gendered consequences of economic and social upgrading or downgrading for workers? • Can new forms of interlayered governance in retail value chains leverage more gender-equitable benefits for workers?

This analysis is developed through a number of case studies examining how engagement in global retail value chains is influencing changing gender patterns of work across different sectors and country contexts. These draw on nearly two decades of research material gathered on workers and gender in agri-food and apparel value chains across Africa, Asia, Europe and Latin America outlined in the Preface. In the chapters that follow, I start with an overall examination of global retail value chains (involving retailers and brands in both developed and developing countries). I realized long ago that it was not possible to analyse specific working conditions in any developing country without understanding the wider global value chain dynamics that affected workers. However, the primary focus of this book is the base of the value chain and the changing gendered patterns of work involving millions of workers in production across many countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Empirically, the chapters in this book draw on a number of case studies from agri-food and apparel value chains. I provide information on the specific research drawn on in the introduction to each chapter. Combined, they examine downgrading and upgrading trajectories for suppliers, workers and farmers in different sectors. Downgrading trajectories are examined through case studies from cocoa and apparel (also known as ready-made garments), both sectors where Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. The Librarian-Seeley Historical Library, on 19 Aug 2019 at 14:59:36, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.002

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contestation by farmers and workers is increasing. Mixed downgrading and upgrading trajectories are examined through case studies from Ghanaian pineapples and South African fruit. Here, despite economic upgrading by some producers, there are groups of smallholders and casual workers who have been either excluded or marginalized from benefits. Meanwhile, other wage-workers, particularly in packing and processing, which are majority female, have seen important benefits. Upgrading trajectories are examined through specific factory and farm case studies from Nike’s Equitable Manufacturing pilot in Indonesian apparel and Kenyan flowers. Here, economic upgrading by suppliers and associated skills upgrading of a predominantly female labour force have led to improved rights and well-being of workers (with the exception of a living wage). This book focuses on gender analysis of different types of paid and unpaid work, defined in more detail in Chapter 3, that are directly linked to global value chains. This in itself provides a wide scope. It only briefly touches on a number of other gendered dimensions that I believe are important (including the role of women in care chains, informal and unpaid household work), which in my view have already been well-examined elsewhere (for example, Folbre 1994; Gardiner 1997; McDowell 1999; Pyle 1999; Himmelweit 2000; Carr, Chen and Tate 2000; Chant 2011). While I recognize this as a limitation, I focus on a dimension that I feel to date has received less attention in both feminist political economy and value chain analysis, with some exceptions (Barrientos 2001; Collins 2003; Dolan and Sorby 2003; Stewart 2011; Christian, Evers and Barrientos 2013; Dunaway 2014; Yates 2014). I hope to contribute to this growing literature drawing together my previous research experience.

Overview of the Book Arranging the rich range of material drawn on for this book has not been an easy task. I decided to set them out with a well-informed but nonspecialist reader in mind. In line with this objective, I ordered the chapters as follows in this brief summary. Chapter 2 provides an empirical examination of the retail shift that has taken place since the 1990s, and how this has been associated with changing gendered patterns of work across developed and developing countries. It starts by briefly examining the early expansion of specialized retail as part of a gendered process of industrialization and urbanization in Europe and North America. It details the rise of global retailers, initially led by European and North America firms, but increasingly at a regional level led by retailers within Africa, Asia and Latin America. It examines the modus operandi of global retailers: how they use modern technology to track and profile customers. It explores the expansion of global Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. The Librarian-Seeley Historical Library, on 19 Aug 2019 at 14:59:36, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.002

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sourcing, mainly from middle- and low-income countries, led by global brands and retailers from the 1980s to provide a wide array of consumer goods at affordable prices. It examines the mantra of cost, quality and speed of delivery that drives buyer–supplier relations, and how retailers govern their value chains through implementation of private standards. It briefly examines the rise of e-commerce, although much of the research for this book was undertaken before its subsequent increased dominance. Chapter 3 examines how retail value chains have been linked with changing gendered patterns of work in high-, middle- and low-income countries. It examines the definition of work and considers how the gender division of labour between productive and reproductive work is being reshaped by different forms of paid work in global value chains. It examines how this is reflected in the changing gender profile of fragmented and flexible work that links permanent with temporary, casual, smallholder and home-based workers. This allows suppliers to juggle buyer pressures on the cost, quality and speed of delivery, reinforced by use of labour market intermediaries or subcontracting to lower value chain tiers. The chapter considers the implications for labour control in a context where employment relations are increasingly ‘fissured’ or fragmented through subcontracting and global sourcing. The chapter outlines the gender profile of contemporary retail value chains (using data from agri-food) to illustrate the systemic prevalence of gender inequalities. This provides the basis for examining the concepts of economic and social upgrading and downgrading trajectories involving tensions between the economic and societal spheres, with outcomes that can vary across workers, value chains and geographical contexts. Chapter 4 focuses on the analytical foundations of the book. It draws on GVC and GPN analyses, combined with feminist political economy and labour studies, to analyse changing commercial dynamics of global retail and gendered patterns of work. It advances a G(r)PN framework to analyse the societal embeddedness of retail value chains, providing the basis for analysing shifting gendered boundaries between the economic sphere of commercial production and the societal sphere of social reproduction. It focuses on three dimensions of this interaction: first, embedded tensions arising from cost and speed versus quality; second, gendered articulations arising from the societal undervaluation of work undertaken by women that shape value creation, enhancement and capture; and third, contested outcomes where global value chains have opened up new channels for worker agency and civil society campaigns. A G(r)PN approach, combined with the concepts of economic and social downgrading and upgrading, provides a framework for the empirical case studies that follow in subsequent chapters. Chapter 5 provides an empirical case study of a low road downgrading trajectory as traditional agricultural exports involving smallholder farmers have been Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. The Librarian-Seeley Historical Library, on 19 Aug 2019 at 14:59:36, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.002

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integrated into agri-food value chains supplying contemporary global retailers. It draws on the example of cocoa–chocolate to examine the processes of economic and social downgrading that followed the opening-up of cocoa farmers to global markets triggered by structural adjustment in the 1980s. It examines the parallel restructuring of the cocoa–chocolate value chain as multinational processors and manufacturers became increasingly dominant. This resulted, it argues, in embedded tensions between oligopolistic lead firms seeking quality cocoa at lower cost and a fragmented supply base of small-scale cocoa farmers experiencing declining productivity and farmer incomes. The complexities of gender articulations are examined in relation to the often hidden role women play in cocoa production. Contested outcomes are traced in terms of younger farmers exiting cocoa and rising civil society contestation through campaigns. Systemic downgrading is now rebounding on the chocolate–confectionery sector, with future predictions that world cocoa demand will soon outstrip supply. This helps explain why multinational companies in the cocoa–chocolate value chain are now engaged in a wide range of initiatives to promote economic and social upgrading in cocoa production, many involving a gender focus—as a means of promoting future sustainability of cocoa– chocolate value chains. Chapter 6 examines cases involving more mixed downgrading and upgrading trajectories, illustrated through examples from Ghanaian and South African horticulture. It highlights the complexities of economic and social upgrading and diverse outcomes for parallel groups of smallholders and workers in the same sectors. The chapter examines how, through different paths, economic upgrading has involved both smallholder exclusion and expansion of a large wage labour force. In both locations, the chapter examines how historical context and complex local interactions have shaped articulations between the economic and societal spheres. Commercial production is deeply embedded in gendered societal relations that have shaped and been reconfigured by integration into retail value chains. Contestation (individual, collective and collaborative) has also played an important role in driving change. These have affected how gendered processes of economic and social downgrading and upgrading have played out very differently for diverse groups of workers and smallholders. Chapter 7 provides another example of a ‘low road’ downgrading trajectory in manufacturing, focusing on apparel production and exports. It compares two apparel case studies from India (Delhi National Capital Region) and Bangladesh. Here, we find diverse gender articulations between the economic and societal spheres, shaped by local social norms and networks. The chapter examines how this has generated differing gendered patterns of employment for women and men across different value chain nodes. In New Delhi, higher-tier production is primarily male, but lower tiers extend to home-based work that is primarily Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. The Librarian-Seeley Historical Library, on 19 Aug 2019 at 14:59:36, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.002

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female. In Bangladesh, the ready-made garments sector has generated significant female employment, largely drawing in rural migrant labour. Both cases display strong downgrading pressures resulting from combinations of supplier strategies, buyer purchasing practices and global competition although some upgrading is  discernible. They also provide examples of differing forms of contestation (individual, collective and collaborative) shaped by local circumstances and value chain tier. Chapter 8 examines situations where economic upgrading and social upgrading have been combined, drawing on specific cases from apparel and horticulture. While contestation provided an early stimulus, social upgrading has subsequently been sustained by commercial demand for a more skilled female workforce to enhance economic upgrading. The first case study examines Nike’s Equitable Manufacturing pilot in the Indonesian apparel sector. Here, the company’s commercial strategy of value chain innovation through Lean 2.0 has involved greater worker engagement and a more holistic strategy that aims to enhance worker well-being. The second case study examines the Kenyan flower sector. Here, economic upgrading by some flower farms from producing stems to bouquets required them to enhance worker skills and retention. This was combined with significant gendered improvements (including reduced sexual harassment) and promotion of women as part of a business strategy. In both cases, regulatory reforms have also helped consolidate social upgrading, particularly increases in the legal minimum wage, even though this remains insufficient as a living wage. Chapter 9 considers the role of governance in leveraging change. To date, the analysis of GVC governance has focused on ‘top down’ approaches that have failed to systematically promote the well-being of workers or gender equality across value chains. An important finding from my case studies is that social upgrading does not occur automatically, but often results from a ‘bottom up’ processes of contestation. To be sustained, it also requires commercial strategies that promote economic upgrading, and consolidation is further achieved through institutional and legislative reform. The chapter examines the implications for governance, drawing on the case studies in previous chapters. From the perspective of G(r)PN analysis, it examines the gendered interlayering of governance from three dimensions: private governance that relates to the commercial sphere; social governance that relates to the societal sphere; and public governance as mediation of bargaining and contestation between the two spheres. It examines how interlayering of governance can enhance channels through which companies are held to account and workers can exercise rights. Chapter 10 concludes with brief reflections and consideration of future opportunities and challenges for gendered rights and the well-being of workers in a changing global retail environment. It argues that downgrading trajectories Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. The Librarian-Seeley Historical Library, on 19 Aug 2019 at 14:59:36, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.002

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and gender discrimination in global retail value chains are driven by financial imperatives, which are also reconfiguring boundaries between productive and reproductive work. But there are also countervailing drivers of social upgrading. Leverage through contestation involving gender-focused civil society campaigns and women workers often play a critical role. Some leading companies are beginning to recognize that ensuring the future social and economic resilience of their value chains requires more sustainable and equitable strategies. It briefly examines future challenges to the future of work arising from robotics and e-commerce. It argues more gender-equitable outcomes that benefit workers require more effective private, social and public governance and accountability. A more holistic model is needed, that prioritizes societal well-being over financial gain, if gender-equitable value chains are to become sustained.

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2 Retail Shift and Global Sourcing Introduction The transformation of global retail value chains since the 1990s has been associated with significant changes in how people shop and goods are sourced. Women constitute the majority of retail customers purchasing many goods critical to household and family welfare. Gender norms have long shaped women’s primary role as in the home, including the unpaid production of food and clothing for household consumption. However, as more and more women have entered the labour force, they have combined paid work with household and caring roles. Global retailers have facilitated these changes by expanding the availability of a wide array of commercially produced consumer goods at affordable prices. These include processed foods, ready-made garments and other household convenience items. Trends that first developed in North America and Europe have subsequently been replicated in middle- and lower-income countries. Underpinning these changes has been a revolution in the operations of global retailers, with increasing dominance by a smaller number of companies. They monitor and help shape changing consumer trends through the application of information technology (IT) and marketing. They control and coordinate global value chains from the point of production through distribution to final consumers, facilitating supply of a vast range of goods cheaply on a just-in-time ( JIT) basis. This has involved a transformation in global sourcing, changing how goods are produced, procured and distributed globally. Global sourcing has expanded production of manufactured and food products within many developing countries. This has generated a large feminized labour force to facilitate low-cost commercial production of consumer goods retailed. Trends in the Global North are increasingly replicated in the Global South. This chapter provides an overview of changing gender patterns of work as well as dynamics of global retail value chains in the post-World War II period. It examines how global retail expansion has adapted to and helped shape changing gender patterns of work. It explores the retail revolution and global sourcing that underpins the provision of affordable commercially produced goods. Finally, it examines the commercial mantra of cost, quality and speed of delivery as key Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Stockholm University Library, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:27:11, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.003



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requirements of supply and purchasing practices of global retailers. This informs an examination in the next chapter of the implications for the feminization and fragmentation of work in production of consumer goods and gender profile of work across retail value chains. Global retailers are customer focused. They start by assessing consumer trends and work backwards through their value chain to plan distribution and procurement from suppliers. This chapter will follow a similar order: the next section examines the customer-end, the following section retail and distribution, while the final section focuses on global sourcing and implications of retailer strategies for suppliers. This chapter provides background information needed to examine the gender patterns of work in global value chains explored in more depth in subsequent chapters. I subsequently argue in Chapter 3 that the business model of global retail drives parallel gender patterns of work at the retail and the producer ends of value chains. Both involve fragmented flexible work to facilitate end-to-end JIT provision. Women are concentrated in the most insecure and low-paid work at the supplier end of value chains, which is the main focus of this book. The second section starts by examining changing gender patterns of work, and how global retail has responded and helped shape these changes through commercial provision of a wide range of consumer goods. The third section examines the retail shift associated with global expansion, characterized as ‘buyer-led’ retail. This occurred first in Europe and North America, and later within Africa, Asia and Latin America. It provides an overview of leading retailers and brands, and how they monitor and respond to consumer trends to maximize profits and share value. The fourth section examines the rise of global sourcing by large retailers through global value chains spanning multiple countries. It discusses diverse ways in which retailers and brands coordinate and govern their supply chains through the application of standards. It also explores the commercial dynamics of global sourcing, particularly the retail mantra of cost, quality and speed of delivery, and implications of retailer purchasing practices for suppliers. The last section briefly concludes.

Retail Customers and Changing Patterns of Work There have been significant changes in both gender patterns of work and retail over the past 50 years. Gender norms have long cast women’s role as in the home, taking primary responsibility preparation of food and clothing and for buying the necessary inputs. In many countries a large number of small-scale ‘high street’ retailers provided the goods purchased, often specializing in different product ranges (butcher, baker, greengrocer, and so on). Since the 1960s, women have increasingly entered the labour force in many countries. They are time-poor, often combine paid work with household and caring responsibilities. In parallel, there Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Stockholm University Library, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:27:11, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.003

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has been a retail revolution changing how goods are procured and distributed. Global retailers have expanded in part through commercial provision of many goods previously made within households. Trends in North America and Europe were subsequently followed in lower-income countries. This section focuses on the customer and gender dimension of these intertwined changes, and following sections on the retail and procurement dimensions.

Trends in North America and Europe In the early twentieth century, prevailing gender norms in North America and western Europe were based on the notion of a ‘male breadwinner’ supporting his family (wife and children) (Crompton 2003). This reflected a gender division of labour in most countries that viewed men’s primary role in productive paid work and women’s primary role in unpaid reproductive work in the home (Folbre 1994). Here they were mainly responsible for the provision of food and consumer goods for their families (such as cooking and making clothes).However, social configuration of this division of labour is a dynamic process of change that enables (or can challenge) prevailing socio-economic systems (Beneria 1979). In reality, following World War II, female labour force participation gradually rose as more women entered paid work. For example, women in the labour force as a percentage of women of working age (15–64 years) increased in the UK from 45.9 to 55.1 per cent between 1955 and 1975; in the USA the increase was from 38.3 to 53.2 per cent in the same period. Similar trends were occurring in other countries. However, a significant proportion of female employment was part time. In 1983, women constituted 68 per cent of part-time workers in the USA and 89 per cent of part-time workers in the UK (Walsh and Wrigley 2001). In the prevailing social norms of North America and western Europe, women’s paid work was often deemed ‘secondary’, and their primary role continued to be viewed as ‘home-maker’ (Himmelweit 2000). The expansion of global retail reflects changing gendered patterns of consumption, production and work. At the consumer end, rising levels of female employment and income have continued the movement away from a sole ‘male bread winner’ towards a ‘universal worker’ model based on households with two income earners (Crompton 2003; Stewart 2011). Women in paid work with less time for household activities became more dependent on buying processed food, ready-made meals, ready-made garments and time-saving household and white goods including washing machines, vacuum cleaners and fridges. Although aligned with societal notions in the post-war era of an ‘ideal housewife’, manufacturers and retailers adapted to a changing labour market profile, increasingly selling convenience products needed to free up women’s time. Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Stockholm University Library, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:27:11, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.003



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The growth of supermarkets and self-service retailers was driven in part by the mass commercial provision of household goods previously produced in the home. The housewife of two generations ago who cooked at home bought a few basic ingredients-meat, vegetables, cereals, seasoning and combined them in different ways to make pies, puddings and other dishes…. Now yards of the supermarket’s shelving will be needed to adequately display all the available varieties of manufactured soup alone. The small counter-service shop cannot compete in this respect. (McClelland 1962, 164)

Economic and market research now focused on ‘the housewife’ making increasingly complex choices from the wide variety of goods available to the satisfaction of different family members. Shopping was seen as a ‘skilled’ activity involving decisionmaking increasingly informed through radio, television and magazines (Alexander et al. 2008). Despite the rise of female employment and changing role of retail, social assumptions about women’s primary role in the home now cast them as responsible for shopping. Retail innovation facilitated changing shopping patterns of working women with less time to undertake daily local shopping. An important dimension of supermarket and later e-commerce expansion has been the ability to provide competitively priced ‘one-stop shops’ selling a full range of food and household goods. Expanding sales by specialist and brand retailers are also based in part on rising female incomes. It is estimated women are responsible for 70–80 per cent of supermarket sales, including 60 per cent of men’s shirts (Silverstein and Sayre 2009; Brennan 2015; retail industry informant 2013). Women’s buying decisions are an important target for the promotion strategies of retailers and supermarkets, and in marketing the consumer is normally referred to as ‘she’ (Caterall and Maclaran 2002; Beetles and Harris 2005). Retailers that both responded to and contributed to changing gender patterns of work also became a growing source of female employment. As Chapter 3 will examine, women soon constituted the majority of retail workers in many countries. They are particularly concentrated in supermarkets, selling largely prepackaged goods on a self-service basis. Here the emphasis is on speed and efficiency of operations that are deemed to require less skilled knowledge, carried out increasingly by female sales assistants (Broadbridge 1991).

Trends in Emerging Economies A process that initially affected the middle-income groups in high-income countries gradually extended to middle- and lower-income economies. However, trends have been uneven across countries, urban and rural locations. Since the 2000s, there has Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Stockholm University Library, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:27:11, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.003

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been a significant expansion of supermarket retailing within Africa, Asia and Latin America. Growing urbanization, female employment, rising incomes and an expanding middle class fuelled consumption growth in new markets (Accenture 2011; Guarin and Knorringa 2014; McEwen, Hughes and Bek 2015). One study of labour participation rates found that in 51 per cent of the developing countries with available data, female labour force participation rates rose, while male participation rates fell. However, in the majority, total labour force participation rose, suggesting a change in the gender division of labour, with female labour force entry more than substituting for men (Standing 1999: 588). The expansion of female labour force participation in emerging economies (with variations between countries) has increased the purchasing power of women (Goldman Sachs 2009; World Bank 2012). It spurred growth in consumer spending on items such as processed food, personal care and consumables, benefiting specific types of companies, including supermarkets (Goldman Sachs 2009). Rising education levels, access to IT and social media are enhancing consumer awareness of the goods they buy. Internet shopping has been greatly enhanced by growth in smartphones since 2008, not only in North America and Europe but also within emerging economies, particularly China and India. Consumers are now digitally and visually connected 24/7 to socially networked communities, with access to a wide range of product information, thus ‘flipping’ the shopping experience on its head (Lewis and Dart 2014). Some lower-income countries are said to be skipping adoption stages experienced in developed countries (Deloitte 2016:11). Customer information is greatly enhanced, with buyers able to monitor goods, compare prices and place and track orders with increasing ease. These developments have been examined in terms of rising consumer power relative to global retailers (Lewis and Dart 2014). Chapter 3 will explore the gender profile of work in retail value chains further. It will examine how this has been based on the fragmentation of work and a gender ‘glass ceiling’ (or ‘sticky floor’). Women are concentrated in lower-paid more insecure jobs and men in better paid higher-level jobs in retail, as well as most other segments of the value chain. Before moving onto this, the rest of this chapter examines the commercial dynamics of global retail value chains underpinning the changing gender patterns of work.

Global Retail Value Chains Contemporary global retailers carefully monitor consumer trends (or what consumers can be encouraged to buy!) and work backwards in determining their sourcing strategies to supply goods. This has been greatly enabled by technological innovations that allow the largest companies (especially supermarkets and e-commerce retailers) Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Stockholm University Library, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:27:11, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.003



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to monitor and profile their customers, follow consumer trends and dictate their requirements to suppliers (Ortega 1999; Fernie, Sparks and McKinnon 2010; Hamilton et al. 2011). Retailers have adapted to an evolving gender division of labour, away from a sole male breadwinner with women concentrated in household provision and towards rising female employment (albeit largely part-time and casual). The profile of retail varies between countries, with a range of retail formats coexisting depending on prevailing institutional norms and consumer cultures. In many countries, the traditional retail model continues to exist, but it has been overshadowed by the global retail shift that took place from the 1990s and the more recent expansion of e-commerce. I provide a brief overview of traditional retail as a comparator to the subsequent rise of global retail.

Early Evolution of Retail Traditional retail that evolved through the nineteenth to mid-twentieth centuries can be classified as nationally based and market-led. Retailers provided a channel for the sale of domestically produced goods from agriculture (according to seasons) as well as craft-based production or factories (as industrial manufacturing advanced). Retailers also sold imported goods sourced through wholesalers and/or merchant warehouses selling items such as primary inputs, subtropical commodities and fineries unavailable domestically (Nystrom 1915; Jeffreys 1954). The profile of retail was a large number of small companies operating as high street or ‘mom and pop’ stores.1 In the early twentieth century in the USA and later western Europe, as urbanization and industrial capitalism advanced, multiple retailers established chain stores (or supermarkets) that sold a wide product range under one roof (Hamilton et al. 2011). This laid the basis for the later development of self-service supermarkets and shops. They provided a distribution channel for the mass production of lowerpriced goods based on the Fordist model originating in the USA, which involved wider sales to lower-income groups (Braverman 1974; Piore and Sabel 1984). Lower prices were enabled through more efficient distribution systems and economies of scale and increasingly direct sourcing from large manufacturers (Ellickson 2016). Although a number of retail outlets grew rapidly in North America and Europe, with some exceptions, companies remained largely nationally based until the 1970s.  T his is a simplified categorization for the purposes of comparison with global retail. A more detailed analysis would identify subcategorizations for different periods. There were also significant national and subregional differences in the way retail evolved depending on institutional and regulatory context, level of economic development and local cultural norms. See, for example, Jeffreys (1954) and Nystrom (1915).

1

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The first US supermarket chain to enter Europe was Safeway in the UK in 1962 (Wortmann 2011; Jessen and Langer 2012). The supermarket models adopted across countries varied, and the influence of the US supermarket retail underwent a differentiated process of adaptation and acculturation. National variations in regulation and consumption cultures affected the profile of retail across countries, and which products were sold in supermarkets or more traditional retail formats.

Global Retailers Globalization through liberalization of trade and financial markets from the 1980s subsequently played an important role in stimulating a retail revolution. Financialization had an important effect on the commercial drivers of publicly listed global retailers, stimulating a more virulent and competitive search for new markets and more flexible business strategies to drive up profit and share prices (Milberg and Winkler 2013; Coe and Yeung 2015). The World Trade Organization (WTO) helped free up trade, and advances in containerization greatly reduced the costs of trade (examined in the ‘Global sourcing’ section later). Technological advances in transport and communications facilitated the global outsourcing of production away from home markets. Financialization led to a constant quest to increase sales and market share, and increasing sales are critical for global retailers, many of which are publicly listed on stock markets. Increasing financialization fundamentally altered the relationship between retail (and many other firms in the retail supply chains) and finance (Milberg and Winkler 2013; Coe and Yeung 2015). It led to more stringent performance indicators and financial requirements. Shareholders traditionally absorbed risks by appropriating a ‘residual’ revenue ex post after other stakeholders had been compensated. Contemporary financial indicators require lead firms to incorporate ex ante a level of expected shareholder return. This shifts the burden onto firms to produce revenues and/or lower costs in proportions that allow such expectations to be met (Palpacuer 2008: 395). Trading in shares is mainly undertaken by large institutional investors, based on algorithmic calculations of commercial performance. A small decline in reported sales or market share can immediately knock a retailer’s share price; conversely, bullish reporting can raise share prices. Hence, the commercial dynamic of large retailers is embedded in a wider global financial system that was underpinned by global deregulation of financial markets in the 1980s, exposure to financial pressures and the need to constantly seek ways to expand market share. The expansion by an elite group of global retailers took off in the 1990s through a process of mergers and acquisitions of stores, enabling them to become dominant in key markets across North America, Europe, Asia and Latin America. With some Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Stockholm University Library, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:27:11, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.003



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exceptions (such as the furniture multinational IKEA) grocery retailers were most prominent in this group, with Walmart occupying pole position (Wrigley 2000; Coe 2004). In 1980 only 6 of the largest 20 retailers based in Europe operated stores outside their domestic market; by 2000 all but 1 of the top 20 had internationalized their store network (Dawson 2003, 189). The process of retail globalization resulted in the growth of modern retailers, and especially supermarkets, within emerging economies in Africa, Asia and Latin America (Reardon et al. 2003, 2007). In consequence, the commercial dynamic of retail changed significantly, first in the Global North soon followed in the Global South. Global and regional retailers are not a homogeneous group. Different types of retailer are found in both North America and Europe as well as in many middleand lower-income economies. As indicated in Table 2.1, these can be divided into four groups. The first group involves mass retailers, which sell a full range of categories and  products (often food and general merchandise). These include department Table 2.1  Simplified typology of global, brand and online retailers Origin of parent company (examples) Type of lead firm Mass retailers

Specialty retailers

Description

Department stores, supermarkets, chain and discount stores. Sell wide range of own label and/or other branded goods in store and online. Specialize in one or few product ranges. Sell own brand in own or franchised stores and online.

USA

Europe

Gap, American Eagle, Abercrombie & Fitch

H&M, Benetton, Mango, New Look, Next, Primark

Walmart, Target, Sears, JCPenney

Brand marketers

Firm owns brand but does not manufacture. Sell products in own stores and/ or other retail outlets.

Nike, Levi’s, Liz Claiborne

Online e-commerce

Sell wide and/or specialist ranges of goods only available through the internet.

Amazon

Carrefour, Tesco, Marks & Spencer

Ben Sherman, Hugo Boss

Asos, Ocado

Emerging economies

Shoprite (South Africa), Cencosud (Chile), Emart (South Korea), Falabella (Chile) Foschini (South Africa), Fabindia (India)

Global Brands Group (Li & Fung Hong Kong—labels include Juicy Couture, J-Lo) Alibaba (China), Snapdeal (India)

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stores, supermarkets and chain and discount stores. Some target either low- or higher-end customers, but many (particularly supermarkets) target a range of different income groups within the same store. The second group involves retail specialists that sell a more limited product range, such as apparel and accessories. Some have a targeted customer focus, for example, young, high-volume, low-price apparel. The third group involves brands that own no factories but are designers and marketers, selling in part through their own dedicated outlets and in part through other retailers. These often target middle- to higher-income customers. Most mass, specialist and brand retailers also have online provision. The fourth group is specialized e-commerce that sell a range of goods exclusively online through the internet and smart phones. This model is driving a competitive model of higher-volume lower-price sales (even on more expensive goods) combined with speed and ease of home delivery. Walmart led the expansionary drive of global retail from the 1990s. Walmart’s global expansion included opening in Canada in 1994, China in 1996 and the UK (through acquisition of Asda) in 1999.2 In 2011 Walmart acquired a 51 per cent shareholding in the South African company Massmart Holdings, which had outlets in 14 countries across sub-Saharan Africa. This allowed Walmart to double the number of countries in which it had outlets (Pickles et al. 2016). Between 2002 and 2014 Walmart was ranked first in Fortune’s Global 500 list of companies in nine of the 13 years.3 As Table 2.2 shows, of the top six retailers worldwide in 2014 based on total retail revenue, only the US-focused Kroger did not have substantial foreign operations. The largest retailer, Walmart, with $485,651 million in sales in 2014, operated in 28 countries, putting it on a par with Austria and Norway in terms of equivalent gross domestic product (GDP).4 The German Schwarz Gruppe that owns the discount chain Lidl operated in 26 countries, the UK-based supermarket Tesco in 13 countries and the French company Carrefour in 34 countries. Following not far behind, Amazon was positioned at number 12 in terms of global retail rankings in 2014, operating in 14 countries. An alternative way to rank global retailers is through their international revenues. Such a ranking for 2016 shows that Walmart continued to occupy pole position; however, the German   http://corporate.walmart.com/our-story/history/history-timeline (accessed September 2015). 3  http://fortune.com/global500/2014/ (accessed August 2015). 4  In 2014 Norway was ranked 27th by the World Bank with a GDP of $500,103 million and Austria was ranked 28th with $436,344 million. See http://databank.worldbank.org/data/ download/GDP.pdf (accessed September 2015). 2

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Table 2.2  Selected retailer profiles, 2014 Deloitte retail rank (sales)

Company name

Country of origin

Retail revenue (US$ m)

No. of countries operating in

Estimated no. of employees*

Selected global retailers 1 2 3 4 5 6 12

Walmart Inc. Costco Wholesale Corp. The Kroger Co. Schwarz Gruppe (including Lidl) Tesco plc Carrefour SA Amazon

USA USA USA Germany

485,651 112,640 108,465 102,694

28 10 1 26

2,200,000 153,500 400,000 315,000

UK France USA

99,713 98,497 70,080

13 34 14

386,086 381,227 154,100

18,221 11,576

5 2

154,603 30,090

11,008

11

100,000

9,960

15

100,000

Selected emerging economy retailers 55 86

Cencosud S.A. Emart Co. Ltd.

92

Dairy Farm International

105

Shoprite Holdings Ltd

Chile South Korea Hong Kong South Africa

Source: Deloitte (2016).

Note: *estimates based on author search of each company or relevant industry website undertaken December 2014–January 2015. Retailer employment estimates will be examined in more detail in Chapter 3.

discount stores Schwarz Group (including Lidl) and Aldi Group moved to second and third positions respectively. In contrast, the UK company Tesco dropped to 19th position (Coe and Wrigley 2018). The size and reach of global retailers is making them increasingly important global players, or ‘market-makers’ (Hamilton et al. 2011). The expansion of e-commerce retailers, especially the rise of Amazon, has provided an increasingly competitive challenge to bricks and mortar specialist and supermarket retailers (Lewis and Dart 2014). Amazon operates as an ‘information-broker’ providing access to a far wider product range than can be stocked by a bricks and mortar retailer. It also provides a platform through which other companies can sell products (Kotha and Basu 2011). It uses a highly sophisticated IT and centralized distribution system to undercut established retailers on price and speed of delivery. Bricks and mortar companies have also diversified into multichannel retail formats, including Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Stockholm University Library, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:27:11, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.003

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online (Seth and Randall 2011). However, Amazon is diversifying and moving into food sales. Its purchase of the US company Whole Foods in 2017 sent shockwaves through the bricks and mortar retail sector, with many (including Walmart) seeing their share prices fall (Alba 2017; Helmore 2017). Amazon has single-mindedly pursued a strategy of market growth, reflected in it rising from a global retail ranking of 55 by Deloitte in 2007 to 12 in 2014, and it continues to experience rapid growth (Deloitte 2009; Walt 2016).5 Amazon is also rapidly expanding within emerging economies, where distribution infrastructure and regulations vary. For example, it started operating in India in June 2013 and soon became one of the largest and fastest-expanding companies within the country. Amazon’s entry into China was far more challenging, where it came up against strong competition from the Chinese e-commerce conglomerate Alibaba (Walt 2016).

Regional Retail Expansion within Africa, Asia and Latin America Global retail expansion initially led by European and North American companies was subsequently replicated by regional expansion by companies based within emerging economies. This was also interlinked with foreign direct investment (FDI) by global retailers examined earlier. The process of supermarket expansion has been uneven across countries within Africa, Asia and Latin America. This has been described in terms of ‘waves of diffusion’ (Reardon et al. 2003, 2007). The first wave was in the larger and richer countries of South America and East Asia outside China, northern-central Europe and the Baltics and South Africa.6 In these countries, the average share of supermarkets in food retail went from roughly 10–20 per cent circa 1990 to 50–60 per cent by the early 2000s (Reardon et al. 2007, 403). In some countries this was not far off the ratio for the USA and western Europe. The second wave was about five to seven years behind and included Mexico and countries in Southeast Asia, Central America and southern-central Europe. Here the share went from circa 5–10 per cent in 1990 to 30–50 per cent by the 2000s (Reardon et al. 2007, 403). The third wave took off around 2000 and included countries in east and southern Africa (for example, Kenya) and smaller countries in Central and South America, as well as in Southeast Asia, including Vietnam, China, India and Russia (Reardon  The number of registered Amazon customer accounts worldwide increased from 76 million in 2007 to 270 million in 2014. http://www.statista.com/topics/846/amazon/ (accessed September 2015). 6  In South Africa, supermarkets accounted for 55 per cent of overall food retail by the early 2000s (Reardon et al. 2003:1142). 5

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et al. 2003, 2007).7 Supermarkets opening in other African countries, such as Uganda, formed part of a newly emerging fourth wave (Reardon et al. 2007). Some researchers have highlighted the challenges of supermarket expansion within developing economies (Humphrey 2007). While the process has clearly been uneven between and within countries, as well as across products, supermarkets have nevertheless continued to advance even in lower-income countries in Africa (Pickles et al. 2016). Global retail expansion within emerging economies has been driven in part by North American and European companies and in part by regional and domestic retail chains operating within Africa, Asia and Latin America. Table 2.2 also provides information on selected emerging market retailers with a regional presence outside their home country by 2014. Of these, the Chilean company Cencosud was the largest, operating in five countries in Latin America. The South Korean firm E-Mart had taken over Walmart’s operations in Korea in 2006 and also operated in China. The Hong Kong–based company Dairy Farm International operated as a major retailer in 11 countries across Asia, including mainland China, Indonesia, Cambodia, Malaysia and Singapore. The South African company Shoprite had a presence in 15 countries across sub-Saharan Africa. Table 2.2, therefore, provides a snapshot of the global expansion of selected retailers owned by companies within both the Global North and South. In Chapter 3, I will also refer back to Table 2.2 when discussing the levels of employment retailers have generated across their global operations. Supermarkets and modern specialist retailers are being established in both middle- and lower-income countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Retail company strategies vary in relation to which consumer market segments they target. Some aim for middle- to higherincome groups. Others, such as the discount stores Lidl and Aldi, aim for middleto lower-income groups. Within South Africa, Massmart has a strategy of servicing the latter income groups, as well as locating some stores in poorer conurbations close to ‘townships’ and ‘shanty towns’ (Pickles et al. 2016). However uneven, retail expansion is seen by financial analysts as a key component of growth in many emerging economies (Accenture 2011; McKinsey 2012; Deloitte 2016).

Reach of Global Retailers Grocery retailers, or supermarkets, remain the most dominant global retailers in North America and Europe, and increasingly in emerging economies. Until the rise of e-commerce, including Amazon and Alibaba, supermarkets led much of  In 2001 the supermarket share of Chinese urban food was 48 per cent, up from 30 per cent in 1999 (Reardon et al. 2003:1142).

7

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the innovation in commercial operations, replicated by leading specialist retailers. Here I will focus on supermarkets as an important example of the modus operandi of global retail. The constant quest for market growth led supermarkets to expand not only their geographical reach and scope but also their product range. They now provide a large number of products and services supplied by manufacturers and producers. These include food, clothing, personal care, pharmaceutical items, household goods, books and media, sports, garden and do-it-yourself (DIY) equipment, white goods, electronics and information and communication technology (ICT) as well as financial services (Clarke 2000; Coe and Wrigley 2009). Many supermarkets also sell ranges of ‘own brand’or ‘private label’goods, which account for approximately two-fifths of UK and one-fifth of US supermarket sales (Lucas and Felsted 2012). The expanding breadth of supermarket sales is reflected in the increasing number of products carried. In the 1960s a typical American supermarket sold up to 5,000 products. By 2000 this had increased up to 45,000 products (Petrovic 2011:105). The UK supermarket Tesco sells an estimated 40,000 product lines in a typical superstore; 25,000 lines are food and beverages, and the rest are general merchandise (USDA 2012). Product lines are grouped into a smaller number of categories, such as fresh produce, meat, toys and clothes. The aim is to attract largely ‘time poor’ female customers into their stores by offering a full range of products, reducing their likelihood of shopping elsewhere. However, this model is being challenged by access to smartphones and e-commerce (examined in more detail in Chapter 10). A category manager (normally an employee but sometimes an external agent) is responsible for overseeing each category. Each category acts as a self-reporting internal ‘market’ that has to maximize sales and margins within its own section. The remuneration (and job security) of category managers and buyers is based on key performance indicators with targets that have to be met based on ‘landing’ a category plan. The overall commercial performance of the retailer is a composite of category plans, which if achieved provide the basis for bullish financial reporting. Expansion of market share and margins is critical to wider financial success. A key innovation has been electronic point of sales (EPOS) technology, which allows retailers to monitor customer purchases and profiles (including gender) in detail. Indeed, I first realized the significance of gendered marketing to retailers when interviewing a UK supermarket category manager in 2003. He mentioned (unprompted) that one member of his team included gender as part of their brief to monitor consumer trends. The reason he gave was that women were their core customer group and they needed to fully understand their current and future buying preferences. In the UK, the supermarket Tesco led in developing EPOS and was at the forefront of using customer loyalty cards to link this information to customer Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Stockholm University Library, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:27:11, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.003



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profiling and sourcing. This enhanced forecasting and planning of demand, helping to place it as the UK’s leading retailer (Seth and Randall 2011).8 In the USA, Walmart was quick to adopt new technology, including an EPOS system in 1983 (Ortega 1999). These allowed supermarkets to monitor the purchases of their largely female consumer base and target customers with personalized marketing through vouchers and offers promoting different goods. The global retail shift and 24/7 provision of a wide range of consumer products has been greatly facilitated by technological advances in communications, transport and logistics. These allowed retailers to coordinate increasingly fragmented and extended global supply chains and ensure delivery on a JIT basis into store. In order to streamline and improve efficiency of supply, larger retailers introduced centralized distribution systems, with goods being delivered into their own clearing centres rather than separately into individual shops. These distribution centres (DCs) are often enormous round-the-clock automated and computer-controlled operations that receive containers of bulk goods. They store and repack them into consolidated loads containing combinations of products in exact quantities required to meet customer demand in individual stores on a daily basis. Logistics involves a range of activities to do with operational planning, moving and delivering goods from the point of production through to the final customer. This includes integrated transport (shipping, airfreight, trucking, rail), warehousing, refrigerated cool chains and DC systems across multiple countries. This was greatly facilitated by the expansion of containerization, allowing integrated transportation of containers by lorry, rail and ship. This is backed up by integrated IT systems and electronic data interchange (EDI), or common software platforms across supply networks, which enable the instantaneous transmission of data concerning sales, product specifications, orders, invoices and shipments (Abernathy and Volpe 2011; Bonacich and Hamilton 2011; Coe 2014). Innovation and integration of logistics systems has increased speed of delivery and turnover, reducing costs at the centre of value chains (Bonacich 2005; Fernie et al. 2010). This complex global infrastructure means retailers can monitor, anticipate, shape and fulfil customer requirements on a round-the-clock basis. ‘Time poor’ women, who constitute the majority of customers, can be confident that all their requirements will be met in any shopping trip. It facilitates women wage-workers to juggle paid work with household responsibilities. Whatever its faults, and there are many critics,9 global retail expansion is making a wide range of affordable

 In 2007 Tesco was estimated to account for £1 in every £7 spent in UK shops, with a reported annual profit of £2.5 billion (Wallop 2007). 9  There has been insufficient space in this brief overview for a detailed critique of global retailers. Examples include Blythman (2004), Lawrence (2004), Simms (2007) and Hamilton et al. (2011). 8

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goods, previously accessible only to a small well-heeled elite, available to middleand lower-income groups within the Global North and South.

Global Sourcing Arguably the most important transformation associated with contemporary retail expansion has been at the other end of the value chain, through the global sourcing revolution it helped to spearhead. The year-round provision of a wide range of goods on a JIT basis is facilitated by the expansion of global networks of suppliers producing for global and regional retailers, mainly based in middle- and lowerincome countries. This has helped to change the development trajectory of many low-income economies. However, supplying global value chains governed by global retailers involves different commercial dynamics than market-led trade through remote intermediaries. This section will examine the rise of global sourcing, the profile of global retail value chains and the commercial dynamics that prevail between buyers and suppliers. It also provides an overview of horticulture and apparel value chains at a meso level, providing background context to more specific case studies that follow in later chapters.

Rise of Global Sourcing Global sourcing was initially stimulated by the offshoring of manufactured production from North America and Europe. It was facilitated by the liberalization of trade and finance in the 1980s, aided by advances in IT, communications, transport and logistics discussed above. Unlike FDI, global sourcing normally involves no ownership in supplier facilities. Financialization increased the pressure on North American and European companies to strip down their operations to focus only on the most profitable ‘core competence’ parts. They did this by outsourcing or subcontracting other activities, initially to newly industrializing countries (NICs) particularly in Asia. This led to an increased fragmentation of production and global sourcing from lower-wage countries (Gereffi 1994b). Global sourcing was further aided by the imposition of structural adjustment programmes (SAPs) by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank in debt-laden countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America. SAPs ensured many developing countries abandoned previous import substitution strategies and instead opened up their economies to export-led growth based on their ‘comparative advantage’ of low-cost labour. China’s entry into world markets and joining of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001 also led to it becoming a major exporter of labourintensive industrial goods. Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Stockholm University Library, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:27:11, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.003



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As NICs upgraded their industrial sectors to higher-value production, sourcing of labour-intensive products moved to other lower-wage-cost countries in Latin America and Asia (Gereffi 1994b; Gereffi and Memedovic 2003). Bilateral trade agreements facilitated industrial exports (such as apparel) from some countries in Africa and the Middle East (Staritz 2011; Azmeh 2014). Global sourcing of food, which enabled year-round availability of fresh and processed produce at lower prices, also led to significant changes in agro-export production, with investments in cool chain, packing and processing facilities in many countries (Vorley 2004). This was of particular importance to low-income countries, such as in sub-Saharan Africa, where the capacity and resources needed for industrial manufacturing were more limited (Kaplinsky and Morris 2014). The role of global retailers in this changing pattern of international trade is reflected in the estimate that by 2009 Walmart had become China’s seventh largest trading partner (bigger than the UK), spending more than $18 billion annually on Chinese goods (Clark 2010). The global supply networks of most large retailers now span a large number of countries. For example, Inditex, owner of Zara, is one of the most internationalized apparel retailers, with 1,805 suppliers (owning 6,595 factories) employing over 1.1 million workers across 52 countries.10 These figures do not take into account lower-tier suppliers, often from poorer developing countries, selling primary commodities and input components into higher-tier producers. As global sourcing evolved, retailers and large consumer goods companies increasingly sourced production through subcontracted suppliers and agents in many middle- and low-income countries.11 Retailers in global value chains own no production themselves, but they are able to dictate terms to suppliers, including specification of design, colour, material used, delivery times and prices, as well as a wider array of standards (Gereffi 1994b; Collins 2003). With retail expansion, product ranges have rapidly expanded, and new sourcing channels have opened up (such as the year round supply of fresh produce). The case studies examined in this book focus on the apparel and agri-food value chains. These comprise important product ranges in global retail in which there are significant levels of female employment, and where global sourcing has had a significant influence on changing gender of work in middle- and lower-income countries. Here I will provide a brief overview of both value chains. I will then examine the commercial dynamics of global sourcing and some of the pressures exerted by retailers on suppliers. This provides background for case studies on the  See https://www.inditex.com/our-commitment-to-people/our-suppliers (accessed July 2017) and vanKlaveren (2016). 11  A n example is the US brand Nike, which made its mark by sourcing sophisticated training shoes first from Japan and then from other East Asian NICs (Knight 2016). 10

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gender patterns of work in horticulture to be examined in Chapters 6 and 8 and on apparel in Chapters 7 and 8 of this book.

Overview of Agri-food Value Chain The global sourcing of food through retail value chains has become increasingly important over recent decades, along with changing patterns of food consumption. Traditionally, the availability of much of the fresh food sold in Europe and North America was determined by local availability and seasons, supplemented by the import of tropical commodities from developing countries. Since the 1980s there has been a rapid increase in the year round sales of fresh horticulture products (fruit, vegetables and flowers) relative to traditional agri-food products (coffee, tea, cocoa, and so on). It is estimated that in 1980 tropical products accounted for 39 per cent of all food exports from developing countries and horticulture 15 per cent. By 2001 tropical exports had fallen to 19 per cent and horticulture risen to 22 per cent of all food exports (Humphrey and Memedovic 2006). The rise of horticulture exports provides an important external market for countries in the Global South, capable of providing counter-seasonal produce to markets in the Global North. The expansion of supermarkets has led to a change in the way food is sourced. The proportion of fruit and vegetables sold through traditional wet markets has rapidly declined in North America and Europe and is in an uneven process of decline across many developing countries. Direct sourcing by supermarkets has come to play an increasingly dominant role. In the UK, for example, in 1980 34 per cent of fresh produce was purchased directly by supermarkets, the rest going through wholesale markets. By 2000 it was estimated that over 80 per cent of fresh produce retailed in the UK was sold directly through supermarkets (Precision Prospecting 2005). International trade in flowers has followed a different pattern, through continued dominance of the Dutch flower auctions, although some supermarkets also source directly from flower growers. Many food products are supplied to supermarkets by large transnational agrifood companies (such as Danone, Nestlé and Mondelez), and there has been an increasing concentration of food companies (Vorley 2004). Smaller companies and alternative trade organizations supply more specialist, fair trade and organic products. Where companies sell processed food under their own brand name, they are responsible for managing their own supply chains until delivery into supermarket DCs. Fresh vegetables, fruit and flowers are largely treated as part of the ‘own brand’ range in many supermarkets and rarely carry the name of the sourcing company. Supermarket technologists and buyers regularly visit producers in all their supplying countries and coordinate their supply often using large agents. Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Stockholm University Library, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:27:11, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.003



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Most supermarkets operate strict private standards covering the safety of food at every point along their supply chains. These include GlobalGAP (covering good agricultural practice in production), HACCP (that identifies and covers critical control points in the processing of food relating to biological, chemical and physical hazards and risks) and BRC Global Standard (that covers risks along the supply chain from packaging, through storage and distribution to retail) (Humphrey and Memedovic 2006; Henson and Humphrey 2010). Private standards are in addition to and often more rigorous than regulatory and trade standards that cover, for example, phytosanitary import requirements. A simplified overview of the horticulture value chain, shown in Figure 2.1, helps to illustrate the different segments of production, processing, distribution and retail of fresh fruit and vegetables (FFV). These five key segments are identified by the top row in Figure 2.1, with different types of companies involved at that point of the value chain depicted below each segment. The first segment involves the inputs of seeds, fertilizers, agrochemicals and related equipment and is increasingly dominated by large agribusiness companies (such as Monsanto and Syngenta). The second segment involves FFV production. In traditional arms-length markets, basic grading and packing into crates is

Figure 2.1  Simplified fresh fruit and vegetable value chain

Source: Adapted from Fernandez-Stark et al. (2011). Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Stockholm University Library, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:27:11, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.003

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undertaken at the farm level for farm-gate sale to intermediaries or transfer to market. In FFV value chains, this segment is now interlinked with a third segment of packing and storage that has become increasingly important. It is here that the produce is transformed through selection, grading, chemical treatment, cooling, quality control, monitored according to sanitary and phytosanitary standards, individually vacuum wrapped or packaged according to different supermarket requirements, packed into pallets ready for air or sea freight and delivered into an atmospherically controlled cool chain. These processes are critical in the global export of fresh produce. A bunch of grapes, for example, that is picked and sold through a local market will last approximately one week if kept in a fridge. The same bunch of grapes packed and delivered into the cool chain meeting supermarket standards can last four to six weeks. Apples properly treated and stored in atmospherically controlled conditions at the right temperature can last up to one year. The fourth segment of the value chain covers processing of FFVs. This can involve the preparation of ready-prepared vegetables (such as sliced carrots or French beans), often presented in trays, or ready-to-eat fruit, such as sliced pineapples, mango and peaches. It can also involve canning of FFV or processing into fruit juices. The fifth segment involves distribution and marketing to wholesalers, food service or increasing importance supermarkets as discussed above. An important shift in recent years has been the rise in supermarket sourcing of FFV within Asia, Africa and Latin America. However, value chain profiles vary between countries. In China and India supermarkets largely procure through wholesale markets and traders; few source directly. Supermarkets are the dominant FFV retailer in South Africa, rising from 40 to 60 per cent of sales (2000–2012). Yet supermarkets in Kenya sell 20 per cent of food but only 4 per cent of FFV and in India only 5 per cent of FFV sales (Barrientos, Knorringa, et al. 2016). Therefore, the expansion of supermarket horticultural sales is fairly uneven across emerging economies. However, global horticultural value chains operate very differently to traditional wet markets, with implications for workers involved in horticultural production that will be examined in Chapter 3.

Overview of Apparel Value Chain Apparel is a footloose industry that has played an important role in the early industrial development of many countries, including in Europe and North America, given low barriers to entry and reliance on low-skilled labour. After World War II, apparel featured particularly in the export-led growth strategies of the East Asia NICs followed by other developing countries (Gereffi 1994b; Gereffi and Memedovic 2003; Beckert 2014). Economic liberalization and changing trade regimes since the Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Stockholm University Library, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:27:11, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.003



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1980s triggered further waves of geographical relocation. Important determinants of production shifts have been responses to changing trade regimes combined with global brands and retailers seeking lower costs. The Multi-Fibre Arrangement (MFA) introduced in 1974 was an attempt to protect European and North American producers from lower labour cost competition from NICs through the imposition of quotas. However, it also stimulated ‘quota hopping’. As East Asian NICs fulfilled their own quotas, they expanded production to other countries, where they could avoid quota restrictions. Hence, countries such as Bangladesh, with less stringent quotas and abundant sources of cheap labour, became significant garment exporters (Gereffi and Memedovic 2003; Staritz 2011). The entry of China into world markets in the 1990s led it to become a major apparel producer. Phasing out of the MFA between 1995 and 2005 resulted in significant restructuring of garment exports, with greater concentration in countries with sufficient capabilities, low cost and regional or domestic access to textiles. Countries in Asia, such as China, India and Bangladesh, have become leading exporters (WTO 2013b). Further, bilateral trade agreements, such as the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) and Qualifying Industrial Zones (QIZS), have enabled countries in Africa and the Middle East to build up their apparel industries (Staritz 2011; Azmeh 2014). Apparel is a labour-intensive industry, where an estimated 60 per cent of production costs on average are accounted for by labour (Gereffi and Memedovic 2003, 31). The search for low-cost production is also a key driver of shifting trade patterns, and many developing countries compete based on cheap labour. Export processing zones (EPZs) are often set up to provide commercial advantages, including less onerous implementation of labour rights, to attract suppliers and buyers (ILO 2016b). The full textile–apparel value chain is made up of five key segments as shown in Figure 2.2. The first segment involves raw material inputs, which have traditionally been based on natural fibres such as cotton, wool and silk but increasingly manmade fibres such as polyester. The second segment involves the manufacture of textiles, which are inputs into the third segment involving the manufacture of apparel itself (primarily ready-made garments). The fourth and fifth segments involve distribution, export and finally retail (as discussed earlier). Each of these segments has prevailed from the early industrial development of textile–apparel production. Traditionally, linkages between the segments were primarily mediated by armslength market intermediaries involving networks of agents, traders, exporters, importers and wholesalers in different countries (Beckert 2014). Increasingly, linkages between them, particularly third–fifth segments, are governed by lead firms (retailers and brands) through their global value chains (Gereffi 1994; Gereffi and Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Stockholm University Library, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:27:11, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.003

Source: Gereffi and Memedovic (2003). Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Stockholm University Library, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:27:11, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.003

Figure 2.2  Simplified textile-apparel value chain



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Memedovic 2003; Pickles 2012; Alexander 2015). Here I focus primarily on apparel, also known as ready-made garments. Global outsourcing of apparel production away from North America and Europe from the 1970s built initially on a market model of low-cost production primarily based on assembly production of ‘cut-make-trim’ (CMT). Here textiles and other inputs are manufactured into final ready-made garments according to a buyer’s specifications and orders. Low labour cost is a critical determinant of lowskilled CMT production. As global value chains evolved, some buyers became more demanding in terms of their requirements of suppliers. This involved full-package provision by suppliers that includes sourcing of inputs and financing, innovation, CMT production, labelling and finishing. This has been termed ‘original equipment manufacturing’ (OEM). A further step in upgrading is when suppliers can provide both OEM plus design functions, termed ‘original design manufacturing’ (ODM) (Gereffi and Memedovic 2003; Gereffi and Frederick 2010; WTO 2013b). Hence, suppliers able to upgrade in the value chain towards OEM were increasingly required to manage a combination of production re-engineering and innovation, higher productivity, more skilled tasks and variability of JIT orders. ‘Lean’ became the synonym for production where suppliers were able to encompass all these dimensions (Gereffi and Frederick 2010; Pickles and Smith 2016). As global value chains advanced, varying models of apparel production could be discerned based on the sourcing strategies of different retailers and brands and tiers of the supply chain. The basic assembly model of CMT is primarily based on low labour cost and use of low-skilled workers with little human resource investment and often a high labour turnover. ‘Sweat shops’ are mainly associated with lowcost CMT production or subcontracting. In some countries, home-based workers (predominantly female) also play an important role in the embellishment of garments, such as embroidery and beading (Mezzadri and Srivastava 2015). At lower tiers of the value chain, working conditions—especially for women—are generally much poorer. In contrast, at upper value chain tiers, factories pursuing full package OEM and ODM are engaged in higher levels of innovation and investment based in larger, more modern facilities. Where suppliers upgrade into OEM or ODM production, they also need to juggle low-unit labour costs achieved through raising productivity with a requirement for more skilled workers to meet more complex production operations (Fernandez-Stark et al. 2011). Here, better pay and conditions may be required to attract and retain skilled workers. This overview of the apparel value chain provides background context to a divergence within the apparel sector between low versus high road trajectories, with important implications for workers that I will examine in Chapter 3. A ‘low road’ of economic and social downgrading based on cheap labour predominates in Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Stockholm University Library, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:27:11, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.003

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many locations, which I examine in Chapter 7. In contrast, a more niche ‘high road’ of economic and social upgrading, where more skilled and productive workers are able to attain better labour conditions, is examined in Chapter 8.

Commercial Dynamics of Global Sourcing: Cost, Quality and Speed of Delivery A number of studies have examined the pressures engaging in global retail value chains puts on suppliers. To gain access, producers need to guarantee supply of goods to given product specifications, delivery schedules and competitive prices while meeting requisite quality standards.12 Suppliers have limited negotiating power relative to the buying power of global retailers. They are under persistent pressure to reduce supply prices while carrying the costs of meeting buyer specifications and quality standards (Barrientos and Kritzinger 2004; Raworth and Kidder 2009; FTAO 2014; ILO 2017b). This was also a refrain heard during many supplier interviews during an impact assessment for the Ethical Trading Initiative (ETI) and Capturing the Gains research programme (Barrientos and Smith 2007; Barrientos et al. 2016). The three dimensions of cost, quality and speed of delivery are the mantra of global sourcing, which I will examine in turn. Cost reduction has been a key driver of offshoring and global sourcing. In labourintensive industries, this has meant the perpetual search for lower unit wage costs facilitated in developing countries by low prevailing wages. In price negotiations, buyers are constantly putting downward pressure on suppliers to lower costs. Labour costs rarely enter into price negotiations and are seen as one of the few ‘variable costs’ that suppliers can squeeze in order to be price competitive. Some buyers in hierarchical value chains operate a system of ‘open book accounting’, whereby they have access to suppliers’ books to assess how cost efficiencies can be made without putting the commercial viability of the supplier at risk. Larger buyers (or their sourcing agents) on some occasions negotiate with lower-tier suppliers to obtain lower input prices (based on order volumes) to reduce production costs for higher-tier suppliers and the product price. Price negotiations also often include volume and turnover as the basis for calculating and maximizing margins. Larger suppliers are better positioned to achieve the volume of production needed to attain economies of scale and meet buyer requirements in these negotiations. Achieving cost efficiencies and enhancing margins is key to buyers meeting key performance indicators, affecting their remuneration and career prospects. It is also driven by a Studies undertaken by the WTO on challenges accessing global value chains included sector surveys of buyers, suppliers and government officials in different countries in apparel and agri-food sectors, which ranked a number of different issues, including production costs, standards, skills, transportation, access to finance and trade barriers (WTO 2013a, 2013b).

12 

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financial model in which companies have to report on value enhancement to financial markets and uphold their share prices (Palpacuer 2008; Weil 2014). However, the pricing of goods sold is complex in consumer-facing retail value chains where customer profiles vary. Assessing the real cost of production in fragmented value chains such as apparel is difficult (Miller 2014). Agricultural commodities also traded on spot and forward markets (such as cocoa) and wholesale markets (such as horticulture and floriculture) can see prices fluctuate on a daily basis (Barrientos and Visser 2012). Exchange rate fluctuations affect input costs and delivery prices. The final retail price is determined by the ‘price point’ attainable within each targeted segment of the consumer market for that product. Higher price points operate in higher-end consumer segments and lower price points in lower-end segments of the market. The same product can sometimes be sold at different price points depending on branding and marketing or demand variations across segments.13 Global retailers with good EPOS and customer loyalty systems to profile consumers are better able to assess which combination of products at which price points consumers are likely to purchase and how this may vary over the year (for example, with higher price purchases for special occasions such as birthdays or festive seasons). This facilitates preprogramming in their global sourcing to optimise volume and turnover across the category, maximizing margins and market share. Quality also plays a critical role in sourcing decisions by retailers. Quality in consumer-focused value chains is based not only on the tangible attributes of the product (size, shape, colour, functionality and durability) but also on intangible attributes (design, marketing and branding). Quality standards are particularly important in food, where consumer health needs to be assured. Health scares (such as salmonella in eggs or Bovine spongiform encephalopathy [BSE] crisis in UK beef ) can severely affect retailers’ bottom line. Increasingly, quality has also included criteria based on whether production is environmentally and/or socially sustainable. This has been driven not only by civil society campaigns but also by increasing consumer awareness, especially in the age of internet, smartphones and social media. Quality is more important in higher-income consumer segments but also matters in lower-price higher-volume consumer segments. Global retailers, particularly those based in the Global North, now operate an array of private technical, social and environmental standards to ensure quality. These also help to reduce the transaction costs of managing product heterogeneity  For example, the same apples from the same farmer could be packaged and priced under a supermarket brand name as either high-end (in a fancy bag) or low-end (in very basic packaging or loose). I have personally witnessed the repackaging of products from one type of packing to another during my research.

13

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across a globalized supply base. These standards transcend and are often more stringent than diverse national and international regulations. They provide consumer assurance on safety and quality and help manage reputational risk among consumers (Nadvi 2008; Henson and Humphrey 2010). There is now a proliferation of private standards, which can be divided into three groups: 1. Product standards—such as individual supermarket quality requirements on size, shape and colour 2. Process standards—including individual supermarket labels and industry standards, such as GlobalGAP and hazard analysis and critical control points certification in food 3. Social and environmental standards (Ponte and Gibbon 2005; Nadvi 2008)

Suppliers not only have to bear the costs of compliance but are also often required to pay for auditing to verify compliance. If they have multiple buyers with different standards, this can mean paying for multiple audits. The application of standards is also growing among some emerging economy retailers—however, with more emphasis on product than process standards. All the emerging market retailers in Table 2.2 have some form of corporate social and/ or environmental responsibility statement on their website. However, the extent to which they apply them in their supply chains is at best varied. With some exceptions they are less concerned with environmental and social commitments (Guarin and Knorringa 2014; Pickles et al. 2016). Speed of delivery and JIT ordering also play an important role in buyer/supplier negotiations. Buyers often preprogramme orders six—nine months in advance, and suppliers have to meet agreed schedules. However, ordering patterns vary across product ranges. The apparel industry has seen a shift from traditional seasonal cycles towards ‘fast fashion’, with suppliers required to produce smaller batches on a JIT basis to meet quick turnover of styles. In airfreighted flowers and high-value fresh produce, electronic monitoring of sales triggers variations in quantities ordered on a day-to-day basis. Orders can be placed free on board (FOB), where the buyer takes receipt and is responsible once it leaves the production site, or it can be based on delivery into the retailer’s DC. In the latter, the supplier is also responsible for ensuring speed of delivery through the distribution system. Suppliers of fresh produce (with a short shelf life), who are responsible for delivery into DCs, sometimes complain that their produce is rejected for being ‘below standard’ when there is over-supply. JIT ordering puts pressure on suppliers who are less able to plan production schedules in advance and have to react quickly for fear of losing future sales. Buyers and suppliers are constantly balancing trade-offs between cost, quality and speed of delivery in their commercial operations. Global retailers often prefer to source from larger suppliers able to deliver on all fronts in both agri-food and Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Stockholm University Library, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:27:11, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.003



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apparel value chains, pushing smaller small- and medium-sized enterprises out of supply chains (Dolan and Humphrey 2004; Gereffi and Frederick 2010). However, there are indications that the rise of regional retailers in emerging economies is providing new opportunities for suppliers less able to sell into global retailers or unwilling to meet high-quality standards (Pickles et al. 2006; Ponte and Ewert 2009; Barrientos, Knorringa, et al. 2016). A significant issue often raised by civil society organizations (CSOs) and researchers is the net effect of adverse purchasing power of retailers for suppliers and workers (Oxfam 2004; Basic 2016; ILO 2017; Oxfam 2018). Financialization drives a business model in which retailers constantly aim to return higher shareholder value based on enhancing their own profitability and market share. There is an asymmetry of power between global retailers who occupy a dominant position in their main retail markets and their supplier base that is fragmented across countries (Kaplinsky 2005). For example, it is estimated that only 10 supermarkets are responsible for over half of all food sales in the European Union (EU) (Oxfam 2018). Retailers are able to play suppliers off against each other in negotiations, constantly driving down supplier prices and increasing their requirements (Barrientos and Kritzinger 2004). A survey of 1,454 suppliers conducted by the International Labour Organization (ILO) (2017b) reported on adverse purchasing practices: lack of a written contract, unclear or inaccurate specifications, insufficient and shortening of lead times and declining prices. Research for Oxfam (2018) investigated 12 commodities and found that while there are variations between them, overall there has been a longrun decline in prices. It found that between 1995 and 2011, the share of final retail price going to farmers had declined from 16 to 14 per cent, with some receiving just 7 per cent, while the share going to supermarkets increased from 27 to over 30 per cent in the same period (Oxfam 2018, 17). Commercial pressures can have adverse consequences for workers and smallholder producers, especially for women workers, who are concentrated in the most insecure positions. However, there are also countervailing factors. Larger suppliers and those producing higher-quality goods are better positioned in negotiating terms and conditions with retailers. They are more able to innovate and raise productivity, allowing them to reduce labour cost per unit, while maintaining higher wages and profitability. Contestation by low paid workers in many countries is also leading to rises in legal minimum wages, which suppliers have to accommodate to remain compliant with buyer standards. In the following chapters I will draw on case studies to examine how tensions between pressures on cost and delivery versus quality, combined with contestation, can lead to diverse outcomes. I will analyse these in terms of economic and social downgrading (suppliers accessing lower-end value chains with poorer conditions Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Stockholm University Library, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:27:11, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.003

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for workers) versus economic and social upgrading (suppliers undertaking higher value production with better conditions for workers). These will inform a broader examination in Chapters 9 and 10 of how upgrading and downgrading trajectories, and strategies to address them, play out for workers, particularly women, who constitute a significant proportion of the labour force.

Concluding Remarks This chapter has provided a brief overview of the expansion of global retail has in part been based on rising female labour force participation and the parallel the expansion of global sourcing through retail value chains. Global retail expansion has led to increasing availability of commercially produced goods, at affordable prices to middle- and lower-income consumers in both the Global North and South. This has benefited time-poor women, who increasingly combine paid work with household and caring responsibilities. Global retailers use IT and EPOS systems to monitor, anticipate and shape customer purchases. In contrast to earlier nationally based retailers that sourced through remote intermediaries, global retailers coordinate and control global value chains across borders through centralized distribution systems. Global sourcing from low-wage countries facilitates round-the-clock provision of low-cost affordable goods. It has also fuelled export-led growth of labour-intensive products, such as horticulture and apparel, in many low-income countries. Most global retailers operate a business model that exploits their dominant position in consumer markets to negotiate lower prices and stringent conditions with suppliers. A large female workforce now commercially produces many of these goods, particularly in the developing world. The next chapter will examine how the commercial dynamics of global retail are intertwined with changing gender patterns of work in global value chains in more depth.

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3 Gender Patterns of Work in Global Retail Value Chains

Introduction The rise of global retail value chains has been closely associated with changing gender patterns of work and growing labour force participation of women across many countries. As discussed in the previous chapter, global retailers facilitate the commercial provision of many affordable goods previously produced unpaid by women within the home. These include processed food, ready-prepared meals, ready-made garments, personal care and household goods. At the retail end of value chains, companies monitor customers (including their gender profile) to deliver a wide range of products. At the producer end, retailers coordinate suppliers to deliver on a JIT basis at low cost while ensuring quality. This commercial model, and coordination of end-to-end JIT delivery, has important implications for the types of paid work undertaken by women and men at every tier of retail value chains, from retail sales to global sourcing. Examining this is central to addressing the core questions of this book: How are global retail value chains shaping gender patterns of work, and what are the gendered outcomes for workers? In this chapter, I explore this further by examining how engagement in global retail value chains is driving gendered fragmentation of work. It examines how women are concentrated in work that is more flexible, less well-remunerated and more insecure compared to men in every value chain tier. Drawing on information from various sources, it provides an illustrative gender mapping of work across the global agri-food value chain supplying supermarkets. This shows how gender discrimination is systemic at every tier from retail through distribution to production. The chapter then examines the trajectories of economic and social downgrading and upgrading. This provides a framework for assessing challenges and opportunities for attaining more gender equitable outcomes, which will be examined in more depth in later chapters. As we saw in Chapter 2, three key issues constituting the mantra of global retail value chains are cost, quality and speed of delivery. I argue in this chapter that fragmented workers provide the ‘oil’ that lubricates the integrated functioning of Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Stockholm University Library, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:29:09, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.004

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global retail value chains on a JIT basis across national borders. In most countries in which retailers sell and/or source, labour markets are deeply embedded in social norms that configure the gender division of labour. Traditionally this has assigned certain unpaid functions to women within households—including food preparation and sewing. These are socially ascribed roles, as there is no biological reason why women should undertake them—indeed the most highly paid chefs and tailors are men. As these activities have become more broadly commercialized, women have been drawn into their production as low-cost flexible labour. Women workers’ socially acquired skills are now being integrated into the commercial functioning of retail value chains, yet gender norms enable under valuation of these skills and low wages (Elson and Pearson 1981; Barrientos and Perrons 1998; Pyle 2003). These underpin the delivery of quality goods at competitive prices. Hence, fragmented female workers allow both retailers and suppliers to juggle low cost and speed of delivery with quality in JIT value chains. Gender inequalities prevalent in society are also systemic in global retail value chains, reflected in the concentration of women in low paid and insecure categories of work. However, global retail value chains are not static, but encompass a commercial dynamic that constantly strives for innovation. I examine the implications for economic and social downgrading and upgrading trajectories involving buyers, suppliers and workers. A ‘low road’ of economic and social downgrading is driven by the dynamic of low-cost high-volume production based on exploiting labour as an expendable input, which is prevalent in many retail value chains. A ‘high road’ of economic and social upgrading is driven by the dynamic of higher value and higher quality production, based on raising productivity and investment in workers’ capabilities and skills. I argue in practice there is no binary divide between downgrading and upgrading. They are poles of a continuum of possible mixed trajectories. This facilitates analysis in later chapters of how different commercial dynamics combined with bargaining and contestation play important roles in terms of affecting outcomes for workers, leading to different downgrading and upgrading outcomes across sectors and locations. The second section starts by clarifying the concept of ‘work’ in a value chain context. While most conventional economic approaches associate it with paid labour, feminist political economy has long argued that they fail to incorporate unpaid work in social reproduction largely undertaken by women. The next section examines the concept of fragmented work that incorporates both paid and unpaid work, which I argue is the most applicable approach in global retail value chains. The fourth section empirically examines the gender profile of global retail value chains, from retailer through distribution to sourcing from producers, using the examples from global retailers, agri-foods and apparel. It also provides an illustrative gender mapping of the agri-food value chain supplying two UK supermarkets. Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Stockholm University Library, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:29:09, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.004



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This summarizes the categories of work in which women and men are located and highlights that gender inequalities are systemic across all value chain tiers. The following section outlines the concepts of economic and social downgrading and upgrading, as a framework to examining the trajectories that can affect gendered outcomes for workers. The last section concludes.

Approaches to Work Before examining changing gender patterns of work associated with global retail value chains, it is important to clarify the term ‘work’. Some analysts have noted that ‘work’ acquires differing meanings across different historical and socio-economic contexts (Pahl 1984). The rise of industrial capitalism and market economies saw an increasing separation between ‘work’ and ‘home’ as separate spheres, with the former mainly associated with waged work or employment and the latter subsistence or unpaid work. Prevailing gender norms largely cast men’s primary role in the former and women’s primary role in the latter (Folbre 1994). A distinction can be made between employment and other forms remunerated work in market economies. The ILO defines employment as comprising all persons of working age who are in either paid employment or self-employment; own account workers as those who hold ‘self-employment jobs’ and do not have continuous employees working for them; and contributing family workers as those who hold ‘self-employment jobs’ in a market-oriented establishment operated by someone living in the same household.1 Since 2002 the ILO has extended this to the informal economy to include enterprises and employment relationships that are not legally regulated or socially protected (Chen 2012).2 While these definitions cover different forms of remunerated work, they do not incorporate unpaid work for household subsistence. Conventional labour economists that adhere to a neo-classical labour market model distinguish between ‘work’ as a labour market activity and ‘leisure’ as all non-labour market activity, including work within households and time spent on consumption and recreational pursuits (Borjas 2000). This underpins a prevailing notion that unremunerated activity within the home does not formally count as ‘work’. In contrast, feminist economists have long emphasized that payment does  ILO, ‘Employment by Status in Employment’ available at http://www.ilo.org/ilostat-files/ Documents/description_STE_EN.pdf (accessed November 2017). 2  In 2002 the ILO reformulated its definition of an informal sector. No longer is it simply defined as constituting firms with five workers or less. The broader concept of informal work includes all workers who lack formal contract, statutory employment rights or protection irrelevant of the size of the firm (Chen 2014). 1

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not determine whether an activity is defined as work, and that unpaid activities within households also constitute work (Folbre 1994; Gardiner 1997; Himmelweit 2000). Feminist economists argue the gender division of labour is not ‘natural’, but based on socially configured relations between men and women. They distinguish between a sexual division of labour based on biological differences between women and men (such as women’s ability to give birth) and gender division of labour based on societal norms that shape women’s reproductive role within households (Macintosh 1981; Folbre 1994). Under capitalism, social norms and institutions configure the relation between commercial production of goods and services for exchange through markets and social reproduction that is largely undertaken within households. Here, social reproduction is defined to include the biological reproduction of children, unpaid production of household goods and services, including care and voluntary work within communities, and reproduction of culture and ideologies that maintain (or can challenge) prevailing social relations (Hoskyns and Rai 2007; Gottfried 2012; Pearson 2014). Women’s unpaid work helps lower the costs of sustaining current and future generations of paid workers (Himmelweit et al. 2001). Failure to recognize the role of social reproduction devalues the economic contribution made by women within households (McDowell 1999; Beneria et al. 2003). It results in the exclusion of household production from the calculation of national accounts (measurement of GDP) even though the latter contributes to the total output and welfare of a country. As such, much work undertaken unpaid by women is rendered of limited economic value (Elson 1991; Folbre 1994). The entrenched gender division of labour in most countries has long viewed men’s primary role in productive paid work and women’s primary role in unpaid reproductive work in the home, where they were traditionally responsible for provision of food and consumer goods for their families (such as cooking and making clothes).

Globalization and Work Following World War II, societal norms and government policy in many countries were based on the assumption of a ‘standard employment model’ of male full-time employment and primary breadwinner. This was premised on a close employment relationship between worker and employer that was also the channel for employee benefits. Men’s earnings and social protection were meant to cover both their own and their family’s requirements. Feminist economists questioned the extent to which this applied in reality, given rising levels of female employment in casual, part-time and full-time work (Crompton 2003; Fudge and Owens 2006; Vosko et al. 2009). This underpinned analysis of segmented or dual labour markets, in Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Stockholm University Library, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:29:09, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.004



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which firms employed a combination of full-time predominantly male permanent workers with full benefits and temporary or casual predominantly female workers with less protection (Rubery 1980). In low-income developing countries, the prevalence of a standard employment model or close employment relationship were always less common than in Europe and North America. Here the distinction is often blurred between market-oriented production and household subsistence, especially for women in home-based informal work and unpaid family labour in smallholder agricultural production (Boesrup 1970; Chen et al. 1999; World Bank 2009). Increasing recognition of diversity has facilitated broader perspectives on what constitutes ‘work’ in market-oriented economies (Pahl 1984; McDowell 1999; Castree et al. 2004; Chen 2014). A number of studies have examined the consequences of globalization for the rise of flexible work with a focus on middle- and lower-income countries (Standing 1999b; Munck 2002; Silver 2003). Flexible work can take a number of forms, including casualization, increased use of temporary and part-time workers, zero-hour contracts and ‘self-employed’ workers. Flexible work facilitates variation in the number of workers, tasks undertaken and wages paid to meet variations in output. It reduces labour costs by limiting workers’ payment to when they are actually required, avoiding many nonwage costs such as social insurance, sickness, maternity pay and pensions. Standing provided an important contribution, highlighting in particular the ‘feminisation’ of flexible employment associated with globalization and structural adjustment across many developing countries (Standing 1989, 1999a). The onset of globalization from the 1980s underpinned the rise of increasingly precarious work, particularly in higher-income industrialized countries, where the standard employment model had held greater sway (Marchington et al. 2005; Kalleberg 2013). The concept of ‘fragmenting work’ has been applied in this context to analyse the complex ways employment is increasingly managed across organizational boundaries (including agencies, public–private partnerships and franchises), further eroding the standard employment relationship (Marchington et al. 2005). These and other studies provide important insights into the implications of economic liberalization and structural adjustment on labour markets. However, they tend to overlook the specific form fragmented and flexible labour has taken in global retail value chains that extend across borders to middle- and lower-income countries. In the US context, Weil (2014) provides an important contribution to this analysis by focusing on the implications of outsourcing of production for workers and the rise of what he terms the ‘fissured workplace’. He argues that the standard employment relationship, directly linking a specific workforce to a single employer Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Stockholm University Library, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:29:09, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.004

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established in the post-war era, has broken down or ‘fissured’. Instead of all activities being undertaken in-house, many firms now pursue a strategy of focusing on their more profitable ‘core competencies’ and shedding ‘non-core’ activities, such as maintenance, cleaning, IT provision, to other companies that now provide these as services. Ground staff, cleaners, IT officers, and so on, continue to work but are no longer direct employees, and the employment relationship has been carved up between multiple providers. The latter often compete based on low cost by providing lower wages and less benefits to workers (Weil 2014). An important oversight in Weil’s analysis is his failure to take account of the gender dimension of this employment, even though women constitute a significant proportion of the ‘fissured’ workforce. While examining retail supply chains, he only briefly extends analysis of the ‘fissuring’ of labour to developing countries, which have been the recipients of much outsourced production and services. A major driver of global sourcing has been the world-wide search for lower-cost production. This was facilitated by the opening up of low-wage developing countries to international trade through structural adjustment in the 1980s. The entry of China and India into world markets during the 1990s also had a significant effect on increasing low-wage labour supply. They are alone estimated to have doubled the size of the global labour force from 1.46 to 2.93 billion workers by 2000 (Freeman 2007). Based on the gender profile of the total labour force in each country, women accounted overall for 45 per cent of the increase in China and 28 per cent in India.3 This substantial expansion of the global labour force helped depress wages globally and affected the balance between labour and capital (Kaplinsky 2005; Freeman 2007). China and to a lesser extent India became important sourcing countries in global retail value chains. The off-shoring of production to developing countries had parallel adverse impacts on workers previously employed in those industries within Europe and North America (Peck 1996; Silver 2003; Kalleberg 2013; Milberg and Winkler 2013; Weil 2014).

Fragmented Work in GVCs Global retail value chains coordinated by lead firms drive a commercial model based on JIT delivery, cost and quality that extends beyond direct suppliers to different value chain tiers, examined in Chapter 2. An important argument in this book is that retail expansion has been based on the commercial production of many goods that were previously produced largely unpaid by women within Women as a percentage of the total labour force was 45 per cent in China, 48 per cent in the Russian Federation and 28 per cent in India in 2000; available at http://data.worldbank.org/ indicator/SL.TLF.TOTL.FE.ZS?end=2000&start=1990 (accessed June 2016).

3 

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households. Commercial production has drawn women into different categories of work across value chain tiers, mostly as wage-workers but also as home-based and contributing family labour. This has implications for changing gender patterns of work in a value chain context. In this section I will examine why the concept of fragmented work helps to capture the diversity of work in global value chains, also drawing on analyses of ‘fissured’ and ‘flexible’ work along with a feminist perspective on productive and reproductive work. The term ‘fragmented’ helps to capture the very diverse forms of paid and unpaid work and employment relationships now found in global sourcing networks that link producers within and across developed and developing countries. These can broadly be divided into three categories of work. The upper categories include permanent and regular workers as well as supervisors and managers. The middle categories include temporary and casual workers, while the lower categories involve subcontracted informal home-based workers (found, for example, in garment embellishment) or smallholder households (found in agri-food) (Carr et al. 2000; Vorley et al. 2007). Examination of global retail value chains in Chapter 2 helped to elucidate three intertwined dimensions of the commercial retail model. First, JIT ordering and delivery systems operate across global retail value chains and across multiple countries using sophisticated planning and logistics. This requires labour flexibility across all tiers of value chains to ensure that the right numbers of workers are available at any time to deliver the correct quantities efficiently. Fragmented workers involving a combination of permanent, temporary, casual workers, including some recruited through labour contractors, can therefore be found across most tiers of value chains, from retail, through distribution, logistics and services, to production and inputs. Second, global retail has expanded the commercial production of a wide range of consumer goods at affordable prices available to a wide consumer base, many of which were previously produced within households. Low-price production, especially of labour-intensive goods, is achieved through global sourcing from low-wage developing countries. Global value chains also involve subcontracting down to lower-tier suppliers to further keep down costs and provide requisite inputs. This can include home-based workers and smallholder producers. Third, global retailers simultaneously require suppliers to meet certain quality standards. At a minimum these relate to product specification, but increasingly on social and environmental criteria. Ensuring quality requires more skilled workers. Often these involve ‘soft skills’ including being meticulous and achieving intricate tasks. Balancing these three criteria—just in time, low cost and quality—shapes the fragmentation of work across value chains. Different categories of workers are deployed alongside each other at different value chain tiers. The fragmentation of Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Stockholm University Library, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:29:09, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.004

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work facilitates flexibility and efficiency, enabling attainment of quality, low-cost and JIT production linking different global value chain tiers. Employment relationships can also vary greatly in an environment of fragmented work. Some workers (more likely at upper value chain tiers) will be in permanent or regular employment, with close ties between employer and worker. Casual, seasonal and temporary workers have fewer employer ties and are likely to move regularly between employers. Home-based workers and smallholders often supply through intermediaries but are nevertheless integrated into value chains (Carr et al. 2000; Vorley et al. 2007). The use of labour contractors facilitates variations in the number of workers at any point and reduces the obligations (and costs) of the main suppliers (Barrientos 2013b). Finally, the lowest tiers or categories of work can include coercive practices, where workers have been entrapped into the work through indebtedness or other forms of coercion, termed ‘modern day slavery’ in the UK (Kuptsch 2006; Barrientos 2013b; LeBaron and Ruhmokorf 2017). The concentration of women in more insecure categories of work means they often move in and out of paid work in commercial production and unpaid work in the home. Fragmentation means paid, underpaid and unpaid labour can all contribute to production in value chains. As will be seen in later chapters, permanent and regular workers are often found working alongside lower categories of more flexible worker. Lower categories of worker (including paid and unpaid home-based labour) are often linked through subcontracting to large-scale factories and farms. Sourcing through global value chains has shone a light on the participation of these many categories of workers in global production. The fragmentation of work also has an important gender dimension, examined in more detail in Chapter 4. Feminist political economy analyses labour markets as institutions that are bearers of gender norms (Elson 1999). These have long subordinated the role of women’s work within economic production. Global retail and sourcing are embedded within and interact with the same institutions at national and local levels, which vary across countries. However, it also denotes the ways in which the boundaries between paid and unpaid work are being blurred across global value chains, integrating different forms of work previously deemed remote or external to markets into commercial production. Men are more concentrated in higher categories of work. Women are more concentrated in lower categories of temporary and casual waged labour, work deemed less skilled, with poorer remuneration, benefits and job security and fewer rights. At the lowest categories, remuneration, security and rights are further reduced, and women dominate, especially in home-based work and unpaid family labour in smallholder production.

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The payment of low wages and reduction of nonwage labour costs for lower category flexible workers reflect deeply embedded gender norms regarding the valuation of work. This will be illustrated with figures for each of the case studies examined in Chapters 5–8, and the failure to provide sufficiently for a living wage or income will be examined in Chapter 9. Low remuneration of women workers (skilled and unskilled) reflects entrenched societal under-valuation of work traditionally undertaken in the home. Gender inequalities are replicated in retail value chains as these activities are commercialized, bringing more women into paid work. Households beyond the workplace (often comprising two or more income earners) provide the buffer for flexible workers (male and female) where they are sustained between jobs. The blurring of gender boundaries is particularly reflected in the extension of global retail value chains into the sphere of household production at lower tiers of value chains through subcontracting to informal home-based and smallholder workers. Here women often contribute to production as unremunerated family labour, and participate in commercial value chains, albeit at lower tiers. There is a blurring of the distinction between paid and unpaid work, and women’s role is often unrecognized. In earlier market-led economies, retailers primarily sourced through intermediate wholesale and import agents. Conditions of workers in remote suppliers could not be traced to the final retailer. However, in coordinated global value chains linkages can be more easily traced. Fragmented work exposes retailers and brands to the risk of adverse publicity regarding labour conditions. While they are not the direct employer, it is argued that retail purchasing practices drive fragmentation of work and poorer labour conditions in lower categories of work (Raworth and Kidder 2009; Barrientos 2013b). Civil society campaigns have led many retailers and brands to introduce codes of labour practice as a condition of supply to ensure minimum labour standards are complied with. Not all workers are in precarious or degrading work. Those in permanent, regular, supervisory or managerial positions often enjoy relatively good terms and conditions compared to those in more insecure work. Economic upgrading by some suppliers, moving to higher value production involving higher quality and productivity, may also be associated with social upgrading of their workers through better pay and conditions. Although there is a higher concentration of men in these upper categories of work, many women are also found here, and their presence could potentially grow. This has implications for the ‘low road’ of economic and social downgrading versus ‘high road’ of economic and social upgrading, which will be discussed in the fifth section. The combination of retailer coordination of value chains that extend to lower tiers and incorporate fragmented workers across

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all tiers has had implications for strategies to improve working conditions. These will be examined in more depth in Chapter 9.

Gender Mapping of Global Retail Value Chains Building on the discussion of the profile of contemporary retail and global sourcing in Chapter 2, this section empirically examines in more depth the gender pattern of work in key segments of the value chain from retail, through logistics, to the producer end. It illustrates that gender discrimination is deeply embedded across global retail value chains, in both buyer and sourcing countries. However, it also helps to unpack the significance of global retail value chains in generating female employment and provides a more nuanced picture of the gender profile of this work. Subsequent chapters will then focus more specifically on gender patterns of work, focusing on production as a result of global sourcing of specific products and countries.

Retail Employment Global retailers are major employers, both within their home countries and across their stores internationally.4 Within the USA and the UK, the retail sectors were responsible for 10 per cent of all employment in 2011–2012.5 As shown in Table 2.2 in Chapter 2, the top six retailers employed nearly 4 million workers globally between them in 2014–2015. Walmart alone employed 2.2 million workers, 1.3 million within the USA. In 2013–2014, Walmart ranked as the largest private sector employer both globally and at home (Hess 2013; Walmart 2014) and the third largest employer in the world. In the UK and France, Tesco and Carrefour (ranked second and third largest retailers globally) were also the largest private sector employers in their own countries and Europe by 2011 (Wallop 2011). E-commerce companies account for an increasing number of jobs. For example, Amazon employment grew nine-fold in seven years, from 17,000 full- and parttime workers in 2007 to 154,100 workers by 2013–2014 as its global operations expanded.6 Emerging economy retailers are also significant employers within their own countries. Examples shown in Table 2.2 in Chapter 2 are the Chilean  In total, it is estimated that there are 142 million people working in retail in 82 countries for which data are available, accounting for 10–15 per cent of total country employment on average, but this figure includes both modern and informal retail sectors (Luce 2013, 4). 5  The US Department of Labour, available at http://www.bls.gov/emp/ep_table_201.htm (accessed on July 2017) and People1st (2013). 6  See http://www.statista.com/topics/846/amazon/ (accessed on September 2015). 4

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Table 3.1  Gender profile of selected supermarkets, 2015 (% of women by category) Boardroom Senior corporate Management Employees

Walmarta

Carrefourb

Tescoc

M&Sd

25 32 42 57

25 n/a 36 57

23 24 31 57

38 40 63 73

Sources: aWalmart (2015); bCarrefour (2015); cTesco (2015); d Marks and Spencer (2015).

multinational Cencosud that employs over 150,000 workers, while Dairy Farm in Asia and Shoprite in Africa employ over 100,000 workers each. Global retail has long harboured a gendered ‘glass ceiling’ (sometimes called a ‘sticky floor’) constraining women’s access to senior management positions (MacEwen Scott 1994; Neathey and Hurstfield 1995; Bozkurt and Grugulis 2011). This is reflected in Table 3.1, which provides a gender breakdown of four leading US and European retailers in 2015. Although women represent 57–73 per cent of waged employees, the proportion of women declines at higher company levels, and they represent only 23–38 per cent at the board level. In 2014 of Amazon’s 120 most senior staff, only 18 (15 per cent) were women (Garside 2014). Men concentrated in senior and middle management have more secure positions with better pay and conditions. Gender inequality was publicly highlighted in the UK in 2018 when all companies with more than 250 workers were legally required to report on their gender pay gap.7 In retail management, it was reported that a gender pay gap of nearly 20 per cent prevails and men are almost three times as likely to hold senior positions (Steven 2017). There have been some signs of change, but progress is slow in a sector where gender norms in business culture remain stubborn and meeting achievement-driven targets such as key performance indicators (KPIs) means career–family tensions prevail (Broadbridge 2010). In lower categories of retail employment, Table 3.1 shows that women are highly concentrated in work at the shop-floor level. This includes the long established use of flexible female casual and part-time workers with poorer pay and conditions than men in other parts of the retail industry.8 Studies have also identified increasing intensification of work, with retailers driving greater productivity in the  See https://www.gov.uk/government/news/gender-pay-gap-reporting (accessed July 2018).  In 2018 the UK law firm Leigh Day launched a GBP 4 billion class action equal pay claim against the UK supermarket Tesco, on the grounds that female shop staff were underpaid relative to men working in the DCs. See https://www.leighday.co.uk/News/News-2018/ February-2018/Leigh-Day-launch-£4bn-equal-pay-claim-against-TESC (accessed February 2018).

7 8

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same or less time (Penn and Wirth 1993; Neathey and Hurstfield 1995; Bozkurt and Grugulis 2011). The flexibility of retail labour has further increased through fragmentation and intensification of work based on subcontracting, zero-hour contracts and crowd sourcing. Subcontracted functions can include cleaning and catering services, shelving and warehouse work (Neathey and Hurstfield 1995; J.W. Lee 2013; Luce 2013; Weil 2014). Here the main retailer has no direct responsibility for the employment terms and conditions of the contractor’s workers. The use of zero or short-hour contracts is also on the rise, whereby an individual undertakes to be available for work but the employer does not guarantee to provide work (or a minimum of three to six hours) and pays only for the hours actually worked. In the UK zero-hour contracts accounted for 2 per cent of retail employment in 2015.9 More stringent human resource management of workers is also achieved (whatever the employment contract) through computerized monitoring of workers’ activity rates linked to EPOS and EDI systems. Amazon in particular has driven work intensification in its giant dispatch warehouses. A report in The Financial Times described this in relation to one Amazon UK warehouse, which is the size of nine football pitches, with workers required to walk 7–15 miles per day, with handheld devices that measure their productivity in real time (O’Connor 2013). Automation could affect e-commerce employment levels in future, as discussed in Chapter 10. In the middle- and lower-income countries, where informal retail remains significant, less aggregate data and information is available on employment in the newer modern retail sector.10 Case studies on the latter indicate that employment conditions vary across countries. However, a number of studies in Africa and Asia indicate an increasing trend towards flexible casual work (Clarke 2006; Miller 2006; Tilly 2007; Sirait 2014). While many retail companies provide part-time workers with pro rata pay and benefits comparable with those of full-time workers, new strategies of fragmentation and flexibilization risk seriously undermining workers’ rights and are of great concern to unions and CSOs (Luce 2013).  T his is lower than the national average of 2.4 per cent of the workforce reported for the first quarter of 2015, but there is clear evidence of a continued rise in zero-hour contracts, with a 19 per cent increase from the same period in 2014. See Office of National Statistics, available at http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/publications/re-reference-tables.html?edition=tcm​%3A77413869 (accessed October 2015). 10  For example, see Tilly (2007) for Mexico, Clarke (2006) and Miller (2006) for South Africa and Zambia and Sirait (2014) for Indonesia—here the gender profile bucks the norm elsewhere and is shaped by local labour market norms, with men constituting approximately 60 per cent of jobs in modern retailers, including Hero owned by Diary Farms. 9

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Services and Logistics Workers The expansion of retail is only one dimension of a wider growth in services associated with the rise of global value chains. Many services are needed to support inter-firm coordination of input supply, production, distribution and marketing in global value chains operating across borders (Elms, Hassami and Low 2017). It is estimated using OECD Trade in Value Added (TiVA) data that the share of services in global exports doubled from an average of 23 per cent in 2008 to 45 per cent in 2013 (Drake-Brokman 2018). Services are also the largest and fastest growing employer, accounting for just over half of global total employment in 2017. Overall, services account for a significant proportion of global female employment, and 57 per cent of services employment in 2017 was female (ibid.). While women are predominant as employees, relatively few rise to managerial positions. In contrast to other service activities, logistics employment has long been male dominated. As logistics (including warehousing, shipping, rail, road and air transport) covers many traditionally discrete sectors that span multiple countries, data on global employment levels are unreliable and under-researched, by both sector analysts and academics (Coe and Hess 2013; Turnbull 2013). The few available studies on the gender profile of logistical employment find that a strong bias prevails against employing women (WISC 2010; Higgins 2012; Turnbull 2013). In the UK an estimated 1.5 million people were employed in land, water and air transport, warehousing and support activities (including postal services) in 2011, of which 24 per cent were female.11 A study for the ILO also found low levels of female participation in logistics employment across 35 countries. The percentage of women in transport, storage and communication ranged from 1.4 per cent of employment in Pakistan to 37.4 per cent in Hong Kong (China)—and in all countries were below the percentage of women in the labour force overall (Turnbull 2013:3–4). The traditional argument that logistical labour requires physical strength is increasingly less relevant given levels of technological and computerized innovation. However, long distance travel required in some parts of the logistics chain can deter women with childcare responsibilities. Logistics has been an important facilitator of JIT delivery into retail stores, with new forms of flexible work helping to enable this. It is argued that pressure from increasingly dominant global retailers for greater cost savings, along with competition between logistic providers to attain this in order to win contracts, has had adverse 11

 http://www.logisticslocker.com/assets/docs/Latest_Statistics_for_Logistics_Sector.pdf (accessed September 2015). Coe and Hess (2013) estimate 1.01 million UK logistics workers excluding postal services.

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implications for workers within the logistics industry (Bonacich and Hamilton 2011; Newsome 2015). Research on labour conditions is limited, but available case studies indicate an overall deterioration in terms and conditions for many, though certainly not all, workers. Studies focused on working conditions within North America and western Europe have found a move away from permanent secure employment, with its associated benefits and access to independent trade unions, towards greater use of ‘contingent’ workers. The latter are often sourced through third-party labour intermediaries, using migrant labour to lower labour standards and weaken unions (Bonacich 2005; Bensman 2008; Newsome 2015). However, there are examples of innovative organizing strategies being developed by global unions, including in the logistics and transport sectors (Anderson et al. 2010).

Workers in Global Production At the level of production, there is no reliable aggregate data on the number of workers in global value chains. The ILO has provided one estimate for 40 countries including OECD members and the BRIC (Brazil, Russian, India and China) bloc. This estimates that global value chains generate approximately 453 million jobs, 190 million (42 per cent) of which are female (ILO 2015b). A significant share of these jobs is located in China (39.2 per cent) and India (16.8 per cent) (ILO 2016b). This estimate excludes lower-income developing countries, where much labour-intensive production takes place. Many precarious workers including home workers and small-scale producers are not included in these labour market statistics (Christian et al. 2013). Aggregate estimates therefore present a partial picture, and those available need to be treated with caution.12 A recent global survey of suppliers was undertaken as part of research on purchasing practices and working conditions carried out by the ILO in association with the Joint Ethical Trading Initiatives in 2017 (ILO 2017b). This survey has generated new data on workers focused on global value chains. The survey sample included 1,454 suppliers employing a total of 1.5 million workers in 87 countries. The suppliers were drawn from 15 sectors by economic activity, including garment, food manufacture, crop and animal production and paper products. The firms participating in the survey were all members of Sedex, a platform for sharing social audit data on supply chains.13 Suppliers on Sedex participate in global value  T he OECD Trade in Value Added (TiVA) programme is planning to provide estimates of jobs which will be made available on their website http://www.oecd.org/sti/ind/measuringtrade-in-value-added.htm. 13  Sedex members include some of the world’s largest retailers and consumer brands from a wide number of industries and sectors in 150 countries across the world. See https://www. sedexglobal.com/about-us/ (accessed December 2017). 12

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chains mainly supplying retailers in the Global North and brands that operate codes of labour practice and require social audits. The survey found that of the total 1.5 million workers, 40.5 per cent were female. Women were found to be over-represented in some sectors such as garment (57 per cent) but generally under-represented in other sectors where no female occupation achieved the 50 per cent parity threshold. Women were also found to be under-represented in managerial positions and across all sectors women occupy less than 20 per cent top executives. Given insufficient data availability at an aggregate level, meso-level sector data provides another source of information. Next, I will provide a brief overview of employment in horticulture and apparel drawing on industry and case study data and information, which will be explored in more detail in later chapters. This complements the commercial overview of the horticulture and apparel value chains provided in Chapter 2.

Workers in Horticulture Production The profile of horticultural production and work is very varied across countries. Smallholder production prevails in some countries (for example, India, China, Uganda and Kenya); larger scale farming involving waged labour prevails in other countries (for example, South Africa and Brazil). Horticulture overall provides a crucial source of income for smallholders, wage-workers and their dependents. Aggregate data for workers in horticulture is even less easily available than in manufacturing industries such as apparel given high levels of seasonal work and prevalence of smallholders in many countries. Women contribute a significant amount of labour in agriculture, but much of this is on a casual basis or as family labour, and their contribution is often unrecognized given they are not in formal employment or the recognized farm landowner (World Bank 2009). It is difficult to estimate what proportion of workers and smallholders in FFV production are linked to retail value chains given produce also goes to traditional markets. Table 3.2 provides examples of the profile of smallholder and wage labour working in FFV in selected countries. In South Africa the fruit sector employs 400,000 workers with an estimated 2 million dependents. In Kenya an estimated 3.5 million smallholders are involved in all forms of horticulture and floriculture production, 220,000 linked to exports, which is led by larger producers. Table 3.2 indicates the significant percentage of women involved in FFV value chains in some countries. It also provides estimates of the number of indirect dependents supported by workers, indicating their importance in supporting wider livelihoods in developing countries (Barrientos 2014a). Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Stockholm University Library, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:29:09, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.004

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Gender and Work in Global Value Chains Table 3.2  Estimated number of horticulture workers and smallholders in selected countries

Country/product South Africa fruita Kenya FFV and flowersb Uganda floriculturec Chile FFV and processingd Senegal French beanse

Smallholders

Wage-workers

Female labour (est. %)

Indirect/ dependants

n/a 220,000* n/a n/a n/a

400,000*** 100,000** 7,000 474,000 12,000

53 75 65–75 52**** 90

2,000,000 2,000,000 35,000 n/a n/a

Sources: aCGA (2011); SATGI (2011); Hortgro (2012); and Fruit SA website (http://www. fruitsa-ethical.org.za/who-is-fruit-south-africa.php, accessed June 2012); bOxfam/IPL (2013); cIndustry estimates cited in Evers et al. (2014); dDolan and Sorby (2003); FernandezStark et al. (2011a); eMaertens and Swinnen (2012). Notes: *Fresh vegetables for export (2009); **mainly flowers for export (2010); ***fruit only—​deciduous, citrus, grapes, subtropical (2011); ****of temporary workers (Dolan and Sorby 2003).

Workers in Apparel Production Apparel production has long been dominated by female labour. Prior to the industrial revolution, spinning and weaving were often undertaken by women within households or as small-scale artisanal production through the puttingout system, and clothes largely made at home in poorer households. Apparel production played an important role in industrialization in Europe and North America, where women and children were the primary textile and garment workforce (Beckert 2014). In part, this reflected prevailing gender norms that accepted the transfer of women’s work within households to factory-based production (Honeyman 2000). It also reflected the use of women and children as a cheap and pliable labour force based on their ‘nimble fingers’ in a low-skilled labour-intensive industry (Elson and Pearson 1981). As production shifted to lower labour-cost developing countries in the post-war period, women again became a primary source of labour in most countries. Apparel production often generated significant waged employment for women in countries where few women had previously participated in the paid labour force. In many countries, rural women migrate to cities to work in apparel. This can provide a form of release from more oppressive gender norms prevailing in their rural communities (Kabeer 2000; Carswell 2016). However, many leave apparel production or return to their villages after a few years, often in order to marry and raise families. Hence, the turnover rate of women apparel workers can be high in many locations. Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Stockholm University Library, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:29:09, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.004



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Significant numbers of people are estimated to be working at different stages across the full cotton–textile–apparel value chain. Beckert estimates that there are approximately 110 million households involved in growing cotton, 90 million workers in transportation, ginning and warehousing and 60 million workers involved in spinning, weaving and stitching (Beckert 2014:431). Women constitute the majority of apparel workers globally, but this can vary between countries. As Table 3.3 shows, approximately 55–90 per cent of the 60 million garment workers are female depending on the country, with high percentages of women workers in Indonesia (90 per cent), China (80 per cent) and Bangladesh (55–70 per cent). In India, women dominate the workforce in the Bangalore area of south India but men represent the majority of factory workers in northern India; women are concentrated in home-based work where much garment embellishment takes place (Mezzadri and Srivastava 2015). It is estimated that women constitute 45 per cent in textiles and 46 per cent in leather and footwear, although in some countries women constitute up to 90 per cent of employees in these industries (ILO 2014). These data provide an incomplete picture, as many women workers are involved in informal or home-based production, where data are limited or unavailable. Therefore, while predominantly feminized, fragmented paid work in garments also reflects interaction with local societal norms that shape its gender profile and vary between countries. The diverse and changing gender profiles of garment work in Bangladesh and India are examined further in Chapter 7. In both agri-food and apparel, women have been drawn in as internal migrants from rural communities where previously they had limited access to paid work. In some countries (particularly in Asia), where traditional societal norms had confined women’s role to the home and local community, this provided their first access to paid employment (Kabeer 2000; Kabeer and Mahmud 2004). At upper tiers of the value chain some jobs can be relatively stable and well paid, with good Table 3.3  Number of apparel workers in selected countries Country China Bangladesh India Vietnam Indonesia Jordan

Number of textile workersa

Number of garment workersa

% garment workers femaleb

6,700,000 n/a 1,379,264 195,551 498,005 3,797

4,501,100 3,100,000(c) 862,689 844,069 464,777 33,683

80 55–70 n/a 80 90 70

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conditions. However, often women constitute a flexible labour force that works on a casual or seasonal basis, with low pay, poor conditions of employment and little social protection. In retail value chains where downward pressure on prices and JIT delivery prevail, the use of flexible female workers helps to minimize wage and nonwage costs (for example, social insurance). Subcontracting of production to lower tiers also means drawing smallholders and home workers into lower tiers of retail supply networks. Women predominate among home-based and own account workers and unpaid family labour in smallholder agriculture (Schmitz and McCormick 2001; World Bank 2009). In some segments of retail value chains, the commercial pressures of supply have also driven an increased use of third-party labour contractors using internal and international migrant labour (Barrientos 2013b). In sum, we can see that retail value chains have helped break down gender boundaries that traditionally confined women to unpaid work within households and opened up opportunities for increased paid work for them. This has been particularly important in low-income developing countries where women’s access to labour markets has traditionally been very limited. However, much of this work is fragmented, with women concentrated in insecure jobs or unrecognized as contributing family. Societally embedded gender norms that view women’s role as subordinate to that of men persist within the commercial sphere of retail and production. A gendered ‘glass ceiling’ prevails across retail value chains. At the same time, they are not static but constantly undergoing processes of change.

Gender Mapping of Agri-food Value Chain To provide a more integrated gender profile, I will now undertake an illustrative gender mapping of the value chain. This indicates the types of work undertaken by women and men in each segment of the agri-food value chain linked to selected UK supermarkets. In this section I bring together this information to inform a more nuanced examination of the gender patterns of work in value chains. Figure 3.1 provides a simplified gender mapping of a global retailer agri-food value chain. The left-hand column identifies the different categories of work that can be found across segments: board level, senior management, supervisors and permanent workers, temporary and seasonal workers, smallholders and homebased workers, and labour contractors. The top row identifies the different tiers of the value chain including agricultural production, processing, intermediary agents, logistics and retailers. It also includes two additional tiers to illustrate the gendered roles of customers and consumers in the agri-food value chain. There are challenges undertaking this gender mapping, given the lack of gender disaggregated data available for firms across different value chain tiers. This is an Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Stockholm University Library, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:29:09, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.004



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Figure 3.1  Illustrative gender mapping of supermarket agri-food global value chain

Source: Author.

illustrative mapping only based on piecing together data and information from different sources for the agri-food value chain of a typical UK supermarket. The source of data for different tiers and categories of employee/work is provided below. Each tier and related categories of work in Figure 3.2 illustrates the gender ratio of employees or workers using different pattern coding. Zigzag lines are used to indicate where the majority are women (>55 per cent range), straight horizontal lines are used to indicate where the majority are men (>55 per cent range) and dots are used to indicate where there is a greater gender balance between women and men (45–55 per cent range) of employees/workers. It is important to note that the mapping provides illustrative approximations only; hence, I provide percentage ranges rather than hard data. Starting with consumers on the far right-hand side of the figure, official data indicate that women constituted 50.7 per cent of the UK population in 2015.14 Even if men and women consume food in different quantities, I assume the gender ratio of consumption is within the 45–55 per cent range. However, we need to distinguish between consumers and customers who purchase goods. As discussed in Chapter 2, industry estimates indicate that women make 70 per cent or more of actual food purchases and therefore fall into the >55 per cent range in Figure 3.2. Neither the consumer nor customer tiers are broken down by category of employment or work, as there is no information available. 14

 http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.POP.TOTL.FE.ZS (accessed July 2015).

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Gender and Work in Global Value Chains Figure 3.2  Typology of workers across different sectors

Source: Adapted from Barrientos et al. (2011).

Moving across the different value chain tiers in Figure 3.1 from right to left. The data for retailers come from company reports, summarized in Table 3.1, providing information on the gender profile of work across four global supermarkets. These indicate that over 55 per cent of senior board and management positions are occupied by men, that there is a better gender balance in the 45–55 per cent range for female and male permanent and supervisory workers, but women occupy over 55 per cent of temporary and part-time workers. The data for logistics are more sparse than retailers and come from sources discussed earlier (WISC 2010; Higgins 2012; Turnbull 2013). This indicates men constitute the majority of workers across every tier of the logistics value chains as depicted in Figure 3.1. Moving to the production, processing and intermediary segments, the sources for the Board and Senior Management categories come from African horticultural research discussed in Chapters 6 and 8 of this book. This indicates that the majority of board and senior management are male, with women falling into the 55 per cent), but there is a balance between female and male temporary and female workers (45–55 per cent). The gender profile of smallholders and labour contractors is mixed, but audit data are less reliable at this level. The gender ratios provided in this illustrative mapping are also supported by case studies in African horticulture examined in previous research (Barrientos 2013b). However, as indicated above, women’s role as contributing family labour in smallholder production is often unrecognized and does not show up in the data. This illustrative mapping provides a more detailed empirical picture of how fragmented work is located across value chain tiers. It indicates that gender inequalities are systemic within value chains encompassing different activities and developed and developing countries. When we disaggregate each tier by category of work, men are predominant in the managerial categories and in permanent and supervisory work at every tier. Women are more often employed in similar numbers to men or predominate in the lower levels of temporary waged work and smallholder/home-based categories across retail value chains. It is in these lower categories that work is less well remunerated, more flexible and more insecure. We will now explore the underlying trajectories that can affect this gender pattern of work.

Downgrading and Upgrading Trajectories The above empirical mapping provides a static gender profile of workers. However, global retail value chains are also commercially dynamic, involving constant change as retailers and brands compete and seek more lucrative positions, with implications for shaping gender patterns of work. The concepts of economic and social downgrading and upgrading enable further examination of how value chain trajectories and fragmented work interact. Overall downgrading (both economic and social) allows us to unpack the links between suppliers located in low-value activities and implications for their workers, which I broadly term the ‘low road’. Overall upgrading (both economic and social) provides insights into whether a of all their workforce across different categories. However, there are risks using social audit data (for example, false reporting) and should be treated with caution. Nevertheless, it provides the most accessible data at supplier level currently available. It is quite possible that retailers share suppliers, and there is an overlap between workers. This does not affect Figure 3.1, given it only indicates the gender ratio of workers, not absolute numbers. Social standards and social auditing as forms of private governance will be examined in depth in Chapter 9. Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Stockholm University Library, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:29:09, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.004

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move by suppliers to higher-value activities translates into equitable improvements for their workers, which I broadly term the ‘high road’. A number of studies examining the outcomes for suppliers and workers in global value chains have found that there is no simple trajectory. Successful value chain participation by suppliers normally requires some level of economic upgrading, but many suppliers are unable or unwilling to upgrade (Ponte and Ewert 2009; Barrientos et al. 2016). Where it occurs, economic upgrading can, but does not necessarily, lead to the social upgrading of workers (Bernhardt and Milberg 2011). Suppliers firmly positioned in the low road of economic downgrading trap workers in low-paid, insecure, informal jobs with few rights (Phillips 2011). Or firms and workers are excluded from value chain access altogether (Bair and Werner 2011). Here I will examine tensions between the commercial and social drivers of upgrading and downgrading. This will provide a framework for examining empirical case studies that follow in Chapters 5–8 from cocoa, horticulture, floriculture and apparel. These illustrate how diverse downgrading and upgrading outcomes can occur for different groups of fragmented workers, often within the same value chains or firms.

Def ining Economic and Social Upgrading and Downgrading The concept of ‘upgrading’ has long played an important role in GVC analysis. In the early literature, the focus was on industrial upgrading of firms (Gereffi et al. 2001, 2005; Humphrey and Schmitz 2002). In order to broaden the analysis further, the concept of economic upgrading was adopted to more clearly incorporate agriculture and services as well as industrial manufacture, and extended to incorporate the social upgrading of workers and small-scale producers (Barrientos et al. 2011). Economic upgrading broadly relates to suppliers moving to higher-value activities within global value chains. This draws on a four-fold categorization (Humphrey and Schmitz 2002; Gereffi et al. 2005): 1. Process upgrading that involves changes in the production process with the objective of making it more efficient; this could involve a substitution of capital for labour (for example, higher productivity through mechanization) and hence a reduction of skilled work 2. Product upgrading, where more advanced product types are introduced, which often require more skilled jobs to make an item with enhanced features 3. Functional upgrading, which involves firms changing the mix of activities performed towards higher-value added higher skilled tasks 4. Chain upgrading, which involves moving from one type of lower-value GVC (such as apparel) to a high-value chain (such as IT hardware or business services) Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Stockholm University Library, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:29:09, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.004



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Economic downgrading occurs where suppliers are unable to participate in value chains based on the criteria above, often because they lack the capabilities needed to meet buyer standards and conditions. Some researchers have examined ‘strategic downgrading’ where suppliers choose to opt out of export markets as a result of commercial pressures exerted by global buyers (Gibbon and Ponte 2005; Ponte and Ewert 2009). Global retail and regional supermarkets’ expansion within middle- and lower-income countries has also affected upgrading and downgrading by opening up a wider range of possibilities through ‘strategic diversification’, where producers choose to supply a mix of export, regional and domestic value chains with different levels of buyer stringency (Barrientos et al. 2016). From a gender perspective, economic upgrading relates to women-owned enterprises moving to higher-value activities, expansion of sourcing from womenowned suppliers and gender-equitable access to higher-productivity work that supports process, product or functional upgrading. However, women entrepreneurs often face challenges accessing retail value chains or are locked into downgrading positions. Barriers include insufficient capabilities to meet standards, lack of finance and resources or reticence of many (not all) retailers to source from smaller femaleowned enterprises (Scott 2016). Social upgrading is broadly defined as providing better incomes and conditions for workers, both waged and home-based (smallholders are examined later). It can be disaggregated into improvements in output standards that are easily measurable, such as wages, working hours and health and safety, and improvements in enabling rights, such as freedom of association and no discrimination (less tangible or easily measured) (Elliott and Freeman 2003; Barrientos, Gereffi and Rossi 2011). The outcomes are positive, enhancing the well-being of workers’ households and communities. From a gender perspective, social upgrading should also attain more gender-equitable outcomes for both female and male workers. Social downgrading relates to the reverse and involves more exploitative low-paid work with few rights or benefits. Thus, this leads to adverse outcomes for workers’ households and communities. Downgrading outcomes can also lead to more gender inequality between male and female workers. At a macro level, Bernhardt and Milberg (2011) analysed economic and social upgrading subject to available data availability for selected countries in apparel, horticulture, tourism and mobile phones.16 Their findings indicate that, in different cases, economic and social downgrading can occur either separately or together 16

 The indicators selected for economic upgrading/downgrading were change in world export market share and change in export unit values, and for social upgrading/downgrading were percentage change in employment growth and percentage change in real wages for the same sectors and countries. These indicators were based on available data, given limited data availability on global value chains at that time. This has since been addressed by the OECD/

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(Bernhardt and Milberg 2011; Milberg and Winkler 2013). Mixed outcomes also occur in some country sectors, where growth in export market share is associated with declining unit export values. Likewise, for social upgrading, mixed outcomes were found where overall trends in employment growth were often associated with lower real wages. Their conclusion is that expanding participation in global value chains can but does not necessarily result in higher-paying jobs or, by implication, overall improvement in terms and conditions of employment. A macro approach to economic and social upgrading or downgrading can provide gender insights through use of gender-disaggregated data, and can be refined to take account of the gender ratio of employment and gender pay gaps in relation to income. This helps in assessing whether sectors with a higher concentration of female employment experience upgrading or downgrading relative to others and also whether economic upgrading leads to an increase or decrease in female employment and incomes (discussed in Chapter 10). However, macro data availability limits the analysis to formal employment recorded in national labour market statistics. This often fails to capture casual and informal work in global value chains, as highlighted by the analysis of fragmented work above. Women often work on an informal and casual basis that is not officially recorded in national statistics, or in agriculture, where accurate statistics are weak or unavailable (Chen et al. 2004). A macro-level analysis suffers from the same limitations as those for which feminist political economy criticizes conventional economic analysis: overlooking unpaid work in the reproductive sphere largely undertaken by women (Folbre 1994). Analysing the drivers underlying changing gender relations in a global value chain context requires deeper investigation of articulations between commercial dynamics and societally embedded gender relations. At the meso level of different sectors, a more diverse picture unfolds of economic upgrading based on the different sectors and skills levels needed. Figure 3.2 provides a simplified framework for examining economic upgrading across five sectors based on different levels of labour, capital and technological intensity, and different levels of skilled work within each sector. It distinguishes between highskilled, moderate-skilled, low-skilled and small-scale household work (informal and smallholder farmers). It shows that a higher proportion of lower-skilled and small-scale household-based work can be found within lower-technology and labour-intensive sectors such as agriculture and apparel, with higher proportions of moderate and high-skilled workers found in high-technology and capitalintensive industries such as electronics and business services. However, it also WTO TiVA Initiative. See http://www.oecd.org/industry/ind/measuringtradeinvalueaddedanoecd-wtojointinitiative.htm (accessed September 2015 and November 2018). Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Stockholm University Library, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:29:09, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.004



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acknowledges that both skilled and unskilled workers are required within all sectors, albeit in differing proportions. The illustrative gender value chain mapping of the agri-food value chain in Figure 3.1 indicates that women are concentrated (in this sector at least) in lowerskilled labour-intensive work and small-scale household-based work. However, this also raises questions about how ‘quality’ and ‘skill’ are defined in a value chain context. The linkages between upgrading, skills and rights are gendered. Many skills socially acquired in the home and wider society are often undervalued and poorly remunerated (Phillips and Taylor 1980; Elson and Pearson 1981). Where suppliers upgrade and enhance their capabilities, they often need more skilled workers. However, availability of skilled labour can be constrained by prevailing gender inequalities within firms and wider society. This includes lack of recognition of women’s skills, discrimination in hiring and promotion, household and community pressures mitigating against women’s advancement. Upgrading strategies requiring more skilled labour can in some circumstances disrupt prevailing gender norms, enhancing the terms and conditions offered to recruit and retain skilled workers. Chapter 4 will provide a further gender analysis of how ‘skills’ are changing in a global value chain context. Examples of this from flowers and apparel will be provided in Chapter 8. In some contexts, social upgrading can benefit women workers and their households, with the potential to enhance gender equality. At a micro level, outcomes for workers also depend on strategies of labour control pursued by individual firms. Approaches to labour control in the industrial relations and labour process literatures have until recently mainly focused on workers within firms and nationally bounded labour markets (Lakhani et al. 2013). However, there is a growing literature on interactions between global value chains or production networks and local labour regimes that can vary significantly across sectors and locations (for example, Selwyn 2007; Newsome 2015; Smith et al. 2018). Employment relations are no longer confined to individual employers and their workers, but can also be influenced by the strategies of buyers operating well beyond the national jurisdiction of the workplace. Different strategies of control of fragmented labour can be identified in a global value chain context associated with economic and social downgrading or upgrading trajectories. The low-road strategy associated with downgrading is commonly found in low-cost labour-intensive regimes (Burawoy 1985; Wright 2000). The search for lower-wage production has long been an important driver of footloose global sourcing in search of locations where labour is unorganized and low cost. Labour process theory examines the challenge of labour control given the indeterminacy of labour, where employers’ hiring of labour is alone insufficient to determine the Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Stockholm University Library, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:29:09, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.004

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degree of effort exerted by workers (Newsome et al. 2015). In a low-road context, labour process theory posits that employers address the indeterminacy of labour through coercive and exploitative strategies in order to maximize output and profit (Braverman 1974; Peck 1996; Rainnie et al. 2011). From a Marxist perspective, labour control is analysed through the prism of class analysis and capitalist exploitation of labour, to reinforce processes of capital accumulation (Selwyn 2012). Emphasis is on the coercive control of labour to maximize surplus value extraction within sites of production. The rise of global sourcing through global value chains facilitates the spatial mobility of ‘footloose’ lead firms that can easily switch between suppliers in search of lower costs. The perceived or actual threat that buyers may relocate to other suppliers or even countries disciplines workers to accept their lot (Peck 1996; Silver 2003). The use of third-party labour contractors helps to both flexibly adjust the supply of labour within firms and also outsource the control of workers to external agents (Rogaly 2008; Barrientos 2013; McGrath 2018). The use of third-party intermediaries to source from home-based workers and smallholders also helps to extend labour control beyond firms to households linked to value chains (Vorley et al. 2007; Mezzadri and Srivastava 2015). Low-road strategies associated with economic and social downgrading have led some to argue globalization is characterized by a ‘race to the bottom’ (Sengenberger 2002). In contrast, a high-road strategy of labour control is associated with economic and social upgrading. It aims to attain quality and consistency through enhancement and retention of skilled workers able to meet higher quality levels. From a labour process perspective, this involves firm strategies that provide incentives and conciliation to reduce labour turnover and mobility between jobs in search of better pay and conditions (Smith 2006). This is underpinned by the promotion of professional human resource management, technological innovation and skills development, as well as career progression within and across companies (Ramirez and Rainbird 2010; Price 2011; Fernandez-Stark, Bamber and Gereffi 2012). It is also reflected in buyer strategies aimed at supporting suppliers to upgrade their labour force through training programmes, skills enhancement and worker welfare support. Buyer codes of labour practice that promote workers’ rights and conditions can also form part of an upgrading approach. Such strategies can help to ratchet up labour standards and promote decent work (Sabel, O’Rourke and Fung 2000; ILO 2016a). From a gender perspective, labour control transcends places of work and home, facilitated I would argue by fragmented work examined earlier. Criticism of the concept of economic and social downgrading and upgrading often focuses narrowly on capital–labour relations within sites of production (for example, Selwyn 2013).This fails to take sufficient account of wider buyer pressures on cost, Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Stockholm University Library, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:29:09, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.004



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JIT and quality, and the gendered implications for different groups of workers. Nor of the embeddedness of production in gender norms that underpin the relations between paid and unpaid work across global value chains and the benefits and challenges faced by many women workers. In a fragmented workforce, labour control extends beyond the workplace shaped by prevailing gender relations. Wider societal norms that subordinate women confine them to more insecure forms of work, ensuring mobility between paid and unpaid work, limiting their ability to organize or attain rights. These often enforce control over women’s work by male managers and supervisors both within and beyond workplaces (Wright 2006). This can encompass repression of women’s reproductive rights, pregnancy testing as a determinant of employment (Pearson and Kusakabe 2012), or sexual harassment and verbal abuse as a means of exerting power over women workers (WWW 2014). The agency of flexible female workers is further constrained by their need to sustain dependents and households in situations where they have little alternative to insecure and low income jobs (Dunaway 2014). Yet global value chains also provide opportunities for women workers to seek economic independence and move beyond the social constraints of home or village (Kabeer 2000). Where they are able to take advantage of value chain upgrading through up-skilling and access to better labour standards, some women workers can benefit from high-road trajectories (Werner 2012). Hence, economic and social downgrading and upgrading can have mixed gendered outcomes for different groups of workers that need further exploration.

Small-scale Agriculture and Home-based Work The analysis needs to be modified slightly when applying the concepts of economic and social upgrading and downgrading to home-based workers and smallholders in agriculture as opposed to large-scale producers employing wage labour. In homebased and smallholder production, the household is often both the enterprise and the source of labour. The distinction between paid commercial and unpaid subsistence becomes blurred. Here economic upgrading and social upgrading in developing countries are more strongly influenced by embedded norms and institutions. Home-based and smallholder workers often face social constraints on working outside their households or accessing incomes independently, even where opportunities arise. Social norms and legal constraints limit women’s access to land and productive assets (Agarwal 1995; World Bank 2009). Women often work unpaid alongside male relatives, who give them limited access to household income. Even where they are the effective entrepreneur or farmer, they often lack legal or social recognition, limiting access to credit and other resources. Located at lower Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Stockholm University Library, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:29:09, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.004

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tiers on the value chain, women are vulnerable to exploitation by intermediaries who buy their products on adverse terms and sell to higher-tier suppliers. Women in particular in home-based and smallholder production are often unrecognized and excluded from relevant statistics, and endure forms of adverse incorporation into value chains (Chen et al. 1999; World Bank 2009; Phillips 2011). In this context, economic and social upgrading can be achieved by means of more equitable participation within households as well as better chain access and improved incomes and conditions of supply (KIT 2012). Outcomes should also enhance the well-being of workers’ households and communities. Social upgrading can also involve moving out unpaid or poorly remunerated home-based or smallholder work into paid work in larger enterprises. Studies have found that women in poor rural villages, subject to strong patriarchal controls, can find it liberating to move to paid work in garments or agribusiness in towns and cities (Barrientos et al. 1999; De Neve and Carswell 2010). Outcomes are therefore complex and, as examined in Chapter 4, can be affected by levels of individual or collective contestation.

Downgrading and Upgrading Trade-offs and Trajectories Two trajectories of overall upgrading (high road) and downgrading (low road) can be discerned from the preceding discussion, but a more nuanced analysis is also needed of the tensions underpinning them. Suppliers are constantly juggling tradeoffs between cost, quality and speed to market. I have examined how these tradeoffs are affected by changing value chain requirements and societal embeddedness, where ‘quality’ relates not simply to the product but also to wider social norms. How firms deal with these trade-offs can vary depending on the sector, location, managerial capabilities, value chain position and whether a firm has a strategy of upgrading. Juggling these trade-offs means there is no clear binary divide between upgrading and downgrading. They elucidate polar ends of a continuum that may involve differing combinations, reflected in an overall upgrading or downgrading trajectory or direction of travel. At the low end of the continuum, cost and speed to market are the main drivers. Downgrading was clearly identifiable in the original offshoring of labour-intensive production from developed to developing countries in the 1980s. Cost and speed to market continue to be a driver in footloose labour-intensive industries, such as apparel. A downgrading trajectory is maintained in many sections of retail value chains through buyer pressure on supplier costs and speed of delivery, discussed in Chapter 2. Downgrading is often found in arms-length supply chain relations involving sourcing from suppliers with low capabilities. It is more common in labourDownloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Stockholm University Library, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:29:09, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.004



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intensive production with lower levels of capital investment. The exploitation of labour means workers are treated as a ‘cost’ to be minimized and as ‘disposable’ inputs that can easily be replaced. This has degrading outcomes for the terms and conditions of workers and the well-being of their households. The poor treatment of women workers in particular also reflects societal norms in which women are seen as subordinate, with their work undervalued and under-remunerated (Wright 2006; Raworth and Kidder 2009; Dunaway 2014). Along the continuum between the low and the high, a mix of downgrading and upgrading trajectories reflect differing strategies to manage commercial tensions between cost, quality and speed to market. Enhancing quality and productivity may contribute to improved conditions for some workers (particularly those in permanent and regular employment). However, coping simultaneously with cost and speed to market pressures leads to a greater reliance on more flexible labour with poorer wages and conditions (Barrientos and Kritzinger 2004; Rossi 2013). How this translates for specific groups of workers can vary across suppliers. It is possible to find two similar factories with the same buyer in close proximity where the conditions of employment are better for one group of workers than for the other (Locke 2013). The extent to which upgrading or downgrading prevails can depend on many factors, including buyer–supplier relations, the attitude of suppliers towards their workers, worker contestation and the wider societal and regulatory context. At the high end of economic upgrading, attaining quality and value chain innovation are more important. Suppliers are more likely to economically upgrade if they can occupy a particular value chain niche or are able to invest in the capabilities needed to move to higher-value-added or efficient production. Skilled labour can play an important role in economic upgrading, supporting a move to higher-value activities through investment in innovation and capabilities. In a value chain context, these are not limited to ‘tangible’ skills determined by education levels, qualifications or on-the-job training. They also involve ‘intangible’ skills, including the ability to produce consistent quality outputs, adapt to new methods of working, innovate and work in teams or comply with buyer quality standards.

Concluding Remarks Global retail has helped to reshape gender patterns of work, facilitating a shift from unpaid provision of many consumer goods within households to purchase of commercially produced goods. Global retail value chains have opened up significant channels for women to enter paid work. However, the commercial dynamics of speed, cost and quality also drives the increasing fragmentation of work. Gender inequalities are systemic across retail value chains, where women are largely Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Stockholm University Library, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:29:09, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.004

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concentrated in more insecure and poorly remunerated work and men in higherpaid and more senior jobs. This perpetuates gender norms prevailing in most countries where women were often previously excluded from formal labour markets and occupy only subordinate positions in paid work. These processes play out differently across geographical locations, where gender norms shaping the division of labour and women’s participation in productive and reproductive activities can vary greatly. Fragmented work provides the ‘oil’ that facilitates attainment of JIT, low cost and quality across retail value chains. Fragmented workers (permanent, temporary, casual, home-based or in smallholder agriculture) are found at most tiers of global retail value chains. The concentration of women in lower categories of work and lower value chain tiers reflects deeply embedded gender norms that undervalue their contribution and position at the interface of paid productive and unpaid reproductive work. This underpins a commercial model that allows lead firms to offset costs and risks onto lower-tier suppliers and workers. However, this is not a linear process. Economic and social downgrading and upgrading provides a framework for examining diverse trajectories for suppliers and workers that can be found in global retail value chains. The control of fragmented labour in global value chains is not linear, but multifaceted often combining a low-road dimension for casual and contract labour, and a high-road dimension for permanent and regular workers in the same production site (Rossi 2013). Whether and how women workers access upgrading depends, I will argue in later chapters, on levels of contestation, which can vary between sectors and locations. However, it is important to recognize prevailing tensions in global value chains that can not only reinforce gender discrimination but also open up opportunities to challenge gender norms that have long subordinated women workers.

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4 Global (re)Production Networks Analysis Introduction The transformation of global retail that has taken place over the past three decades is associated with changing gendered patterns of work. The previous two chapters explored this transformation empirically, fleshing out the commercial dynamics of global retailers and their supply networks as well as the role fragmented work plays in facilitating global value chains. Global retail expansion has fed on and fuelled the changing role of women who constitute the majority of their customers and increasingly juggle paid work with household responsibilities. Global sourcing provides the channel through which a wide range of goods is available at reasonably affordable prices on a JIT basis. Hundreds of millions of workers, a significant proportion female, are now deployed in labour-intensive global production, mainly in emerging and low-income countries. This chapter focuses on the analytical dimension of the global retail transformation and associated changing gender patterns of work. The rise of global retail value chains challenges the underlying assumptions of much conventional analysis of markets, labour and gender. Prevailing analyses of production and trade have largely assumed that exchange takes place through markets within and between countries. Yet in global value chains, lead firms govern their supply chains without ownership, and coordinate production and trade across suppliers spanning multiple countries. Prevailing analysis of labour has largely assumed the predominance of an employer–employee relationship regulated within national labour markets. Yet in retail value chains, lead firms that operate outside the national legal jurisdiction of suppliers and their workers can also influence supplier employment relations. Prevailing analysis of gender tends to assume a division of labour between the productive sphere of paid work and the reproductive sphere of unpaid work. Yet in retail value chains, the commercialization of household consumer goods and the feminization of employment are blurring the boundaries between productive and reproductive labour, as well as paid and unpaid work. This chapter analytically addresses the core questions of this book: How are global retail value chains shaping gender patterns of work, and what are the Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Stockholm University Library, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:32:07, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.005

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gendered outcomes for workers? I draw on a combination of analytical approaches to investigate this question. GVC analysis provides important insights into the economic sphere through its focus on commercial relations between retailers, agents and suppliers that transcend national borders. The related approach of GPN analysis helps in further examining the societal embeddedness of firms, with more focus on value extraction, asymmetries of power and embeddedness. Neither approach pays sufficient attention to gender relations and the relation between commercial production and social reproduction. I combine GVC and GPN analyses with insights from feminist political economy and labour studies to examine changing gender patterns of work in a value chain context. Together, these different approaches enable exploration of shifting gender boundaries between the economic sphere encompassing commercial production and the societal sphere encompassing social reproduction.1 These provide insights into changing gender patterns of work in a global retail value chain context that cross labour markets of many countries. To advance the analysis, I develop the framework of G(r)PN drawing on Kelly (2009) to focus attention on the interactions or articulations between the economic and societal spheres enveloping production and reproduction. The G(r)PN framework elucidates three dimensions. First, embedded tensions prevail within commercial value chains between JIT and cost versus quality (including social and environmental standards). I argue that embedded tensions also prevail between a commercial dynamic driven by motives of profit and social dynamic driven by motives of caring and well-being. Second, gender articulations emerge between overlapping economic and societal spheres as retail expansion commercializes many household activities, drawing women out of unpaid household into fragmented paid work to produce goods. Here I argue value creation, enhancement and capture are underpinned by social undervaluation of work and skills traditionally undertaken by women, allowing goods to be produced cheaply and enhancing value capture by suppliers and lead firms. Third, contested outcomes emerge where the power of corporate actors is contested through advocacy and campaigns byCSOs, as well as bargaining and resistance by workers (often in lower categories of work). A G(r)PN approach provides a unified framework capable of combining these three dimensions in explaining the reshaping of gender patterns of work in global retail value chains. In particular, this helps to situate the role of contestation as a key driver of change that can affect more gender equitable outcomes for workers.  T he economic sphere more broadly includes other dimensions such as finance and trade; the societal sphere more broadly includes other dimensions such as health and education. My focus in this book is on commercial production and social reproduction, which are also encompassed within the economic and societal spheres.

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However, as later chapters illustrate, this can vary across value chains and locations and for different groups of workers. This chapter is set out as follows: The second section examines critiques of conventional economic analysis and explores alternative analytical approaches to the commercial dimension of global retail value chains, drawing on GVC and GPN analyses. I also draw on feminist political economy to consider the gender implications for analysis of retail, production and trade. The third section elaborates the G(r)PN framework in order to explore further the concepts of embedded tensions, gendered articulations and contested outcomes. This lays the ground for analysing shifting gender boundaries between commercial production in the economic sphere and social reproduction in the societal sphere. The fourth section draws together concluding reflections as an analytical basis to inform the case studies to follow in subsequent chapters.

GVCs: Analysis of Commercial Dynamics The shift from market-based retail to buyer-led retail value chains presents a challenge to conventional economic analysis of production and trade based on market exchange and trade between national economies. This section first examines conventional approaches that have underpinned much analysis of market-led retail and feminist critiques of underlying conventional economics for its failure to take account of social reproduction. It then examines how GVC and GPN analyses have provided new insights into the exploration of contemporary global retail value chains. Drawing on feminist political economy, it considers the implications for analysing gender boundaries between productive and reproductive work.

Global Retail: A Gendered Economic Analysis Chapter 2 empirically examined the shift that took place after the 1990s from market-led nationally based retail to buyer-led global retail value chains. It examined how the onset of ‘globalization’ through liberalization of finance and trade facilitated the global expansion of retailers (mainly US- and European-owned) and the emergence of retail chains within developing countries (Coe and Wrigley 2009). Globalization and structural adjustment policies also facilitated the shift of manufacture production away from developed industrial countries in Europe and North America to newly industrialized and lower-cost developing economies. As retail value chains expanded, global sourcing increasingly took place through supply networks coordinated and controlled, but not owned, by large retailers and brands (Gereffi 1994b; Coe and Wrigley 2009; Hamilton et al. 2011). Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Stockholm University Library, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:32:07, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.005

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The analysis of market-led retail was influenced by neo-classical, Keynesian and later neo-liberal economic approaches prevalent in Europe and North America during different periods of the twentieth century. Neo-classical economics, which gained ascendancy in the late nineteenth century, stud ied free markets mediated through prices determined by supply and demand as the most efficient means of allocating goods and services (Hunt 1991; Himmelweit, Simonetti, and Trigg 2001). Free trade between countries was advocated as the most efficient and wealthenhancing means of international exchange, enabling countries to specialize in the production and export of goods based on their comparative advantage. Following World War II, the Keynesian economic paradigm supplanted the neo-classical approach. It brought macroeconomic policy into frame, emphasizing the need for state-led management of effective demand as a basis for national economic growth. Many development economists and structuralists rejected the notion that free markets and comparative advantage in trade could promote development, arguing for state-led industrialization as the basis for economic growth (Colman and Nixson 1986; Hunt 1991). The Keynesian era of mass consumption was associated with the expansion of Fordist production, providing a fertile environment for the initial growth of nationally based supermarkets and mass merchandisers as a channel for distributing mass consumption goods to a wider population (Piore and Sabel 1984; Shaw et al. 2004). The retail shift that took place in the 1990s was associated with a neo-liberal counter-revolution against Keynesian demand management and state intervention. In theory, the counter-revolution sought a return to the more conventional ‘free market’ and ‘free trade’ economic perspective of neo-classical economics. Leading international institutions (particularly the IMF and World Bank) espoused this approach through SAPs as a condition for lending. The emphasis was on economic liberalization—deregulation of financial, goods and factor markets—as a strategy for promoting economic growth and development (Toye 1993; Gore 2000). Deregulation of global finance also facilitated investment flows to emerging economies. SAPs promoted free trade (particularly by debt-ridden developing countries) and free movement of goods and services. This new economic environment facilitated foreign direct investment by retailers in stores abroad. It also facilitated the expansion of global sourcing from developing countries that were now adopting export oriented policies (Coe and Wrigley 2009; Hamilton et al. 2011). Feminist political economists have long critiqued conventional economics (neoclassical and Keynesian) for failing to analyse the role of social reproduction in the economy (Macintosh 1981; Elson 1991; Gardiner 1997). At a microeconomic level, they critique the narrow neo-classical approach focus on free market exchange underpinned by competitive prices and the utilitarian view of consumers as rational Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Stockholm University Library, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:32:07, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.005



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individuals, based on the notion of ‘rational economic man’ (Folbre 1994). They criticize the way some neo-classical economists examine households, treating them as a ‘black box’ in which the household head (normally assumed to be male) makes decisions. This approach takes insufficient account of intra-household dynamics—how social norms shape gender relations and constrain women in the choices they can make (Amsden 1980; Folbre 1994; Gardiner 1997). At a macroeconomic level, they critique a Keynesian approach that fails to incorporate women’s unpaid work in the home into the calculation of national income and  wealth, promoting policies and institutions that often reinforce women’s subordination (Elson 1991). Feminist political economy examines the relation between production for markets (through paid work traditionally undertaken by men) and social reproduction of current and future generations (largely but not solely undertaken by women within households) (Folbre 1994; Beneria 1979). Social reproduction incorporates a range of interrelated activities such as biological reproduction of children, unpaid production of household goods and delivery of services, including care and voluntary work within communities. Social reproduction theory explores the complex political and economic processes through which most people subsist within capitalist societies through a combination of paid and unpaid work (Bhattacharya 2017). It also examines the reproduction of culture and ideologies that maintain (or can challenge) prevailing social relations (Hoskyns and Rai 2007; Gottfried 2012; Pearson 2014). Bringing social reproduction into the analysis makes visible a dimension of productive activity that remains invisible in much conventional economic analysis.

Global Value Chains and Production Networks: The Gender Dimension An anomaly of global retail value chains is that, despite benefiting greatly from economic liberalization, in practice, they are not a ‘textbook’ example of the neoliberal free market or free trade model asserted by neo-classical economics. Global retail value chains have not negated the role of markets or trade between nation states, but they have altered their structure and functioning at micro, macro and global levels (Milberg and Winkler 2013; Coe and Yeung 2015). Central to this is the way lead firms take advantage of their oligopolistic positioning, pre-programme and coordinate sourcing strategies, and exercise governance over suppliers, without owning production, across borders. Gereffi (1994b) was among the first to analyse the changing dynamics of global value chains, highlighting retailers and brands as key drivers of offshoring and global sourcing.This had significant implications for both developed and developing economies. Gereffi’s initial focus was on global commodity chains (GCCs). Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Stockholm University Library, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:32:07, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.005

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This evolved from a World Systems approach that defined a commodity chain as a network of labour and production processes whose end result is a finished commodity (Hopkins and Wallerstein 1986; Bair 2008). World Systems analysts examined the historical dynamics of the global world order, framed by a neoMarxian concept of centre–periphery relations between countries. Under international capitalism, countries in the periphery were viewed as historically and systemically subordinate in dependency relations with countries in the centre. In contrast, Gereffi (1994b) focused his analysis on the changing commercial dynamics of commodity chains in a changing global context. He examined how global sourcing helped promote new waves of industrialization, as global buyers moved to different developing economies in search of lower costs. Early industrializers (such as the East Asian NICs) were able to move up the value chain from labour-intensive production to higher levels of innovation and value addition. Some lower-income developing countries were able to pursue a strategy of economic development based on labour-intensive manufacture destined for global retail value chains (Gereffi 1994a, 1994b; Gereffi and Memedovic 2003). As global value chains advanced, offshoring involved the emergence of a new dynamic of global sourcing, where the lead firms owned no facilities but could exert control over suppliers. Gereffi (1994b) initially distinguished between producer-driven and buyer-driven commodity chains. In producer-driven commodity chains, multinational corporations control production in capitalintensive industries such as automobiles and aircraft. In buyer-driven commodity chains, retailers and brands offshore production and fragment labour-intensive production across supply networks in many developing countries. Global sourcing was undertaken by retail brands (such as Gap and Nike) and mass merchandise retailers or supermarkets (such as Walmart, Carrefour and Tesco). As analysis of buyer-driven chains advanced, it was renamed Global Value Chain (GVC) analysis to avoid confusion with the analysis of primary commodities (Gereffi et al. 2001; Bair 2008). GVC analysis has highlighted the commercial power of lead firms relative to suppliers. Lead firms are often in an oligopolistic position enabling their acquisition of economic rents. These arise from their ability to restrict competition and acquire supernormal profit over and above normal profits prevailing in markets. Economic rents can arise from design, branding and marketing rents (company differentiation from competitors), technology rents (command over new technology), relational rents (superior relations with customers) and human resource rents (access to better skills than competitors) (Kaplinsky 1998; Kaplinsky and Morris 2002). Calculation of value across all firms is de facto based on a cost of production approach to determine commercial returns to firms in the value chain (ibid.). Lead firms have also been able to benefit from the depression of cost prices paid to suppliers and Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Stockholm University Library, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:32:07, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.005



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wages to workers as globalization has advanced, contributing to rising inequality (Kaplinsky 2005). As GVC analysis evolved in the 2000s, it became more focused on transaction cost analysis as a basis for investigating inter-firm relations (Gereffi et al. 2005). Transaction cost economics rejects neo-classical economic assumptions that market exchange is determined solely by relative prices, without regard to the costs of trading and information asymmetries in markets. It analyses how firms make decisions when transactions are costly as a result of incomplete information and an uncertain economic environment (Himmelweit et al. 2001). However, a transaction approach has been criticized for a continued reliance on aspects of conventional economics—in particular, the assumption of ‘rational economic man’ as an abstract individual that lies at the heart of neo-classical economics (Hodgson 1989). In turning towards a narrower transaction economic approach in search of greater analytical rigour, GVC analysis is critiqued for straying into a conventional economic perspective away from its World Systems roots (Bair 2008; Dunaway 2014). This contributed to analytical separation from links to wider societal interaction (Bair 2005; Gibbon and Ponte 2005). From a gender perspective, this critique has parallels with the feminist challenge to conventional economics. A transaction cost approach in GVC analysis fails to incorporate the sphere of social reproduction or women’s unpaid work in households. This critique has been most vociferous from those supporting a World Systems approach. From this perspective, it is argued that capitalists externalize the costs of reproduction, and women’s underpaid or unpaid labour in households, as the basis for enhancing extraction of surplus and unequal exchange. Women in paid and unpaid work in periphery countries are viewed as systemically subject to subordination and exploitation by multinationals from countries in the core (Dunaway 2014).This provides powerful testimony for the need to extend commodity chains analysis to its full extent, including household social reproduction and consumption. However, a limitation is that women are mainly cast as victims of historical processes of monopoly capital accumulation, rather than unpacking both negative and positive gender implications, or opportunities for leveraging for change. GPN analysis, originating within the discipline of economic geography, provided a complementary approach. GPN analysis focuses on unpacking value, asymmetries of power and embeddedness of global commercial operations, distinguishing societal, network and territorial embeddedness. Societal embeddedness relates to the institutional, cultural and historical configuration of different actors. Network embeddedness refers to the degree of functional and social connectivity within a GPN and the influence of broader institutional actors on a GPN. Territorial Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Stockholm University Library, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:32:07, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.005

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embeddedness examines how firms and organizations are anchored in differing locations (Henderson et al. 2002; Hess 2004). A GPN approach explores the sources of value, distinguishing between value creation, enhancement and capture. Value creation originates in the labour process, and relates to the conditions under which labour power generates surplus value and facilitates acquisition of economic rents. Value enhancement relates to the conditions under which technology transfers within production networks, and engagement by buyers with suppliers, enhance labour skills and product quality. Value capture examines whether and how value created and enhanced in some locations may be captured by other actors in different locations (Henderson et al. 2002). It is argued that power asymmetries between corporate, institutional and civil society actors can influence these commercial dynamics, with differing outcomes across value chains and sourcing locations (Dicken et al. 2001; Hess 2004; Coe, Dicken, and Hess 2008; Coe and Yeung 2015). GPN analysts draw on a Polanyian perspective on the contemporary global economy, where interconnections between network nodes (both commercial and social) have become intensified across borders (Hess 2004). Polanyi posited that, unlike earlier societies built on relations of reciprocity, economic and social relations had become separated or ‘dis-embedded’ within an economy based on market exchange (Polanyi 1944). In contrast to prevailing neo-classical economic analysis, he argued that markets do not evolve naturally but are socially constructed. They entail inherent tensions between the advance of market exchange relations and their social underpinnings. Dislocation of markets and society, Polanyi argued, can generate a ‘countermovement’ involving citizen action and political organization opposing the negative consequences of markets. This counter-movement leads to a re-embedding of the economy in practices and institutions of social regulation and emergence of state institutions that mediate this process. Building on this, Granovetter argued against an atomistic reading of economic relations based on transaction cost economics (Granovetter 1985). A Polanyian approach has informed analysis of interactions between economic and social actors by some GVC analysts (Mayer and Pickles 2010; Mayer and Pickles 2014). Both GVC and GPN approaches have, with some exceptions, largely overlooked the gender dimension of embeddedness (Barrientos 2001). Feminist political economy examines markets not as abstract or technical constructs divorced from societal relations but as socially configured institutions that are themselves the bearers of gender that can change over time (Elson 1999; Beneria 2007). This analysis also draws on Polanyi to examine the gender dimension of socio-economic relations. However, they note Polanyi’s lack of a gender perspective on how men and women are positioned differently in markets Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Stockholm University Library, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:32:07, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.005



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or the associated consideration of the role of unpaid reproductive labour. The dynamics of competitive market behaviour does not drive the sphere of unpaid work, which is ruled instead by social dynamics based on nurturing, altruism and well-being (Beneria 1999; Beneria 2007). This analysis is undertaken mainly in the context of market-led economic activity. While feminist political economy has focused on a critique of neo-liberal globalization more widely, extension of the analysis to global value chains, with some exceptions, remains limited (Barrientos 2001; Stewart 2011; Gottfried 2012; Dunaway 2014). Bringing a social reproduction perspective into the frame facilitates examination of the relation between labour dispensed to produce commodities and labour dispensed to produce people as part of the systemic totality of capitalism (Bhattacharya 2017). Although traditionally provided unpaid within households, social provision can also be made through states or commoditized and delivered through markets. Feminist research examines the role of states in mediating reproduction of labour power and women’s employment in a context of increasing feminization of employment (Hoskyns and Rai 2007; Pearson 2014). A related literature examines market provision through ‘global care chains’. This adapts commodity chain analysis to examine the supply of migrant domestic labour from low-income countries to support the reproductive labour previously supplied by women (often now in paid work) in higher-income countries (Stewart 2011; Pearson and Kusakabe 2012; Yates 2014). In this book, I focus on examining changing gender patterns of work in the commercial provision of consumer goods for household consumption delivered through global retail value chains. I thus focus narrowly on provision of commodities rather than personal care, although the two are inter-related. Substitution of commercial for domestically produced goods and services, and availability of technologically advanced products, can have positive effects freeing women’s time and reducing onerous labour spent on food preparation, cooking, sewing, washing, cleaning and related domestic activities (Gardiner 1997; Himmelweit 2000; Worstall 2013). Despite the increase in female labour force participation, gendered boundaries and ideologies change slowly, and continue to permeate household and employment relations regarding female and male roles and responsibilities (McDowell 1999; Fuchs Epstein and Kalleberg 2004). Substitution of unpaid activities in production of goods has often been associated with more time devoted to caring for the young, elderly and sick, for which women continue to take primary responsibility, often juggling this with paid work (Gardiner 1997; McDowell 1999; Himmelweit 2000; Stewart 2011). The expansion of global retail value chains has contributed significantly to female labour force participation, examined in Chapter 3. Women now spend Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Stockholm University Library, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:32:07, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.005

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more time in paid work to earn sufficient income to purchase commercial goods and satisfy evolving consumer aspirations (in part fuelled by retail marketing). In better-off households there is often a trade-off between being income-poor and time-poor. Yet many women deployed in global sourcing live in poorer households. They endure low incomes, lack of secure paid work and gender inequalities that compel juggling of paid work with domestic and caring responsibilities. They are both time-poor and income-poor. The low-cost goods they produce are retailed to better-off (and increasingly lower income) households abroad and within their own countries. This reinforces a cycle of commercial provision of goods for social reproduction through global retail value chains in the Global North and Global South.

Governance of Global Value Chains Governance plays a key role in GVC and GPN analyses of how retailers control their supply chains without owning production facilities across a wide range of countries. Analysis of governance by lead firms has evolved considerably in the GVC and GPN literature, as managing ever-expanding value chains has become more complex (Pickles et al. 2016). Early analysis of buyer-led value chains focused on lead firm governance of captive upper-tier suppliers (Gereffi 1994). As value chains became more diverse and complex from the 2000s, analysis shifted to different forms of governance exercised by lead firms. Gereffi, Humphrey and Sturgeon (2005) drew on a transaction cost approach to analyse how different forms of value chain governance were a function of the complexity of transactions, ability to codify transactions and capabilities in the supply base. They developed a typology that distinguished between market, modular, relational, captive and hierarchical types of governance. This approach provides insights into the commercial coordination of value chains. While very influential, it has been critiqued for focusing too narrowly on the commercial dynamics of inter-firm coordination, with insufficient attention to the power of lead firms in setting the terms and conditions of supply (Bair 2005; Gibbon and Ponte 2005; Bair 2008; Palpacuer 2008). Some GVC and GPN researchers have emphasized the importance of analysing the broader institutional context that frames the governance of global sourcing from developing countries (Henderson et al. 2002; Neilson and Pritchard 2009; Coe and Yeung 2015). Institutions are viewed from a broad socio-economic perspective, as incorporating formal regulations, informal norms and sociocultural conventions shaping economic and social relations (Hodgson 1989; Renard 2003; Ponte and Gibbon 2005). The increasing role of non-corporate actors has informed GPN and GVC analysis of multi-polar and multi-scalar approaches to Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Stockholm University Library, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:32:07, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.005



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governance, examining interaction between private, public and social actors (Ponte and Sturgeon 2014; Coe and Yeung 2015; A. Smith 2015). These give greater weight to power asymmetries between different corporate and civil society actors as contested spaces, and the role of governments in mediating tensions in a context of multi-scalar governance operating at global, national and local levels (Alford 2016). There has been limited feminist analysis of governance focused specifically on global value chains. However, some feminist research has examined new channels opened up by globalization for CSOs and social movements conveying women’s voices and challenging underlying inequalities (O’Brien et al. 2000; Gottfried 2012). Within a value chain context, some have analysed the opportunities and challenges of promoting gender equality through private governance and corporate social responsibility. This has highlighted the failure of private governance (for example, codes of labour practice) to address issues beyond the confines of the workplace, including gender discrimination and the reproductive rights of women workers (Pearson and Seyfang 2001; Barrientos et al. 2003). This will be examined in more depth in Chapter 9. GVC and GPN analyses, combined with insights from feminist political economy, help lay the foundations for examining shifting boundaries between commercial production in the economic sphere and social reproduction largely undertaken within the societal sphere. A GVC approach provides insights into retailer governance of value chains that increase commercial linkages between production, distribution, retail, customers and ultimately households. A GPN approach facilitates further analysis of the embeddedness of commercial activities within wider societal and institutional norms. Feminist political economy provides insights into the gender implications of blurring boundaries between commercial production in factories and farms and social reproduction within households. Linkages between GVC, GPN and feminist political economy approaches could be developed further to examine how global retailers are becoming more embedded in gendered social relations that frame their commercial activities.

The Concept of Global (re)Production Networks The concept of G(r)PN draws on GPN and feminist political economy to extend analysis of global value chains beyond inter-firm relations and sites of production to wider engagement with households and communities. Kelly (2009) developed this approach to examine the multidimensional localized effects of global production networks in relation to labour in-migration and out-migration, focusing on the location of Cavite in the Philippines. He highlights how productive and reproductive work are interdependent but also contradictory, given differing Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Stockholm University Library, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:32:07, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.005

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commercial and societal dynamics, shaped by gendered and ethnic norms, with wider social imperatives. Kelly (2009: 451–2) highlights five advantages of such an analysis: 1. How production and reproduction systems are mutually dependent and shaped by each other 2. Mutual interdependence notwithstanding, inherent contradictions between productive and reproductive systems are driven by opposing imperatives 3. How a focus on households rather than labour processes alone enables analysis of a range of waged and unwaged activities and influences on work 4. Implications of commercial activity for local ecology and environment at the community level 5. Unevenness in allocation of reproductive tasks intersects with gendered (often racialized or regionalized) identities

A gendered G(r)PN approach can be extended to explore how global retail value chains, especially supermarkets and mass merchandisers selling multiple product ranges, intersect with and help reshape embedded gendered relations in the Global South. Feminist political economy has long highlighted tensions between the competitive environments of markets exchanging goods and services and the caring environment of households nurturing current and future generations (Folbre 1994; Gardiner et al. 2000; Himmelweit 2000). This analysis is informed in part by Polanyi’s exploration of inherent tensions between markets and society discussed above. Combining a gendered Polanyian approach with a more firmfocused GVC and GPN analyses enables a deeper investigation of how the links between the economic sphere encompassing commercial production and the societal sphere encompassing reproduction are being reconfigured by retail value chains in a changing global economy. Feminist political economy argues that women stand at the crossroads between the economic and the societal spheres, especially when they engage in both paid work and caring for human beings (Sen 1995). However, the dynamics that drive the two spheres differ and are often at odds. Competitive market behaviour found in the economic sphere rarely prevails within households, which operate to a social dynamic based on nurturing, altruism and well-being (Beneria 1999). However, this analysis has focused largely on globalization involving neo-liberal armslength markets separating productive and reproductive work. Here I will examine how contemporary global retail value chains involve increased interlinkages between commercial actors (lead firms and suppliers) and social actors (households and communities). The implications of increasing interaction between the economic and societal spheres in retail value chains are depicted in simplified form by the G(r)PN Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Stockholm University Library, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:32:07, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.005



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framework in Figure 4.1. The left-hand side depicts commercial production that is encompassed within the economic sphere in which firms are located. The righthand side depicts social reproduction that is encompassed within the societal sphere in which households and communities are located. The smaller circles connected by arrows linking the economic and societal spheres depict on the lefthand side the commercial value chain linking retailers, manufacturers and input suppliers. They are interconnected on the right-hand side to households and communities that provide and purchase goods to support current and future of consumers and workers. Global retailers, examined in Chapter 2, occupy a nexus position at the upper intersection of the spheres linking commercial production and social reproduction. This reflects their coordination of value chains in the commercial sphere forward linkages to customers and households in the societal sphere, whose buying patterns they monitor and shape through EPOS and marketing strategies. Occupying a nexus position also reflects their governance of global sourcing via backward linkages through suppliers to workers, and indirectly the households and communities, from which sourcing emanates. Fragmented work, examined in Chapter 3, occupies a nexus at the lower intersection of commercial production and social reproduction at the base of Figure 4.1. This reflects the mobility of workers between fragmented work within Figure 4.1  Gender G(r)PN simplified

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the economic sphere that is paid, and unpaid work in households and communities that provide for workers engaged in value chains. The latter can include homebased and smallholder households engaged in commercial production. Occupying a nexus position also reflects the role of workers and communities as actual or potential consumers of goods that may be produced and retailed through global value chains. It also reflects a blurring of the distinction between paid and unpaid work needed to support and reproduce the current and future labour force. Overlap between the two circles at the centre of the diagram represents interaction between the economic sphere encompassing commercial production and the societal sphere encompassing social reproduction. The circular flows (in both directions) depict how retail value chains connect actors across both spheres. The notion of a G(r)PN needs further development in relation to tensions prevailing between and within the economic and societal spheres, where one is driven by the dynamic of profit maximization and the other by the dynamic of care and well-being. Below, I briefly outline the three dimensions of the G(r)PN framework I will expanded further on: 1. Embedded tensions: How the corporate mantra of cost, quality and speed of delivery sits uneasily in retail value chains that closely connect actors in the commercial and societal spheres. Here I argue the concepts of embeddedness and conventions help reconfigure notions of ‘quality’ that are at odds with the commercial dynamic of cost and delivery. 2. Gendered articulations: A G(r)PN approach incorporates analysis of gendered articulations between commercial production and social reproduction where women’s paid work and skills are societally undervalued. I argue that gendered power asymmetries based on the subordinate role of women underpin value creation, enhancement and capture, and systemic gender inequalities across global retail value chains. However, articulations and disarticulations between the two spheres also contribute to the reconfiguration of gender relations. 3. Contested outcomes: A G(r)PN approach facilitates more dynamic analysis of these articulations not as mechanistic outcomes but as gendered processes of bargaining and contestation that can play out very differently for diverse groups of workers (female and male) both within and across value chains and locations.

Embedded Tensions: Cost, Quality and Speed of Delivery I examined in Chapter 2 the pressures leading suppliers to constantly juggle the corporate mantra of cost, quality and speed of delivery. As depicted in the G(r)PN framework, retail value chain linkages connect suppliers in the economic sphere of commercial production with customers in the societal sphere of social reproduction. Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Stockholm University Library, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:32:07, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.005



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Hence, retail value chains are societally embedded in gender norms that shape their commercial operations. However, the gendering of this embeddedness encompasses inherent tensions. This is reflected in tensions between a financial imperative that drives global sourcing, low cost and speed of delivery and a societal imperative that drives ‘quality’ and customer expectations. Global sourcing, and emphasis on cost/speed, has been driven in part by financialization since the globalization push in the 1980s (Palpacuer 2008; Milberg and Winkler 2013; Weil 2014; Coe and Yeung 2015). As examined in Chapter 2, financialization led to changing performance indicators and financial requirements for publicly traded firms. Contemporary financial indicators require lead firms to incorporate ex ante a level of shareholder return on which financial markets expect results (Palpacuer 2008). Short-term share buy-backs rather than long-term productive investment help inflate share prices (Foroohar 2017). CEOs and senior executives receive large rewards (including shares) if their companies predict and deliver on bullish forecasts. To achieve this, lead firms drive down costs and enhance profitability by focusing on core competence and outsourcing of cost and risk. Externalizing labour costs and devolving activities to multiple service providers help extract value from the value chain and enhance shareholder returns (Weil 2014; Coe and Yeung 2015). Hence, financialization is central to the global sourcing revolution that typifies contemporary retail value chains. Quality is also of upmost importance for ensuring market position in global retail value chains. However, the notion of ‘quality’ in retail value chains no longer relates solely to the product itself; it also covers the wider provenance of goods. This is important not only for ‘niche’ high-price products and high-income countries but also increasingly for high-volume low-price products and middle-income countries (Guarin and Knorringa 2014; McEwen et al. 2015; Pickles et al. 2016). This is reflected in the rise of private standards, which now form a key component in retailer governance of suppliers across supply networks that straddle multiple countries. Here, quality standards cover two dimensions. Product standards relate to what is produced. These include technical specifications of goods as a means of homogenizing production and delivery across the global supply base. Process standards relate to how goods are produced. These increasingly include intangible attributes, incorporated in environmental and social standards that include labour conditions and fair trade (Nadvi 2008; Henson and Humphrey 2010). The evolution of private standards to include environmental and social dimensions has been influenced by changing societal perspectives of ‘quality’. Analysis of this dimension of quality has been advanced through the application of convention theory to global value chains, and reflects the societal embeddedness of commercial production. Quality is viewed as socially constructed through collective norms and institutions that establish and uphold rules, or the acknowledgement of local ties Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Stockholm University Library, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:32:07, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.005

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that allow them to be communicated and negotiated (Renard 2003). Over time, markets come to embody diverse and changing criteria governing quality as a basis for trade through value chains (Gibbon and Ponte 2005). The rise of environmental social standards also reflects increasing consumer access to information (through IT and social media) on the origin of the products they buy in developed and developing countries (Ponte and Gibbon 2005; Guarin and Knorringa 2014). As corporate governance has evolved, a range of MSIs have been established involving companies and civil society actors to oversee and promote wider social and environmental sustainability, reflecting increasing corporate embeddedness within a wider range of civil society and public institutions (Bartley et al. 2015). Corporate embeddedness in the wider societal sphere within which they sell and source enhances lead firm responsiveness to changing consumer concerns over ‘quality’. In Figure 4.1 this is reflected in overlap between the two circles representing commercial production and social reproduction. Drawing on a combination of societal embeddedness and convention theory helps us examine the gender dimension of private governance of value chains. Feminist political economy has long argued that institutional arrangements (corporate, civil society and public) are purveyors of societally configured gender relations (Elson 1999; Beneria 2007). Within households, women are trusted to look after their family’s well-being (physical and moral).This also shapes conventions around notions of ‘quality’. As retailers engage in activities related to social reproduction (particularly the provision of household goods), they also need to acquire legitimacy as ‘caring’ for the well-being of their customers’ households as part of their corporate reputation, or ‘social license’ to operate (Morrison 2014). Governance in the form of quality standards is therefore imbued with entrenched gender norms. The social configuration of private governance is shaped by retail engagement beyond the commercial sphere of production, and reflects retail’s wider engagement with consumers and civil society within the social sphere of reproduction. Embedded tensions within global retail value chains are reflected in the dichotomy between cost and quality, and the contention over buyer ‘purchasing practices’. As examined in Chapter 2, a number of analysts have examined how buyers exploit their commercial power and oligopolist position within consumer markets in their negotiations with fragmented suppliers. Over time, there has been a marked reduction in prices paid to suppliers, while compliance requirements with quality standards have increased costs (Kaplinsky 2005; ILO 2017b). This can occur even when purchasing requirements by an individual buyer (for example, hastening delivery on an order) conflict with the social compliance requirements of the ethical team of the same lead firm (for example, limiting the overtime needed to fulfil the order) (Raworth and Kidder 2009). Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Stockholm University Library, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:32:07, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.005



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In buyer/supplier negotiations, labour costs are one of the few ‘variables’ suppliers can control, given that many other production costs are fixed or externally determined (Barrientos and Kritzinger 2004; Palpacuer 2008; Raworth and Kidder 2009). Labour is treated as a ‘residual’ with the least bargaining power (Knorringa and Pegler 2006; Nathan and Kalpana 2007; Cumbers et al. 2008). Suppliers juggle the pressures of cost and speed versus quality through the use of an increasingly fragmented labour force examined in Chapter 3 and depicted in Figure 4.1 at the base of the G(r)PN framework. The use of fragmented labour allows suppliers to combine skilled regular workers to meet quality standards with flexible temporary, casual or contract workers that can fluctuate depending on seasonality or the timing of orders.

Gender Articulations Feminization of labour also has a more systemic role in enabling suppliers to manage embedded tensions between cost, speed and quality. I examined in Chapter 3 how fragmentation and flexibilization have led to growing mobility between paid and unpaid work. Insecure paid workers normally retreat to households when work is unavailable, but this is more likely to affect women given their concentration in insecure work. Global value chains also extend sourcing to home-based workers, a significant proportion of whom are female, and in agriculture to smallholder producers where unpaid female labour often contributes to commercial production. The control of a feminized workforce, analysed in Chapter 3, is enhanced by insecurity when in work (the risk of not having work and feeding your family), as well as societal norms that shape the subordination of women. Women are no longer simply employed as a ‘reserve army’ of cheap labour but have come to play a central role in sustaining low-cost global production. In the context of global value chains, a gender lens allow us to explore how, once women enter commercial production, societal undervaluation of their work affects value creation, enhancement and capture. Interaction between commercial buyers and the local sourcing environments has been explored by some GVC researchers drawing on the concepts of articulations and disarticulations (Bair and Werner 2011a; Havice and Campling 2013; Pickles and Smith 2016).2 An articulations approach helps redress what  T he notion of articulations draws on a concept that has long been a focus of debate between radical and neo-Marxian scholars with differing perspectives on capitalist relations, class, race and nationalism. It is beyond the scope of my enquiry to explore these debates further; for a more in-depth discussion, see Hart (2007). Here I draw on literature that applies these concepts to GVC or GPN analysis.

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Bair and Werner (2011a) label an ‘inclusionary bias’ in much value chain analysis. This arises from an over-focus on interfirm transactions and linear trajectories of upgrading within value chains, overlooking supplier exclusion when sourcing is relocated. Adapting the twin concepts of articulations and disarticulations to a value chain context moves analysis to a multi-scalar analysis of uneven processes of inclusion, exclusion and marginalization within and across territorial locations (Bair and Werner 2011b; Havice and Campling 2013; Pickles and Smith 2016; McGrath 2018). Three key dimensions of a (dis)articulation approach are identified in the literature relevant to analysis of retail value chains. First, articulations relate to the joining together of diverse elements whose association requires the appearance of particular conditions of existence that are not given by law or fact. Second, articulations do not relate to mechanistic processes, but relations of power based on dominance and subordination. Third, articulations are not linear, but associations that can change over time and that can, under some circumstances, disappear or be overthrown (dis-articulations) or reappear through new associations being formed (re-articulations). Further, an articulations perspective facilitates analysis of how labour is differentially valued through constructions of social difference based on gender, ethnicity and class (Bair and Werner 2011a; McGrath 2018). Here I draw on the concept of gendered articulations to unpack value creation, enhancement and capture in the context of a fragmented flexible labour force where women are increasingly mobile between paid and unpaid work. Feminist political economy views value not as an a historical technical construct, but as socially configured through gendered asymmetries of power that undervalue work traditionally undertaken by women. To examine this further, I adapt the analysis of Henderson et al. (2002) and Coe and Yeung (2015) to develop a gendered examination of the different dimensions of value. Value creation relates to the labour process through which a good or service is produced and sold at a value greater than the cost of its inputs. The source of value creation is highly contested in economic theory. Neo-classical economics focuses on individual marginal utility and market exchange, divorced from the relations of production. Marxian economics advances the labour theory of value, where labour power expended in production creates value greater than its own exchange value (wage), generating surplus value and profit. A neo-Keynesian cost of production approach takes the sum of input costs, wages and profit determining the price of goods. The origins of value are often overlooked or invoke contentious debate within the GVC and GPN literature (Selwyn 2012; McGrath 2018). Feminist political economy, as discussed above, has long criticized these conceptual approaches for failing to take into account the role of social reproduction (Gardiner 1997; Elson 1999; Beneria 2003, 2007). ‘Value’ is a socially configured Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Stockholm University Library, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:32:07, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.005



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concept in the context of markets as social institutions that are bearers of gender relations (Elson 1999; Beneria 2007). Unpaid labour largely undertaken by women in the home helps cheapen the costs of maintaining and reproducing current and future generations, keeping wage costs down. Abstraction of the analysis from unpaid reproductive paid labour ignores the contribution of the latter to the ‘value’ of goods exchanged in the market. GVC and GPN approaches extend beyond a narrow market price-based analysis of value, but largely fail to take sufficient account of reproductive labour beyond the firm and workplace. A G(r)PN approach facilitates extension beyond commercial production to social reproduction and explores articulations between them as gendered processes of valorization. As work traditionally undertaken by unpaid women is transferred into commercial production through the expansion of global retail value chains, it also bears its ‘socially ascribed’ undervaluation into the commercial sphere. Nurturing and caring work associated with social reproduction are deemed of lower value relative to paid work traditionally associated with male productive labour (McDowell 1999).3 The feminization of work in the commercial production of consumer and household goods helps keep down the labour cost and final price of those goods. It facilitates the profitable availability of a wide range of more affordable consumer goods on a JIT basis. Low ‘socially ascribed value’ in the commercial sphere reflects deeply embedded gender norms that have long underpinned the gender division of labour in society. Value enhancement involves the technological, skill and reputation additions needed to increase the quality and value of a product sold. Value enhancement may, but does not necessarily, take place at the point of production. It also occurs further along value chains through design, branding, distribution or marketing. For example, a product could be of basic design and unbranded yet perfectly functional, but a similar product could include additional branding by a well-known company, yielding a disproportionately (relative to production costs) higher socially ascribed value. Skilled labour plays a key role in the value enhancement needed to meet quality standards (Ramirez and Rainbird 2010; Fernandez-Stark et al. 2012). As discussed earlier, these increasingly include environmental and social standards that extend beyond the confines of the commercial production, and are shaped by wider societal conventions and norms.

 T he gendered allocation of tasks is often ‘justified’ on the basis of ‘physical strength’ required, with little consideration of the strength women exert lifting and carrying in the domestic environment. However, this is increasingly less relevant with technological advances in value chains. Yet societal norms often continue to perpetuate a subordinate role for women.

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Feminist political economy provides insights into the gendering of value enhancement where women’s skills play an important role in ensuring ‘quality’. The commercialization of activities traditionally undertaken within the home means women’s socially acquired ‘intangible’ skills such as their ‘nimble fingers’ are now drawn on to enhance quality in the commercial production of goods (such as garments and food) (Elson and Pearson 1981; Collins 2003). Women’s socially acquired skills can help enhance value along different value chain nodes; for example, women are concentrated in the packing of fresh produce and flower to enhance their physical appeal when retailed (Dolan and Sorby 2003). Women often play an important role (as farmers and community members) in attaining certification with social standards such as fair trade, which attract a higher price (Smith 2015). When women enter the workforce and enhance value, the contribution of their socially acquired skills is often poorly recognized. They are often classified as ‘unskilled’ or ‘semi skilled’, reflecting societally embedded gender norms, and that undervalues work largely undertaken by women (Phillips and Taylor 1980). Societal undervaluation of women’s skills provides entrenched justification for lower remuneration of women and undermines recognition of their contribution to value enhancement. Value capture relates broadly to the ways in which value created and enhanced in one location is captured in that or other locations. There are differing approaches to value capture: some focus on the ability of oligopolistic firms to capture economic rents, some on the role of financialization and some on the ‘purchasing practices’ of lead firms (Barrientos and Kritzinger 2004; Kaplinsky 2005; Palpacuer 2008). Others take a more Marxian approach to the appropriation of surplus value by capitalists and its acquisition by multinational companies (Selwyn 2012; Dunaway 2014; McGrath 2018). Feminist political economy also provides insights into the gendering of value capture. The undervaluation of women’s skills at the point of production means goods are sold at low cost prices, but their quality attributes enable lead firms to mark up high margins in their final retail price. The gendered configuration of ‘value’ created and enhanced enables dominant lead firms to augment the value they capture through consumer monitoring and marketing and further along the chain. Value creation, enhancement and capture are not mechanistic processes. They reflect gendered articulations between women as paid and unpaid workers that evolve and change over time. Just as value is socially configured as women enter the labour force, so it can be reconfigured through articulations between actors— suppliers, buyers and workers. These are shaped by the ability of buyers and suppliers to control labour in ways that increase value extraction, as discussed in Chapter 3. Blurring of the boundaries between paid, underpaid and unpaid work Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Stockholm University Library, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:32:07, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.005



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that contributes to commercial production further reinforces these processes. Gender discrimination is thus systemic within the commercial and social articulations that underpin global retail value chains. However, these articulations are also affected by levels of worker bargaining or contestation, which can also affect gendered outcomes.

Contested Outcomes There has been a debate in the labour studies literature over the extent to which workers lose or gain from employment in export production in developing countries. Some focus on the negative outcomes for workers as a result of the flexibilization of labour markets. This perspective reflects a view of workers as victims of globalization, whose conditions are undermined by footloose capital’s and buyers’ ability to relocate production in the face of rising labour costs or resistance (Braverman 1974; Peck 1996). Other researchers question the extent to which paid work in export production is disempowering. Some coming from a labour perspective point to new forms of resistance that have opened up in export production (Waterman and Wills 2001; Munck 2002; Silver 2003; Coe and Jordhus-Lier 2011). A parallel debate can be found in the feminist literature. Some argue that women drawn into low-wage production for global buyers become exposed to new forms of exploitation and subordination, reflected in their inferior status as workers. Many case studies have highlighted the exploitation of women workers particularly, including poor pay and conditions, lack of security, poor health and safety, and sexual harassment (Elson and Pearson 1981; Pun 2005; Wright 2006; Dunaway 2014). Others argue that globalized production can also offer women an independent source of income, potential for economic empowerment as wage earners and new opportunities for social engagement beyond the confines of households (Lim 1990; Barrientos et al. 1999; Kabeer 2000; Kabeer and Mahmud 2004). At the heart of these debates is the extent to which workers are powerless or able to contest the power of buyers and employers in the context of global retail value chains. The concept of power was examined in Chapter 3. It highlights the ability of one group to be able to exert control or have ‘power over’ another group in some way. It also involves the ‘power to’ engage in different forms of resistance in relation to those with power over them (Nelson and Wright, 1995; Rowlands, 1998). With reference to workers, power is also captured by the Marxian analysis of conflictual capitalist–labour relations (Selwyn 2012). A gender lens add further dimensions of power asymmetries between and within employers and workers that transcend boundaries between paid and unpaid Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Stockholm University Library, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:32:07, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.005

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work. From this perspective, the notion of agency examines the enhanced ability of women to make choices in the face of alternative possibilities as central to their empowerment, and loss of choice leading to disempowerment (Kabeer 2000a, 19). This draws on Sen’s analysis of functionings and capability, where functionings are all possible ‘beings and doings’ available, and capability the subset of functionings most valued by a person (Sen 1999). Here agency relates to the freedom a person has as a member of society to achieve his/her chosen goals. Gendered power asymmetries and bargaining positions, therefore, shape women’s ability to move in and out of work, or between jobs, differently to men. Power also plays an important role in GPN analysis. Here power is defined by the ability of one actor to affect the behaviour of another, or to resist unwanted imposition by another actor. GPN analysis takes a multidimensional approach, differentiating between corporate power of lead firms to influence other firms in a network; institutional power of external actors such as local and national governments; and collective power of agents who seek to influence companies and respective governments (including trade unions, NGOs and related CSOs) (Henderson et al. 2002; Coe and Yeung 2015). Corporate power can be influenced (and potentially curbed) by the institutional and collective power of wider public and civil society actors. Power can be contested within a value chain context, not only between individual firms and workers but also in different locations across networks of firms, civil society and public actors. This is reflected in different forms of contestation that can operate across multiscalar levels of value chains. Here I focus on individual, collective and collaborative forms of contestation. Individual contestation relates to a worker’s own agency and strategies of adaptation, as also the exit options open to workers that can enhance their individual bargaining position with employers or labour intermediaries. This is informed by labour geography, where the notion of labour agency has been classified into forms of resilience (getting by), reworking (seeking improvements) and resistance (challenging capitalist relations) (Coe and Jordhus-Lier 2011). A gender perspective also draws on Sen’s analysis of the implications of paid work for women’s agency. Women with no independent income often have few alternative options, reinforcing their subordinate position within households. Access to an independent income or assets enhances women’s choices and fall-back position and hence their bargaining position within households and by extension wider society (Sen 1990; Agarwal 2008). Expansion of global sourcing has broadened options for workers (particularly women) in paid work linked to value chains. In many locations, it creates options for mobility between suppliers or for exit out of a sourcing location or paid work in value chains altogether (Sifaki in press). As pressures on suppliers to enhance Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Stockholm University Library, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:32:07, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.005



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quality increase, there are growing concerns in some sourcing countries regarding a shortage of available skilled labour (Butollo 2014). The need to attract and retain such labour can also improve workers’ individual bargaining power over terms and conditions of employment. In agriculture, the individual exit of younger more productive farmers puts pressure on companies to provide better incomes (Barrientos 2016). Collective contestation relates to strategies for labour organization involving organized industrial action spearheaded by trade unions and/or spontaneous collective worker action. As global sourcing has become more prevalent in developing countries, the dynamics of labour organization have evolved. One reason given for the feminization of employment is the ability of suppliers to control workers who had little previous experience of labour organization. Fragmentation of labour and the increasing use of precarious workers further undermines the ability of workers to organize, and trade unions have often been slow or found it difficult to recruit such workers. Worker organization is undermined by ‘foot loose’ buyers who can easily move sourcing to other lower-cost countries (Peck 1996; Silver 2003). The power of trade unions has been limited in global retail value chains by weak national institutional frameworks of labour regulation (Knorringa and Pegler 2006). However, the expansion of global framework agreements involving multinational companies and global union federations has sought to boost collective power in a value chain context (Cumbers et al. 2008; Miller 2008; Anderson et al. 2010). As examined in Chapters 6 and 7, collective contestation by workers can also take the form of more spontaneous labour unrest, often using social media as a means of mobilization and coordination. Collaborative contestation relates to the ability to form coalitions of CSOs including NGOs, trade unions, consumer and community groups to counter corporate power at local, national and global scales. The power of workers to pursue new forms of agency is enhanced by the risk of adverse publicity for corporate reputation and leverage or ‘choke points’ that operate in tight JIT value chains (Barrientos et al. 1999; Rainnie et al. 2011). From an early stage, the evolution of global sourcing led NGOs and global unions to contest the ‘race to the bottom’ of low-road outsourcing to cheaper labour cost countries. Unlike market-led retail, where it was difficult to trace the origin of goods sourced through remote intermediaries, global retail value chains have enabled civil society to track the linkages from suppliers through to brands and retailers. Collaborative contestation can have differing spatial dimensions—local, national or global—and often a campaign can transcend all of these dimensions (Alford 2016). In sum, a G(r)PN framework enables analysis of shifting gender boundaries between the economic sphere encompassing commercial production and the societal sphere encompassing social reproduction. At the root is the increasing Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Stockholm University Library, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:32:07, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.005

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societal embeddedness of global value chains that link customers, retailers, suppliers, workers, households and communities. These are complex processes of interactions, given that the economic sphere is driven by the dynamics of profit maximization and the societal sphere by dynamics of care and well-being. These are reflected in embedded tensions within global value chains, where cost and speed sit uneasily alongside the need to ensure quality that includes environmental and social standards. The use of a fragmented and flexible labour force helps suppliers juggle cost and speed with quality. The feminization of labour reconfigures gender articulations between commercial and societal imperatives shaped by gender norms, where social undervaluation of women’s work and skills facilitates value enhancement and capture by lead firms and retailers. However, gendered articulations are not mechanistic, but shaped by agency and contestation of workers and CSOs. For many women workers, access to paid work can also enhance their bargaining position within households and wider labour markets. Outcomes are not necessarily always bad for workers and can in some circumstances lead to better remuneration and rights. Indeed, later chapters will examine cases in cocoa, horticulture and apparel where social contestation has contributed to pressure on suppliers to economically upgrade. The question is what conditions favour leverage by workers and their organizations to capture more of the gains from work in global retail value chains.

Concluding Reflections In this chapter I have explored how a combination of analytical approaches can provide gendered insights into the dynamics of global retail value chains, drawing on GVC and GPN analyses, feminist political economy and labour studies. I argue that the commercial activities of retailers operating through global value chains are increasingly embedded in gendered social relations across sourcing countries. A G(r)PN approach provides a framework enabling deeper exploration of articulations between the economic sphere encompassing commercial production and societal sphere encompassing social reproduction, and how tensions between the two spheres shape a changing gender patterns of work. I have expanded on three tensions in particular. First, how embedded tensions play out between the commercial logic of low cost and speed of delivery versus a social logic of ‘quality’ that is shaped by social and environmental norms. Second, how gender articulations between the economic and societal spheres are evolving, as global retail feeds off societal undervaluation of women’s work and skills to provide a cheap feminized labour force that is able to deliver quality in labour-intensive Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Stockholm University Library, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:32:07, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.005



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production. Third, how contested outcomes are emerging as entry into paid work enhances the agency of women workers and their ability to resist adverse working conditions. Global retail value chains also open up channels for multi-scalar forms of collective and collaborative action. A G(r)PN perspective informs analysis in Chapter 3 of the fragmentation of work, with increased blurring of the boundaries between paid and unpaid work in global retail value chains. It further informs analysis of the continuum across different trajectories of ‘low road’ of economic and social downgrading versus ‘high road’ of economic and social upgrading. Downgrading and upgrading trajectories reflect gendered articulations between economic and societal spheres, where global retail value chains are embedded in gender norms that have long subordinated the role of women. However, contestation also opens up opportunities to challenge those norms, affecting gendered outcomes for workers. This facilitates analysis of how outcomes can vary across different groups of suppliers and workers. It provides the foundation for subsequent chapters, which examine case studies from smallholder production, commercial agriculture, agri-processing and apparel. The analytical framework presented here provides a basis for comparative analysis that aims to inform both the understanding of wider tensions in a world where global retailers play a dominant role and the opportunities for contestation by workers and smallholders that can promote more gender equitable outcomes.

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5 Smallholder (dis)Articulations The Cocoa–Chocolate Value Chain

Introduction The rise of global retail value chains has played an important role in changing patterns of trade in traditional agricultural commodities such as tea, coffee and cocoa. However, the process of change has been complex and varied between products and countries, especially where smallholders play an important role in production. The world of large-scale retail, processing and agribusiness that dominate the commercial operation of global value chains is far removed from the reality of smallholder production characterized by low incomes, poverty, hardship and lack of resources. Significant tensions prevail between the commercial dynamics of processing, manufacture and distribution and retail, versus the societal dynamics of smallholder farming and rural communities that are deeply embedded in traditional norms and practices shaped by diverse local cultures and customs. Gender plays an important role in these tensions. Gender norms in traditional agriculture largely relegate women to a subordinate position. It has long been argued the important role women play in smallholder agricultural production is insufficiently recognized (Boserup 1970; Carr 2004; World Bank 2009; Quisumbing et al. 2014). These tensions have intensified since the implementation of structural adjustment policies introduced by the IMF and World Bank in the 1980s that liberalized trade and disbanded government agricultural support programmes in many developing countries. These facilitated increasing concentration among a small group of international food manufacturers and processors, while fragmented smallholders have struggled with the vagaries of international markets, declining agricultural prices, lack of resources and poor livelihoods (Robbins 2003; Oxfam 2018). Problems have been coming to a head since the 2000s, with rising concerns whether the supply of quality agricultural commodities would be sufficient to meet rising global demand and future sustainability of small-scale agriculture. Researchers and policymakers have paid increasing attention to the challenges of incorporating smallholders in global value chains and strategies that can enable Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Stockholm University Library, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:33:39, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.006



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their participation (Dolan and Humphrey 2000; Gibbon and Ponte 2005; Vorley et al. 2007; Lee, Gereffi and Beauvais 2010; Reardon, Timmer and Minten 2010). International food manufacturers and processors that once relied on markets to generate some agricultural commodities are now increasingly engaged in sustainability initiatives that extend across their value chains to support smallscale farmers. Some incorporate a gender dimension, as recognition of women’s contribution to quality production has grown (Utz 2009; Chan 2010; Fairtrade 2015). From an analytical perspective examined in Chapter 4, smallholder agriculture provides an important example of how gendered articulations between global production and social reproduction play out as contested processes at household community and societal levels. However, these can be very diverse, as gender norms and cultures vary significantly between and even within smallholders, across different crops, countries and geographic regions (Boserup 1970; Whitehead and Kabeer 2001; Harriss-White and Heyer 2010). Gendered patterns of land tenure are affected by inheritance norms and practices that are mainly patrilineal, sometimes matrilineal and often out of step with government regulatory requirements (Agarwal 1995; Quisumbing et al. 2001). The ‘recognized’ smallholder farmer under patrilineal land tenure systems is primarily male. In retail value chains there has long been an acceptance (or lack of questioning) of entrenched gender norms that prevail not only at the smallholder level. This also prevails across companies including in agribusiness, distribution and retailers. However, women’s roles as unpaid family labour and wage labour on smallholder farms are beginning to be recognized in relation to value chain engagement by some larger companies (World Bank 2009; Chan 2010; Barrientos 2014b). The cocoa–chocolate value chain provides an important example of these complexities and the implications of value chain engagement for changing gender patterns of work. This chapter focuses on the Ghanaian smallholder farmers in the cocoa–chocolate value chain. The second section analyses embedded tensions between a commercial dynamic that has seen increasing concentration among chocolate manufacturers and cocoa processors, while smallholder farmers producing the vast majority of the world cocoa supply have experienced systemic economic and social downgrading since the 1980s following withdrawal of support mechanisms and declining prices. It examines the consequences of the downgrading of smallholder production in Ghanaian cocoa. The third section analyses gendered articulations between cocoa farmers and commercial actors in cocoa–chocolate value chains. It starts by examining the gender profile of chocolate consumers and then moves upstream to cocoa production, which is deeply embedded in traditional norms and regulations, including land tenure Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Stockholm University Library, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:33:39, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.006

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systems and practices that inherently discriminate against women as farmers and family labour on farms. The fourth section analyses contested outcomes that have led to initiatives by chocolate manufacturers to reverse downgrading trends in cocoa and support farmers, as they have become increasingly concerned about the social resilience of their cocoa supply chains. The drivers in this case have been both commercial and social. Downgrading trajectories (grinding poverty and few future opportunities) are contributing to contested outcomes in the form of individual exit by youth and more able smallholders as well as NGO campaigns. The fifth section examines a case study from one corporate initiative that integrated gender from inception as part of a strategy to promote productivity and farmer livelihoods, including women’s empowerment. The study found diverse outcomes—with some resistance by male farmers to gendered changes—through greater commercial–societal interaction both within value chains and in the communities engaged in cocoa sourcing. This provides an example of complex gender articulations between commercial dynamics and societal norms that can vary in differing circumstances even within the same crop and country. The research underpinning second–fourth sections was undertaken in Ghana and the UK between 2004 and 2008, leading to various publications that are referenced as the chapter progresses. The case study in the fifth section provides a follow-up on previous research undertaken in 2014 and involved new fieldwork in Ghana (the details of which are provided in the section). Combined, research over 10 years has allowed me to follow many changes that have occurred in the cocoa sector in Ghana and pressures that have resulted in increased corporate initiatives to support cocoa farming and to assess the gender implications of such projects.1

The Chocolate Value Chain: Economic and Social Downgrading of Cocoa Farmers Embedded tensions in global value chains, examined in Chapter 4, are arguably most intense in contexts where smallholder farming prevails. Here there is a strong dichotomy between the commercial dynamic of large-scale agri-food manufacturers and processors and the societal dynamic of small-scale farming shaped by traditional  I first undertook research on Ghanaian cocoa in 2004–5 as part of a project on Fairtrade certified products led by Laura Reynolds (Colorado State University), co-funded in the USA by the Ford Foundation and in the UK by the Leverhulme Trust (Raynolds, Murray and Wilkinson 2007). Then in 2005–8 I jointly led with Professor Asenso Okyere (University of Ghana) a research study commissioned by Cadbury on the socio-economic sustainability of Ghanaian cocoa production (Barrientos et al. 2008). The follow-up research in 2014 formed part of the Leverhulme Fellowship that allowed me to work on this book.

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norms and culture. This dichotomy has intensified since the onset of structural adjustment and the expansion of global agri-food value chains. This section examines how the commercial dynamics of the chocolate value chain have become dependent on a cocoa sourcing base that has experienced systematic economic and social downgrading over the past 30 years. It focuses on Ghana, where these processes were constrained by government reticence to follow through World Bank prescriptions, allowing the country to buck some of the downgrading pressures on farmers.

Economic and Social Downgrading Trajectories Cocoa farming is largely carried out by small-scale producers, who are responsible for an estimated 90 per cent of world production (WCF 2012). The majority of cocoa sourcing is from West Africa, with Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana responsible for 60 per cent of global exports as the first and second largest exporters respectively (ICCO 2012). West African cocoa production is characterized by small-scale family-based cocoa farming (1–2 hectares or even less being common), involving an estimated 2 million smallholders. New supplier countries have expanded production, particularly in Asia, increasing the supply of cocoa onto the world market (Squicciarini and Swinnen 2016). From the 1950s to the 1980s, the predominant model of support for cocoa farmers was through state-dominated export marketing boards or caisses (Daviron and Gibbon 2002; Fold 2002; Losch 2002). The marketing boards previously set farmer prices, had monopoly control over cocoa purchases, provided the sole export channel and were responsible for overseeing exports. The international cocoa market was largely characterized by arms-length trading through commodity markets (London and New York), through either spot or forward contracts. There were many problems with marketing boards, but they provided an important pillar of support to smallholders and ensured the quality of cocoa exported. During the 1980s, this system was transformed through agricultural liberalization and the dismantling of the marketing boards in most producing countries under IMF and World Bank structural adjustment programmes. Ghana was the only large cocoa producer to resist this process, acceding to only partial liberalization in the sector (Shepherd and Onumah 1997; Kolavalli and Vigneri 2017). It introduced private buyers at a national level that had to be registered as licensed buying companies (LBCs). However, it kept its cocoa marketing board, COCOBOD, which continued to oversee the LBCs, set the minimum producer price to be paid for cocoa each year and act as the sole export channel, ensuring export quality. The outcome of the strategy of liberalization in most countries was to expose small-scale producers directly to the international market; even in Ghana, Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Stockholm University Library, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:33:39, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.006

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COCOBOD could provide only a partial buffer to the vagaries of price volatility and global trends (Barrientos et al. 2008; Ryan 2011; Cocoabarometer 2012; Barrientos 2016). Since the demise of most marketing boards, cocoa prices have been set on international markets. The period after the mid-1980s saw a downward trend in world prices, which reached a trough in the late 1990s. Although there was a partial recovery after 2000–1, in real terms average world market prices for cocoa were 13 per cent lower in 2005–6 than they had been in 1993–4 (ICCO-MC/9/2 2007). Cocoa prices overall have risen since the mid-2000s, but prices have remained volatile year on year with changes in market conditions (ICCO 2012; Cocoabarometer 2015). The long-term trend in real prices saw a 2 per cent annual decline between 1950 and 2010 (LMC 2011). In Ghana, COCOBOD partially protects farmers from annual seasonal price volatility and ensures a price higher than the prevailing international average as a result of a premium paid for the quality of its beans (Kolavalli and Vigneri 2017). However, prices have still been subject to annual variations and international trends. The disbandment of most cocoa marketing boards under structural adjustment in the 1980s led to the opening up of smallholder farmers directly to world markets increasingly dominated by large multinational companies (Leissle 2018). To some extent, Ghana bucked this trend by retaining the cocoa marketing board. Nevertheless, this did not mean Ghanaian cocoa was immune from the impact of declining world prices and limited government investment in the sector. The Ghanaian cocoa–chocolate value chain is illustrated in simplified form in Figure 5.1 (page 113). It involves a number of segments, including cocoa farmers, cocoa traders, cocoa grinders and processers, chocolate confectionery manufacturers Table 5.1 Cocoa–chocolate value distribution (% per tonne of sold cocoa) Farmers’ income Inland transport Taxes/marketing board International transport Costs at port of arrival International traders Processors and grinders Manufacturer Retail and taxes

6.6% 0.5% 4.2% 0.3% 1.1% 0.2% 7.6% 35.2% 44.2%

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(plus other food and cosmetic manufacturers) and retailers. It is estimated that eight companies involved in processing and in grinding cocoa now control 75 per cent of worldwide supply, and the six largest chocolate manufacturers have 40 per cent of total market share (Cocoabarometer 2015). Multinational companies have consolidated a range of functions either at the level of cocoa buying, trading and processing or at that of chocolate confectionery manufacturing and marketing. This has fuelled asymmetrical market power between a large number of fragmented smallholder farmers and a concentrated number of large processors and manufacturers (Fold 2002; Gayi and Tsowou 2015). The secular decline in cocoa prices during the 1990s and 2000s has contributed to a redistribution of value capture from fragmented producers to more oligopolistic processors and manufacturers along the chain. The World Bank (2008) estimates that developing country claims on value added in the cocoa sector declined from around 60 per cent in 1970–2 to around 28 per cent in 1998–2000 (World Bank 2008). Data on the breakdown of value between commercial actors across the total cocoa–chocolate value chain are difficult to obtain. Estimates put the indicative cocoa producer share of the cost of a standard bar of milk chocolate sold in mainstream markets at between 4 and 6.6 per cent depending on cocoa content (Gilbert 2007; Oxfam 2009; Cocoabarometer 2015). One civil society estimate indicates this was down from 16 per cent in 1980 (MCF 2015). An estimation of the value distribution of cocoa (as a per cent per tonne of cocoa sold) across the cocoa–chocolate value chain is provided in Table 5.1. It indicates 6.6 per cent going to farmers, 7.6 per cent to processors and grinders, 35.2 per cent to chocolate manufacturers and 44.2 per cent to supermarkets (Cocoabarometer 2015). The same report also notes that, although retailers capture the largest share of value distribution, they play little role in addressing sustainability challenges facing the cocoa sector.2 Economic downgrading in cocoa since the 1980s has been reflected in declining incomes compounded by a reduction in government support for cocoa production. This has contributed to insufficient innovation or replenishment with new seedlings, inadequate use of fertilizers and pesticide, threat from disease and output of poor-quality beans, partly because of insufficient fermentation and drying. As a result of neglect, cocoa farming in producer countries has experienced increasing problems, including (a) the decline of quality (owing to poor agricultural practices, inadequate extension services and producers shortcutting drying and fermentation) and (b) low productivity in small-scale farming. These challenges

 A n industry source indicated in 2010 that over 50 per cent of chocolate confectionery sales are through supermarkets in the UK.

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have also been prevalent in Ghana, despite support from COCOBOD (Barrientos et al. 2008; Ryan 2011). Social downgrading has been integrally linked to this through intensified poverty and a decline in the well-being of small-scale cocoa farm households (Oxfam 2009; Ryan 2011; Leissle 2018). Low incomes are an underlying structural problem in cocoa farming. In 2007–8 research based on a survey of 217 households in Ghana estimated that the mean per capita cocoa income was $0.42, and from cocoa plus all other sources $0.63 (Barrientos et al. 2008:18). This was well below the prevailing poverty line of $1 per capita per day. A number of civil society and industry organizations under the umbrella of the ISEAL Alliance are examining how to calculate a living cocoa income.3 However, this is challenging, requiring information on cocoa revenues, other income sources, number of dependents and local costs of food, housing and other necessities (Anker 2011; Cocoabarometer 2015). Government austerity also reduced investment in social and infrastructure provision in rural localities, such as in roads, electricity, education, health and housing, further undermining cocoa livelihoods. In sum, the combination of value capture by large chocolate manufacturers and cocoa processors combined with economic and social downgrading of cocoa farmers since the 1980s has led to systemic challenges prevailing in the cocoa–chocolate value chain. The consequence is a fragile chocolate value chain embedded in cocoa farming, which provides a weak foundation. As we will see, this has led to rising corporate concern about future supply chain resilience. Chocolate manufacturers and processors can no longer rely on ‘free markets’ to generate sufficient cocoa supply and are themselves becoming more engaged in production processes at the farmer level.

Gendered Articulations Across Cocoa–Chocolate Value Chains The gender dimension of the cocoa–chocolate value chain is often overlooked, yet a closer examination shows that women play an important role as producers, consumers and activists promoting fair and ethical trade. Gender therefore provides a thread that links different segments of the value chain and also shapes concern regarding the ethical, social and environmental sustainability of cocoa production. This section will provide an overview of the gender articulations along the length of the value chain from consumer to farmer. Gender patterns of work at the farmer level will also be examined through a more in-depth case study in the fifth section.

  This process was still underway in February 2018. See https://www.isealalliance.org/ sustainability-news/estimating-living-income-ghanaian-cocoa-farmers (accessed July 2018).

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Starting at the consumer end of the cocoa–chocolate value chain, gender figures prominently in marketing, with many products targeted at women consumers. Women are responsible for the majority of consumer purchases overall: 80 per cent in the UK (Keynote 2012). Market research indicates that women are more likely than men to buy higher-end chocolate (Carter 2010), although recent data for the UK indicate men are not far behind women in terms of overall frequency of chocolate consumption (Mintel 2014). Increasing consumer awareness and access to information (via mobile communications and social media) has led to greater demand for more ethically and sustainably sourced cocoa. These include no child labour, fairer trade for farmers, labour standards and environmentally friendly farming practices. In the UK 35 per cent of consumers see ethically sourced chocolate as worth paying for, and the share of new chocolate confectionery products launched carrying ethical claims grew from 4 per cent in 2010 to 17 per cent in 2013 (Mintel 2014). Media exposure of the use of child labour in the production of cocoa had greater potential impact on women’s decisions to purchase chocolate than men’s, as well as women’s oversight of chocolate purchased by or for their children. Further along the cocoa–chocolate value chain, there is a significant gender imbalance at the level of processors and manufacturers. A gender analysis of leading multinational companies in the sector indicates senior management is predominantly male but with some differentiation between companies. In 2014 the percentage of women among the executive officers and senior management of the three leading chocolate confectionery companies was Mondelēz 29 per cent, Mars 8 per cent and Nestlé 7 per cent. An equivalent gender profile of three leading cocoa processors was ADM 17 per cent, Cargill 7 per cent and Barry Callebaut 0 per cent.4 Of these Mondelēz and ADM5 had female CEOs. There is a long way to go to achieve greater gender diversity across all nodes and leading companies within the cocoa– chocolate value chain. Industry interviews with members of chocolate processing and branded manufacturing companies between 2008 and 2015 indicated a variety of attitudes to gender equality, with some individuals actively ‘getting it’ and others uninterested or resistant to promoting women’s empowerment. As discussed below, similar disparities in approach can be found in lower tiers of the cocoa– chocolate value chain.

 See http://www.mondelezinternational.com/about-us/our-management-team; http://www.mars. com/global/about-mars/global-leadership.aspx; http://www.nestle.com/aboutus/mana​gement/ executivecommittee; http://www.adm.com/en-US/company/leadership/Pages/cor​porateofficers. aspx; http://www.cargill.com/company/management/; http://www.barry-call​ebaut.com/62 (company websites accessed November 2014). 5  A DM was acquired by Cargill in 2015. 4

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Gender Value Chain Linkages in Ghanaian Cocoa Researchers on fair and ethical trade have analysed the importance of unpacking the influence of social conventions on commercial value chains that are deeply embedded within societal norms and institutions (Renard 2003; Hess 2004; Ponte and Gibbon 2005; Neilson and Pritchard 2009). Others have looked at the gender dimension (Barrientos 2014b; Smith 2015). From an analytical perspective, I examined this in Chapter 4 drawing on the framework of G(r)PNs. This helped examine the increasing interlinkages between commercial production and social reproduction, where the gender implications of those social norms are becoming more apparent. However, as discussed, diverse social norms in the Global North and South are increasingly interconnected as links between consumers and producers in different countries become stronger. This is illustrated in Figure 5.1, which highlights the gender dimension of cocoa–chocolate, showing linkages between women as consumers of better-quality chocolate, producers engaged particularly in tasks essential to quality and civil society activists linking consumers and producers through initiatives and campaigns. In Figure 5.1, shading of the middle and upper segments at the consumer ends indicates gender as an aspect affecting purchasing decisions by consumers based on ‘quality’ where both product and broader social conventions matter. This is linked (via commercial linkages and civil society connections) to ‘quality’, also highlighted in Figure 5.1, at the producer end. In increasingly integrated cocoa– chocolate value chains with fewer lead firms, it is more difficult for brand-name companies to distance themselves from the ethical concerns of consumers or social practices within their sourcing base. This, we will see, increasingly includes a gender dimension, which I now unpack in more depth. At the producer end of the cocoa value chain, women play a largely unrecognized role in tasks that are essential for quality and productivity illustrated by the Ghanaian case. Gender inequality is deeply embedded within the customary norms and practices of cocoa-producing regions in Ghana. Traditional systems of land tenure mean men constitute the majority of recognized farmers, with access to finance, training, extension services, cooperatives and the passbooks required to sell cocoa. However, while cocoa is generally presented as a ‘male crop’, the actual role women play in production is overlooked. Although accurate data are difficult to acquire, it is estimated that 18–25 per cent of cocoa farmers in West Africa are women, undertaking 45–50 per cent of the work, largely as unpaid family labour (Greene and Robles 2014; Hiscox and Goldstein 2014; WCF 2016). The reasons for gender blindness are deeply embedded in traditional norms prevailing in Ghanaian rural society and smallholder production (Barrientos and Bobie 2016).

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Figure 5.1  Simplified cocoa–chocolate value chain

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Land inheritance systems in Ghana are complex and based largely on customary practices, which vary by locality and ethnic group (Hill 1963). These can involve matrilineal and patrilineal processes. Under Ashanti custom, elder women help decide land transfer in collaboration with village chiefs. However, according to the matrilineal principle, inheritance and administration of lineage property normally passes from the mother’s brother to the sisters’ sons. It can also be transferred from a deceased man to his brother or nephew (sister’s son) in accordance with the decision of the extended family or matrilineal clan (Amanor 2001; Quisumbing et al. 2001). Therefore the norm is for land to pass to male members of the extended family. In some cases women may gain access to small parcels, but these are generally smaller than those of men (Duncan 2010). Female spouses do not customarily inherit land in their own right if their partner dies. The male recipient takes responsibility for holding the land in trust for the extended family and future generations. In patrilineal societies women are denied access to land ownership and engagement in decisions over inheritance, and can access land only through marriage. Land tenure validates who is recognized as the farmer. It is also this person who receives and holds the passbook, sells cocoa to LBCs and acquires the cocoa income earned. The recognized farmer also normally has access to extension services and inputs, participates in training programmes and receives related support. Land ownership constitutes an asset that provides security for access to banking and credit. Therefore men dominate the commercially visible side of cocoa farming and women’s participation is constrained by traditional gender norms and practices (Barrientos and Bobie 2016). Lack of access to land or formal recognition is a major inhibiting factor in their equitable participation in cocoa farming. Where women are the recognized farmer, their farms are in general smaller than those belonging to male farmers (Vigneri and Holmes 2009). There are signs that gender patterns of land ownership and recognition of women’s participation in cocoa are gradually changing. The law was revised in 1999 to facilitate spouse inheritance, though this is often not implemented in practice, with customary practices continuing to prevail (Quisumbing, Payongayong and Otsuka 2004). Many women have low levels of literacy or access to information and are unaware of their legal rights. However, a study undertaken in 2004 found there is a gradual increase in ‘gifting’ of a portion of land by male farmers to their female spouse (ibid.). Interviews during my research in 2014 (discussed in the fifth section) found the trend is continuing in some locations but is varied; in one community studied land gifting was increasingly common but in the other community it was not. Various factors help explain land gifting by male farmers. As Ghanaian society evolves, and migration erodes extended family ties, there has been increasing Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Stockholm University Library, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:33:39, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.006



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concentration on the nuclear family and inheritance by the farmers’ own children (rather than relatives’ children) (Amanor 2001). Some farmers want to ensure some land remains in the hands of their female spouse, so that she has a source of income once he is deceased and is not beholden to extended family members. As commercialization advances, some current farmers are beginning to realize that they can expand current production and raise yields if they gift a portion of land to their female spouse (Quisumbing et al. 2004). Being formally recognized as a farmer allows a woman to have her own passbook. However, key informants interviewed in 2014 indicated that not all women gifted land take this up; some continue to sell through their husband’s passbook, in part because of the time and difficulties of taking cocoa to the purchasing clerk.

Women’s Role in Ghanaian Cocoa Production Women who own land and operate as farmers in their own right often face greater constraints than men. Their land size tends to be smaller, access to inputs, training and credit more difficult and incomes lower. However, available evidence suggests women can be just as productive as male farmers. Vigneri and Holmes (2009) found these constraints did not reduce women’s ability as farmers, with no significant difference in land productivity between male and female farmers, and women used hired labour more efficiently. In my research more male (73 per cent) than female (61 per cent) farmers reported having access to credit and finance if needed. Despite this, the research found little difference in yield (bags of cocoa harvested per acre) between men and women (Barrientos et al. 2008; Barrientos and Asenso-Okyere 2009). Women also play an important role in cocoa production as family labour on the farm of their spouse or male relative. However, where they are unpaid family labourers, their role is often unrecognized. Within Ghana’s traditional division of labour, women’s role is socially assigned to household-related activities and caring for subsistence crops, whereas men focus on market-related activities, such as care and marketing of cash crops. However, given that cocoa is largely grown on smallscale family farms, the division between household and market activity is blurred. Data for women’s activity in cocoa are difficult to obtain. A number of case studies indicate that women do make an important contribution, undertaking approximately 45 per cent of the work (Agyare-Kwabi 2009; Utz 2009; Vigneri and Holmes 2009; FLA 2013; Twin 2013; Barrientos 2014b; Greene and Robles 2014). Table 5.2 provides an example of the gender division of labour in Ghanaian cocoa. It indicates that, although cocoa is often said to be a ‘male crop’ because the work is deemed physically arduous, when we examine the actual gender division of labour women are involved in most activities. The main exceptions are spraying, Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Stockholm University Library, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:33:39, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.006

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thinning and pruning mature trees; only some women are involved in purchasing seedlings, harvesting and bagging. It also confirms that it is primarily men who sell cocoa to purchasing clerks of LBCs, as the formally recognized farmers, who then receive the cocoa income. Women’s activity is concentrated in planting and early care of young trees. Young trees are grown alongside subsistence and other crops, which are traditionally tended by women. Women and men are both actively engaged in drying and fermentation, which often takes place outside or near the homestead. A number of industry professionals indicate that early plant care, fermentation and drying are critical to enhancement of cocoa quality and productivity (key informant industry interviews 2008; Daniels et al. 2012) and, hence, the quality and value of the final chocolate. As Table 5.2 demonstrates, women play a key role in these activities, yet gender blindness has until now meant this role is largely unrecognized. Regeneration and replanting of new trees is critical to future growth and there are schemes to support use of disease-resistant hybrid seedlings. Planting methods including specified spacing and pruning methods are critical to future yields. However, training is essential for farmers to understand good agricultural practice. According to cocoa specialists, the prevailing production culture in Ghana is that young trees should not be pruned back, which means energy goes into growth of the tree rather than cocoa pods and limits future yields (key informant industry interview 2008). If training is only reaching men, not women who care Table 5.2  Gender roles in small-scale cocoa farming in Ghana Activity

Weeding and land preparation Purchasing of cocoa seeds/seedlings Planting Intercropping of food crops Cocoa spraying Thinning and pruning Harvesting/plucking Pod breaking Carrying to homestead/depots Fermenting Drying and porterage Bagging Sale to local buying agencies

Women

Mostly women Some women All Mostly women Exceptional cases BUT women fetch water for mixing of chemicals Few—considered hazardous and dangerous for women Some women All Mostly women and hired labourers All All Some women A few women who own their farm

Men

Some men Mostly men All A few men Mostly men Mostly men Mostly men All Some men All All Mostly men Mostly men

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for seedlings and young trees, then the message is failing to get through to the right people. The fermentation stage is key to aroma and flavour formation: ‘No matter how high quality the beans are at harvest, poor control of postharvest processing can ruin their flavour’ (Daniels, Laderach and Paschall 2012: 18). Some cocoa experts say male farmers often shortcut quality processes in order to get beans to market, whereas women care more for the beans and better understand the implications for quality (key informant industry interviews 2008). Research in 2007–8 found that there is not much difference between men and women farmers in the length of time they ferment cocoa beans. Most reported fermenting their beans for 4–6 days, which is close to the recommended period of 5–6 days for best quality using the heap method. However, there was a larger difference in the length of time men and women dried their beans. The recommended time for drying to attain quality is 5–12 days, but farmers often keep drying times to a minimum in order to sell and earn an income on their beans. The study found that a larger proportion of men (77 per cent) compared to women farmers (42 per cent) reported drying in 6 days or less, whereas a higher ratio of women (38 per cent) to men (21 per cent) reported drying their beans for 7–10 days (subsequent analysis of data from study by Barrientos and Asenso-Okyere 2008). Women therefore play an important role in cocoa production, both as recognized farmers where they have been able to acquire land and also as unpaid family labour on the farm of their spouse, which is often unrecognized. Women’s contribution is particularly important in activities that are critical to quality. However, support and training on good agricultural practices in cocoa is normally delivered to male farmers. There is an assumption that men will pass information to their female partners, but interviews and focus group discussions (FGDs) indicate that the extent to which this actually occurs is at best patchy. A cocoa–chocolate industry that is increasingly concerned about future supply and quality is missing a critical factor if it ignores and fails to support women in cocoa production. In sum, gendered articulations help to shape the cocoa–chocolate value chain, particularly at the consumer and producer ends. A key dimension is genderdifferentiated concerns over ‘quality’. Women have been found to have a stronger affinity for product quality (flavour and per cent cocoa) but also for more ethical and fairly traded chocolate. Women at the production end of the chain have long been overlooked and are slowly being recognized for playing a key role in attaining quality. As we will see, a concern for gender has increasingly permeated civil society advocacy and consumer-based campaigns over cocoa farmer livelihoods.

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Contested Outcomes Economic and social downgrading in the cocoa sector has over time had repercussions along the length of the cocoa–chocolate value chain. Relating back to the analysis of G(r)PNs in Chapter 4, these repercussions have resulted in part from contestation of the negative effects of liberalization on cocoa farming. At a generic level, three dimensions of contestation were highlighted in the last chapter: individual, collective and collaborative. In different ways, they have all played a role in Ghanaian cocoa, and to a greater or lesser extent involved a gender dimension. In brief, individual contestation has involved exit by youth from cocoa farming; collective contestation has involved cooperative organization, particularly Kuapa Kokoo; and collaborative contestation involves NGO and media campaigns in relation to chocolate brands. Although I will examine them separately, in reality the three dimensions of contestation are interlinked and multi-layered.

Individual Contestation Individual contestation is defined in Chapter 4 as individual agency applied through strategies of adaptation and resistance, which can also include the pursuit of individual exit options. Economic and social downgrading have fuelled an exit of youth and younger (potentially more productive) farmers from cocoa, which many view as an occupation of low esteem and last resort. They seek a better life in the urban sector, where occupations are perceived as more modern and with higher earning potential (Barrientos et al. 2008; Cocoabarometer 2015). Even though the realities of urban living may be harsh, the perception is that they have better opportunities than available in cocoa farming. Deteriorating cocoa livelihoods also means few farmers want their own children to go into cocoa farming (Barrientos et al. 2008). However, leaving farming does not mean they necessarily give up tenure of the land. Anecdotal information indicates women often remain to continue production, or caretaker farmers are deployed to tend cocoa farms instead (Knudsen 2008). Over time exit from farming has had repercussions within the cocoa sector, reinforcing declining productivity and lack of innovation, putting pressure on supply. At the same time, changing patterns of chocolate consumption have been increasing demand. The expansion of middle-income consumers in emerging economies, particularly China and India, is fuelling increased consumption of chocolate confectionery. In the 19 leading consuming nations for which data are available, this grew at an annual average of 1.3 per cent for the period 2000–8. However, the growth in consumption in emerging countries is significantly Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Stockholm University Library, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:33:39, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.006



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higher.6 The consequent imbalance between cocoa supply and demand has put pressure on prices to rise. However, this has been insufficient to reverse historic price trends or overcome entrenched economic and social downgrading of production. Concern intensified in 2011 when Armajaro estimated that by 2020 cocoa demand would outstrip supply, with a deficit of approximately 0.8 million tonnes (Armajaro 2011; Fairtrade 2011).7 This prediction sent a shock wave through the industry. It had long been assumed market movements would always yield sufficient cocoa, with price movements evening out any shortages or surpluses. Chocolate companies now realize they are no longer able to rely on market movements to automatically deliver sufficient quality cocoa in the future (industry source). A number of companies have introduced initiatives to support cocoa farmers to raise their productivity, incomes and livelihoods (Barrientos 2016). Some also acknowledge the important role women play in cocoa production and communities, but those strategies need to be more gender sensitive if women are to be supported in enhancing cocoa quality and livelihoods. One such initiative is Cocoa Life, which has promoting women’s empowerment as a theme cutting across its five pillars of transforming farming, communities, youth, livelihoods and environment.8 The gender dimension of this is examined in more detail in the fifth section.

Collective Contestation Collective contestation was defined in Chapter 4 as involving forms of independent organization among workers. In the case of smallholder farmers, collective organization is rarely through formal trade unions, but more commonly through farmer unions, agricultural cooperatives or producer organizations. In Ghana, following partial liberalization of cocoa and the creation of LBCs in 1993, a number of farmers formed Kuapa Kokoo, a collectively owned company that operated as an LBC in the interest of its farmer members (Tiffen et al. 2004). It also involves a Farmers’ Union and operates as a ‘Cooperative Group’. 9

 In India for example, it grew at over 10 per cent in the same period (industry sources). A more nuanced but still pessimistic analysis of trends in cocoa supply and demand was provided to the World Cocoa Foundation by LMC International (LMC 2011). A less pessimistic view was expressed by the ICCO (2012). 8  See https://www.cocoalife.org (accessed November 2017). 9  Kuapa Kokoo is not officially registered as a cooperative with the Department of Cooperatives because of differences in its ownership structure but adheres to most cooperative principles (industry informant 2014). 6

7 

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From its inception, Kuapa Kokoo formed alliances with international development organizations (including SNV in the Netherlands and Twin Trading in the UK). Through collaboration, Kuapa also became Fairtrade-certified, which provided a minimum price for cocoa sold under its certified label, plus a social premium paid to its members. These facilitated investment in social projects and helped buffer its members against the vagaries of the international market (Ronchi 2002; Tiffen et al. 2004). In 1998, supported by international partners, Kuapa played a key role in setting up The Day Chocolate company in the UK, which later became Divine Chocolate Ltd. This essentially constituted a form of economic and social upgrading through external collaboration. Kuapa had a controlling share in the company, and a proportion of the profits is returned to Kuapa Kokoo, aiding social investment. Divine has become an important supplier of Fairtrade chocolate to UK supermarkets and has expanded into the USA (Barrientos and Smith 2007; Croft and Cole 2011). Agri-cooperatives have a long history in Ghana, dating back to the colonial period and continued postindependence. Cooperatives are registered with the Department of Cooperatives and controlled by legislation. All recognized farmers residing in a community are able to join the cooperative society. However, cooperatives tend to perpetuate customary land tenure practices (Salifu, Francesconi and Kolavalli 2010). Caretaker farmers are able to join a cooperative with the agreement of the absentee farm owner. Women are normally unable to join cooperative societies in their own right unless they own land or are gifted land by their spouse (Fairtrade 2015; Smith 2015). Only members are formally able to attend cooperative meetings and participate in a society. Embedded norms are therefore also a barrier to participating in farmer organizations, unless they are the recognized farmer. Kuapa has a long-standing strategy of addressing women’s empowerment. This was developed following a gender assessment carried out in 1996 at the instigation of its international collaborators. It led to a Gender Programme established in 1998 (Chan 2010). This targeted support to women members (training, skills, credit) and promoted women’s representation across the organization. By 2010, 12 out of its 20 National Executive Committee members were women, and it had appointed a woman president, who was followed by another woman when the former passed away. Only women who are recognized farmers can join, but Kuapa actively encourages male farmers to gift land to their female spouse. Women increased from 26 per cent of its membership in 1996 to 32 per cent in 2013.10 As the production of certified cocoa has expanded in Ghana, other cooperatives have 10

 Chan (2010) and personal communication with Kuapa Kokoo, 2014.

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also been formed that produce certified cocoa—but they face similar gender constraints to membership. As Kuapa Kokoo has shown, collective organization can help to buffer the pressures of international markets and facilitate processes of economic and social upgrading. This was aided by becoming a Fairtrade-certified cocoa supplier to leading UK supermarket and chocolate companies, including Cadbury. However, Divine Chocolate has had to compete with international chocolate companies as Fairtrade chocolate became mainstreamed (Doherty and Meehan 2005; Barrientos and Smith 2007). This has created tensions between promoting the social mission of Fairtrade and pursuing a strategy based on commercial mainstreaming and growth (Doherty, Davies and Tranchell 2013; Krauss 2016). As Fairtrade has developed a more proactive gender strategy, Kuapa has provided an important example of the benefits of a gender equality strategy. However, it also highlights the challenges of promoting gender equality in collective organizations and agricultural communities deeply embedded in traditional gender norms that limit women’s land tenure (Fairtrade 2015).

Collaborative Contestation Collaborative contestation was defined in Chapter 4 as relating to the ability to form coalitions ofCSOs, including NGOs, trade unions, consumer and community groups, to counter corporate power on local, national and global scales. In reality such collaborations can be highly diverse, involving diverging strategies that are either more adaptive or adversarial. Kuapa provides an example of overlapping collective and collaborative contestation based on an adaptive strategy of working within prevailing commercial structures of global agricultural value chains to maximize benefits to farmers. Other NGOs and trade unions have engaged in more adversarial forms of collaborative contestation. However, in reality there is often an overlap between adaptive and adversarial strategies. A more adversarial approach was triggered by media exposure in 2000 of the use of child labour (including the worst forms of child labour and trafficking of children) in West African cocoa farming.11 This prompted introduction of the Harkin–Engel Protocol in the USA, which threatened legislation to enforce the labelling of bars of chocolate in the USA as being child- and slave-free (Tulane 2007, 2009, 2011). The chocolate industry subsequently engaged in significant 11

 T hese issues have received considerable coverage in the TV and print media in the UK and the USA since 2000. See Berlan (2009) for a review of some of this coverage. Media exposés of child labour and trafficked labour have continued with a BBC Panorama programme in the UK highlighting it again in 2010.

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initiatives to address the issue, including formation of the International Cocoa Initiative (ICI).12 This provides the basis for cooperation between key companies in the global chocolate industry, concerned politicians and key civil society actors engaged in combating the worst forms of child labour and forced labour in the growing and processing of cocoa. Within Ghana, the Ministry of Manpower, Youth and Employment developed a National Plan for the Elimination of Child Labour and played a key role in setting up a collaborative programme with COCOBOD and the chocolate industry addressing labour issues. In 2010 the chocolate industry, together with government officials in the USA, Cote d’Ivoire and Ghana, issued a Joint Declaration and Framework of Actions to implement the Harkin–Engel Protocol, which aimed to reduce the worst forms of child labour by 70 per cent by 2020 (Cocoabarometer 2012). An important outcome of the combination of contested and collaborative contestation has been the increasing engagement by companies in issues at the base of their value chains, and realization that issues of social development, however remote, can affect them commercially. There are debates over the causes of child labour in family-based farming, which have traditionally drawn all family members into production. Anthropologists emphasize the complexity of issues that are deeply embedded in gendered social and cultural norms that shape understanding of child labour at household, community and national levels (Berlan 2013). CSOs highlight poverty driven by low producer prices at the farm level, rising labour costs and lack of educational facilities due to constraints on state spending as factors compounding this issue (Anti-Slavery 2004). However, many chocolate companies that were previously ambiguous regarding the social origins of cocoa now realized that the root causes were deeply embedded, with some beginning to recognize that gender shaped prevailing social and cultural norms. The challenges posed serious reputational risks to their industry, with implications for the future of cocoa sourcing.

Promoting Gender Equality A significant spur to chocolate companies to focus on gender resulted from Oxfam International’s launch of the Behind the Brands campaign in 2013.13 This constituted a slightly different form of contestation. Oxfam undertook an assessment and then ranked leading food companies based on their own publicly reported activity on selected issues, including gender discrimination. In the assessment, none achieved ‘good’ or ‘very good’ at addressing gender discrimination—only ‘some progress’, ‘poor’  See http://www.cocoainitiative.org (accessed March 2016).  See http://www.behindthebrands.org/ (accessed August 2016).

12 13

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or ‘very poor’ were seen. The rankings indicated that companies clearly had a long way to go to promote gender equality in their value chains. Industry interviews indicated that the launch of Behind the Brands caused consternation at a senior level in some companies, as executives scrambled to find out what was being done to promote gender equality in their value chains. In order to respond to Oxfam and avoid future low rankings, companies were required to make their gender commitments public, sign up to the UN Women’s Empowerment Principles, undertake impact assessments of their engagement and publish their action plans on promoting gender equality in their supply chains.14 As a consequence of combined commercial and civil society pressures, promoting gender equality has now become more prominent in a number of cocoa–chocolate value chain initiatives. These include the Cadbury Cocoa Partnership (CCP), established in 2008, which included a gender focus when supporting local cocoagrowing communities, as did its successor Cocoa Life (CL), launched by Mondelēz in 2012. 15 Mars has undertaken a gender assessment of its value chain and is enhancing the gender sensitivity of its initiatives to promote cocoa farming (Greene and Robles 2014) and Nestlé commissioned a report on gender and cocoa in West Africa (FLA 2013). A wider industry-level initiative is the World Cocoa Foundation’s CocoaAction Plan, which brings together nine leading cocoa and chocolate companies.16 This has two key components, a productivity pillar and a community development pillar, with a commitment to promote more professional farming, improve the position of women, youth and children and empower women. This includes giving women greater access to resources, control over income and greater participation and influence in community decision-making, and emphasizing their leadership roles at the community level (WCF 2016). However, there are also concerns that current initiatives are insufficient. Cocoabarometer (2015), a coalition of a number of CSOs,17 argues that the scope of CocoaAction is too limited, with its aim to reach approximately 300,000 farmers by the end of the decade, only a fraction of total farmers. There is a risk that these will mainly be the ‘low hanging fruit’—

 See http://www.behindthebrands.org/en/campaign-news/women-cocoa-roadmap (accessed August 2016). 15  For a preliminary evaluation of the gender dimension of Cocoa Life, see Hiscox and Goldstein (2014). 16  See http://www.worldcocoafoundation.org/about-wcf/cocoaaction/ (accessed August 2014). 17  T his includes Stop the Traffik, Oxfam Novib and Wereldwinkels, Voice, ABVV-FGTB, FNB, Sudwind, Berne Declaration, Hivos, Mondiaal FNV and Solidaridad. See www. cocoabarometer.org (accessed July 2016). 14

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farmers who are more easily accessible and possibly already receiving support through individual company initiatives. Chocolate companies are increasingly concerned about risks to the future resilience of cocoa supply in their value chains. They began orchestrating multiple company-led initiatives (some in alliance with NGOs, donor and/or government organizations) to support and promote productivity and quality among smallholder cocoa growers and improve cocoa livelihoods (Barrientos 2016). Much of the industry focus is on raising productivity, so that farmers can increase revenues through higher sales, with prices left to market movements. However, raising productivity also incurs rising costs of agro-chemicals, labour and finance, and increases in net incomes may be insufficient to address poverty. In 2015, the outgoing CEO of Fairtrade International, Harriet Lamb, said that chocolatemakers must pay double the market price if cocoa farmers are to make a living income. She raised this in the light of a Tulane University report indicating that the worst forms of child labour had increased by 18 per cent between 2008–9 and 2013–14, which she blamed on the persistence of poverty in cocoa communities (Nieburg 2015). There is increasing recognition by some in the industry that support for women’s economic and social empowerment could make an important contribution to the future sustainability of quality cocoa production, and that collective action rather than individual initiatives will be more effective. However, industry-led initiatives face a dilemma in addressing underlying issues of gender subordination. Women’s contribution to productivity increases and quality enhancement is often unrecognized, and they receive little or no remuneration. This helps to keep the production cost of cocoa down, and can enhance value capture by processors and manufacturers further along the chain. Hence, there are underlying living income and distribution tensions along the cocoa–chocolate value chain that industry-led initiatives only superficially touch upon. In sum, economic and social downgrading in cocoa has promoted diverse strategies of individual, collective and collaborative contestation. Chocolate companies now recognize they can no longer rely solely on market forces to produce sufficient quality cocoa or ensure the long-term sustainability of production. Increasing concern with future cocoa sustainability is raising gender awareness in the cocoa– chocolate value chain, leading to greater focus on social upgrading, promoting women’s economic empowerment and supporting cocoa communities as a means of promoting future economic upgrading. This reflects a central argument of this book, that in global value chains the interconnections between global production and social reproduction are deepening. However, despite advances, commercial and societal tensions remain, and embedded gendered constraints persist in the recognition of women as workers and farmers in smallholder agricultural production. Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Stockholm University Library, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:33:39, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.006



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Promoting Economic and Social Upgrading: Ghanaian Case Study Recognition of the socio-economic challenges faced in cocoa led Cadbury to establish the CCP programme in 2008 to promote socio-economic sustainability of cocoa farming (Croft and Cole 2011). This was subsequently expanded in 2012 by Mondelēz International, which had acquired Cadbury, under the CL programme. Mondelēz provided US$400 million with the aim of empowering cocoa farmers. From inception CCP/CL involved an alliance with international organizations and NGOs as well as government bodies and implementing partners (IPs) at the local level.18 It has the goal of promoting ‘thriving communities that support a sustainable cocoa supply chain’. CL had a gender lens from an early stage of its design, and promoting gender equality is a theme cutting across the five CL pillars. However, addressing deeply embedded gender norms that underpin cocoa farming also raises challenges. To examine this further, I carried out a small comparative case study of two communities involved in the CL programme within Ghana in 2014.19 The research included 27 semi-structured key informant interviews conducted with key company (manufacturers, processors and LBCs), government and civil society personnel. The two communities selected were early entrants into the CL programme, one in Western region and one in Eastern region. Field research in each community involved three FGDs with six FGDs in total: one with cooperative union members, one with men farmers and one with women working in cocoa (as farmers and family labour). The two communities are labelled C1 and C2. The research focused on two key pillars of the CL programme: first, the farming pillar, which aimed to enhance productivity, and, second, the community pillar, which aims to enhance empowerment. Examining these pillars informed analysis of gendered articulations between the commercial and societal spheres of G(r)PNs analysed in Chapter 4. This study was neither a representative nor an evaluation of CL. The aim was to gain insights into the complexities of articulations between the commercial and societal spheres of production as they play out at a local level in two cocoa-growing communities.

For more information, see https://www.cocoalife.org/the-program (accessed November 2017). 19  T his was an independent research carried out under my Leverhulme Major Fellowship, with additional support for travel to Ghana provided by CL. The findings and views presented here are solely my responsibility and do not represent the views or policies of Cocoa Life or Mondelēz International. I would like to thank Adwoa Owusuaa Bobie for her research assistance during the research fieldtrip and analysis of the findings. All interpretation and shortcomings are our responsibility alone. For a more detailed report on the research, see Barrientos and Bobie (2016). 18 

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Farming Pillar From an early stage, the CL programme promoted the formation of cooperative societies that joined cooperative unions across all communities in which it operated. These provided small-scale producers the opportunity to participate with a democratic organization through which to channel their voice, receive support and training, organize savings and loans associations and elect a committee to allocate the Fairtrade social premium. Farmers were encouraged to join their cooperative societies, and membership grew as the benefits became apparent. As discussed earlier, however, there are gender barriers based on land tenure to women joining cooperatives. The two cooperative unions visited at the community level as part of this research were formally registered in 2009 (C1) and 2010 (C2). One had 44 and the other 25 cooperative societies within their unions, and women represented approximately 30 per cent of members in both. In one, a woman was part of the cooperative leadership; in the other, the leadership was all male. Both unions were Fairtrade-certified. In order to decide how to spend the social premium, a general assembly was called to which each society could bring three members, at least one of whom had to be a woman (although some societies bought more). FGDs held with both cooperative unions indicated that men were encouraged through training to gift land to women, who were then encouraged to join the cooperative and have their own passbook. Subsequent male and female FGDs at the level of the communities indicated that one union had been more successful in encouraging land gifting than the other (the union with a woman in its leadership). In C1, the majority of women in the female FGD (8 out of 14) owned land, among whom 4 had been gifted land by their male spouse (3 others had inherited and 1 had bought land). The remainder worked on their husbands’ farms. In the C2 female FGD, 8 out of 19 women owned land. In no cases did their husbands gift these, and none of the men in the male FGD in C2 had gifted land to his wife. When the issue of land gifting was raised with them, it prompted laughter, and one participant said: ‘If you are struggling how can you give land to woman?’ (FGD Male C2). A major plank of the CL programme has been facilitation of the provision of training and extension services within its target communities. It signed a memorandum of understanding with COCOBOD to support the employment of community extension agents dedicated to servicing the programme’s implementing communities, and produced training material for extension officers. Both communities had received little or no training prior to joining the CL programme, but now regularly saw a local community extension agent responsible for their community. They also received regular COCOBOD, Ministry of Food Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Stockholm University Library, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:33:39, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.006



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and Agriculture (MOFA) training and extension services, as well as other support. IPs—local partners of NGOs collaborating with CL—facilitate linkages at the community level to government departments and service providers. The IPs also provide some training themselves on broader issues such as livelihoods and leadership. The role of IPs’ coordinating training was well received in both the communities. Important principles advocated by the CL programme are that training is delivered wherever possible at the community level rather than at the district level, which women have difficulty attending. Training is also open to everyone within the community (male and female) working in cocoa independent of land ownership or cooperative membership. Women are encouraged to attend and gender is integrated into all aspects of training. FGDs provided many examples of how training had helped improve production. For example: Major change is way cocoa planted. Before we were not taking into consideration distance between trees, now been taught how to space trees…. Before this the farm was too shady. Before we were applying fertilizer anyhow, now we are trained on amount to spray per acre (FGD Male C1) Before cocoa production was low, and also we didn’t have enough knowledge, especially in fermentation, and just fermenting for three days. We were told it becomes lighter, but if left for six days heavier, and flavour better, and seen a lot of changes in business. (FGD Female C2)

As a result of the CL programme, more women have gradually received training. In C1, FGDs indicated men saw the benefits of women having better knowledge of cocoa farming in terms of improved yields and incomes. However, in C2, although the male and female FGDs indicated women had benefited from training, men expressed some resistance. They were concerned women might prove better farmers than themselves as a result. Yes, women attend training. Because of cocoa training, some women here are more knowledgeable than men, they participate, and are very active. Passbook has nothing to do with attending training. Don’t have to be Society member to attend training. Yes, women are doing more in production now, yes, and its helping to improve yields…. Now women are into nursery, and are getting their own pods from nursery, and their cocoa is so beautiful. We don’t know why women are challenging us like this. [Others agreed]. (FGD Male C2; emphasis added)

Figure 5.2 shows the benefits on the farm of one widowed woman cocoa farmer interviewed in C2. The photographs compare two adjacent farms, that in photograph 1 is tended by the woman, who participated in the CL programme, and that in photograph 2 is tended by a man farmer, not a member of the society Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Stockholm University Library, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:33:39, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.006

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Gender and Work in Global Value Chains Figure 5.2  Comparing adjacent cocoa farms

Woman’s cocoa farm

Man’s adjacent cocoa farm

Source: Author (taken during fieldwork in Ghana in 2014).

or under the programme. As a result of training, the woman now keeps her trees better pruned and her farm cleared of weeds and mistletoe, and has a timetable for the different activities she needs to undertake. In contrast, the adjacent maleowned farm is overgrown with weeds, and the cocoa trees are tangled with climbers. Agronomists recommend clearance as an important aspect of keeping trees healthy and enhancing yields.

Productivity and Yields The research indicates that there have been benefits for cocoa farmers in terms of enhancing productivity and yields. However, it should be reiterated that this was only a small case study, limited to two communities and not representative of the CL programme. All interviewees with relevant knowledge of the programme in Accra indicated there had been an increase in yields as a result of training and extension support. This was confirmed within the two communities, although data are not exact given that reporting was verbal. A purchasing clerk in C2 confirmed, ‘Production has increased because people are selling more beans, I can testify on increase in production.’ All FGDs indicated increased yields, which doubled in some instances. For example: ‘Before training if we were getting one bag, now we can get two bags’ (FGD Female C2). Although this was not an in-depth study of production, various issues were aired in FGDs. One concern was access to agrochemicals and the supply of substandard products by traders. Sometimes, obtaining inputs involved travelling long distances. Another issue raised in a number of FGDs was difficulty in accessing finance. This was becoming increasingly important as input prices increased, with credit required Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Stockholm University Library, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:33:39, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.006



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for their purchase. One person complained of having to wait two months for payment. With no alternative clerks in the area, they had no alternative buyer. Women farmers face specific gender challenges in cocoa, particularly where they are widowed or have no male relatives in the household. A major problem is hired labour, which is rapidly increasing in cost. Women often need to hire more labour than male counterparts, both for tasks they are unable to undertake themselves and because they have less access to unpaid family labour, so their costs are higher: Yes, there is improvement in income, but income goes into the expenditure, because can’t do many things, and more going into expenses. Inputs are high, labour is high, so a lot is going into expenses…. Last year harvesting [labour] was 10 cedis. Now 15 cedis by day for harvesting [labour]…. Last year weeding [labour] was 5-6 cedis, now its 8 cedis for weeding. (FGD Female C2)

Rising yields meant farmers were now paid more for their cocoa by purchasing clerks. However, all interviews at the community level indicated that this had to be offset against rising costs of inputs. For example, one community union indicated that the cost of fertilizer had increased significantly in the past year,20 yet the price of cocoa had not increased in 2013–14. In C2, the woman farmer whose clean and tidy farm is photographed in Figure 5.2 indicated that, owing to rising costs, she could not afford fertilizer that year, which was likely to reduce her future yield. A woman who is the recognized farmer as a result of land gifting should formally hold the passbook. This will allow her to independently sell her cocoa to the purchasing clerk and access the income. However, some interviewees indicated this did not always happen. Women sometimes continued to sell under their husbands’ passbooks, and the husbands received the income. One reason given was women did not always have the time or were unable to carry cocoa to the purchasing clerk, especially when they needed to travel out of the community to do this. Where a woman works on her husband’s farm, and he is the recognized farmer, he holds the passbook. Even in C1, where more land gifting had occurred, the male focus group was quite adamant that only the man should hold the passbook if he was the farm owner. In this situation, it is the man who controls the income and decides what portion to provide to his wife. One woman interviewed said: ‘No passbook if working with husband, it’s in his name, so he gets money…. If you have development of your child at heart, then you 20

 Government fertilizer was sold in 2014 at 52 cedis and in the open market at more than 100 cedis. In the previous year, fertilizer was sold by the government at 45 cedis, and in the open market at 90 cedis (industry informant).

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cannot tell your husband to divide in two, you have to take whatever your husband gives you’ (FGD Female C2). The above focuses on the commercial dimension of the cocoa value chain and how the gender strategy has been integrated into the programme’s farming pillar. As can be seen from research in the two communities, the programme has helped advance training and increase quality and yields. It has opened up opportunities for women, who have shown themselves adept and capable of adopting new production methods. It also faces many challenges promoting women’s equitable engagement, given the deeply embedded attitudes and norms. However, these can vary between locations, with some softening of male resistance in C1 but continued resistance in C2. We now turn to the social dimension of the programme. After this we can assess the broader opportunities and challenges of promoting women’s equitable engagement in the cocoa value chain.

Community Pillar The community pillar of the CL programme explicitly includes the goal of promoting gender equality, and the main channel is through community action plans (CAPs). These provide the basis for organization at a grassroots level in order to identify community needs and channel their requirements to those bodies that are able to address them. CAPs are initially developed in groups using participatory methods, whereby they undertake ranking and scoring methods to identify their needs. Groups then meet at the community level to collate these into a CAP, again using participatory methods, and identifying the resources needed. The IP NGO in each community facilitates the process. Promotion of women’s voices is integrated into the decision-making process to ensure that they come through. The process was discussed in some detail in the female FGD in one of the communities. Participants said that they organized different group meetings for men and women. Each documented their needs using participatory methods (ranking and scoring issues of concern to them). With a facilitator, they drew up a plan. The two then met as a group and shared the needs they had identified, voting on each to prioritize needs. Participants indicated that they felt women’s needs were taken into consideration in the final CAP through this process. As indicated in one FGD: ‘Sometimes its three to two, sometimes the other way round, but we feel our views get through’ (FGD Female C2). A Development Committee is formed to review progress and pursue implementation of the CAP. Once a CAP is agreed upon at the community level, the Development Committee takes it to the District Assembly. The District Assembly is the main public decision-making body at the district level under Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Stockholm University Library, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:33:39, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.006



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Ghana’s system of government. Their members are one-third appointed by government and two-thirds elected by the community members. The District Assembly is meant to consult with different bodies, including civil society and faith-based organizations, as part of their decision-making process (FES 2010). However, in reality, consultation is often poor at the community level. The CAPs provide a channel through which the needs of cocoa communities can be agreed upon and reported to the District Assembly for incorporation into District Development Plans (which inform the National Development Plan). Key informant interviews indicated that gender tensions occurred in the process at the intersection between the community and district levels. Women often focused in the CAPs on social issues such as education and health. Men more often focused on infrastructure projects such as electricity and roads. Whereas the CAP process incorporates a gender balance at the community level, district assemblies more often have a disproportionate appointment of men and tend to pursue male priorities. The cooperative unions interviewed indicated that although women were involved in developing the CAPs, their recommendations were often not taken up at the district level. Addressing gender bias in district assemblies is beyond any individual programme; other actors also need to advocate a more gender-sensitive public governance process (key informant interviews at district levels and Accra). As discussed earlier, farmers face a challenge related to cocoa generating sufficient income to sustain household livelihoods. Women often do other things to make money to support their family and pay for children to go to school. This can include making soap or selling grass-cutters (a small animal popularly consumed in Ghana). Many women in the FGDs indicated that they did not depend on cocoa alone because they had to do other things to maintain their family. Some FGDs indicated that increased yields provided more household income to look after their children. However, emphasis on children attending school (following campaigns over child labour) had also increased financial costs, as families had to fund school attendance and related costs. Respondents in C1 pointed to schooling as a serious problem. Here, the CL programme had provided a building for use as a primary school and community meetings, but there were problems keeping teachers, as there was no nearby accommodation for them and teachers preferred to work elsewhere. Children going to secondary school had to travel very long distances every day. The female FGD discussed the main challenges faced in the community. These included cost of hiring labour, cost and difficulty of buying chemicals, schooling and having to carry beans a long way to the shed of the purchasing clerk. Participants were asked to rank the issues, starting with those of most importance Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Stockholm University Library, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:33:39, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.006

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Gender and Work in Global Value Chains Figure 5.3  Ranking of challenges in order of importance in female focus group discussion

Ranking of challenges by order of importance 1. Shed 2. School 3. Chemicals 4. Labour 5. Electricity 6. Drinking water 7. Start-up capital for example, for soap-making business

(FGD Female C1) Source: Author (fieldwork in Ghana in 2014).

to them. Their ranking is shown in Figure 5.3, which indicates that both farm and family issues are of concern to women, and are intertwined. Improving livelihoods means addressing both the commercial and the social dimensions of cocoa farming. All FGDs addressed the question of whether they wanted their children to go into farming in the future. On the whole, the answer was negative. For example: No I don’t think they would like to go into farming, its not lucrative, and doesn’t pay much. Having put my children through school, why would I want my children to come into cocoa (FGD Coop Union C1). Cocoa farming is a difficult business. Look at our houses, made of bamboo. When it rains, the rain gets into the room, so in future we hope our children will not go through what we go through, but will be a little comfortable. (FGD Male C1)

However, some indicated that while they did not want all their children to enter cocoa farming, it was possible some might: Some children already have interest in cocoa, some willingly accompany you to farm, even though some say children should not go to farm. The thing is we are supporting our children to school. After school, if child wants to come back to cocoa farming, then I won’t prevent child, you need money to invest in farming as a business. But I will not tell my child to stay at home to become a cocoa farmer, no, that I will not do it. (FGD Female C2) Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Stockholm University Library, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:33:39, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.006



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In sum, comparison of the two communities provides insights into the challenges of promoting gender equality at the local level. The programme was the same in both communities, yet gender articulations at the local level varied significantly. In C1 the programme had made progress in changing attitudes and enhancing women’s participation in cocoa farming. Important were the relatively positive views expressed by both men and women in the community. In contrast, in C2 there was clear contestation by male farmers, who resisted changes that enhanced gender equality. If anything, they felt threatened that women could do better than them. Contestation can therefore involve gender tensions at the community level. It is difficult to identify reasons behind the differences. One possibility is that in C1 respondents were migrant farmers from the north of the country, holding differing cultural views and more open to change. In C2 they were indigenous farmers, possibly more strident in holding onto traditional beliefs. The community in C1 was also more remote—further away from the nearest town, with poorer services and transport. My impression was that C1 was poorer than C2, the latter being closer to the nearest town, with better housing, infrastructure and access to services. It is possible that in C1 farmers (male and female) could quickly see that the programme would enhance their overall well-being, reducing resistance by men to more equal participation of women. These are only personal observations; more in-depth research would be needed to ascertain whether these or other factors helped account for the differences. Overall, however, comparison of the two different communities shows how the same programme can play out differently at the local level with variations in embedded gender norms.

Concluding Remarks The cocoa–chocolate value chain has undergone major changes since the 1970s, when the old marketing boards still prevailed. Structural adjustment led to an overall downgrading trajectory, leading to disjuncture between fragmented smallholders and more oligopolistic processors, lack of producer support and a secular overall decline in cocoa prices. Economic downgrading of smallholders was reflected in declining productivity and quality. This contributed to social downgrading and poor livelihoods of cocoa households and communities. The cocoa–chocolate value chain has become more complex as consumer awareness of the social and environmental provenance of chocolate increased. This includes not only more desire for ‘fine flavours’ but also assurance that farmer well-being is enhanced. This, as we have seen, is a gendered process, with women more than men expressing ethical concerns. Fairtrade chocolate has now been mainstreamed in the business operations of many supermarkets and chocolate brands. Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Stockholm University Library, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:33:39, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.006

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Gender articulations in cocoa are deeply embedded in land tenure systems and farming practices that go back a long way. Even where the law has changed, customary rights still favour men, and women’s contribution to cocoa production is often unrecognized. However, the same downgrading trajectories have also stimulated a Polanyian counter-movement through social contestation. This has occurred at three levels: the individual exit of youth and younger farmers out of cocoa in search of a better life; collective contestation through formation of cooperatives and producer groups able to engage in the global cocoa–chocolate value chain; and collaboratively through civil society campaigns over child labour and gender inequality. For two decades cocoa–chocolate processors and manufacturers assumed that markets would generate sufficient cocoa for their needs. However, since the mid2000s, contested outcomes have triggered a rude awakening. This came to a head with the prediction that declining productivity in West Africa and rising demand for chocolate in Asia meant demand would soon outstrip supply, with an estimated 1-million-tonne shortage of cocoa by 2020. This spurred chocolate processors and manufacturers to become more directly engaged in the social and environmental dimensions of production. Linkages along the cocoa–chocolate value chain from customers through retailers, manufacturers and processors to producer groups and small-scale farmers are becoming more interconnected. Private and social governance, involving companies, civil society and even government, now extends to promoting economic and social upgrading. In these initiatives there is increasing recognition that women do play an important if hidden role, especially in aspects that enhance productivity and quality. Increasing concern over the future resilience of cocoa supply has spurred cocoa processors and chocolate manufacturers into a range of initiatives to support cocoa farmers and communities. Many of these (including the World Cocoa Foundation CocoaAction Plan) include a gender dimension that is disruptive of traditional gender norms and practices. Divine chocolate also took a value chain approach, inserting a motif ‘Empowering Women Cocoa Farmers’ on the wrapping of its main chocolate bars in 2017, and promoting this as part of its marketing to consumers. However, as we have seen, social contestation is also complex from a gender perspective, with resistance by men in one community to the idea that women farmers could do as well or even better than men. It is too early to say how much this will help change long-embedded gender inequalities or enhance recognition of women’s contribution to producing quality cocoa. However, we can see engagement in global retail value chains opening up potential opportunities to promote women’s economic empowerment not achieved in previous governmentcontrolled or market-led production systems.

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6 Mixed Outcomes

Downgrading and Upgrading in African Horticulture

Introduction Economic and social downgrading and upgrading are complex processes in global retail value chains that source from agriculture. Production is embedded within traditional norms and institutions of rural society that shape commercial and social interaction in differing ways depending on product and local context. Chapter 5 examined the gendered complexities of embeddedness in relation to smallholder cocoa farming in Ghana. However, as this chapter will examine, the transition from smallholder to larger-scale commercial farming involving wage labour can also be fraught with downgrading and upgrading tensions that are gendered. Some groups experience significant challenges or total value chain exclusion, yet for others new opportunities for value chain inclusion arise. Who loses and benefits is a gendered process often overlooked in the literatures on agricultural smallholders and wage-workers. Smallholder exclusion from global value chains affects men as the recognized farmers, as well as their households, including women who have long played an unrecognized role as unpaid contributing family labour. In larger commercial farming, women play a more visible role as independent wage labour. Nevertheless, they are often concentrated in insecure temporary and seasonal work that also exposes them to downgrading pressures as suppliers manage risks and costs in supermarket value chains. Yet some women workers are able to benefit from economic upgrading involving higher quality production/processing to attain social upgrading with improved conditions and rights. Fresh fruit and vegetables provide an important example of the gendered complexities of downgrading and upgrading. The expansion of global retail value chains (particularly cool chain innovation) has played an important role in generating the availability of fresh and processed horticultural produce all year round at affordable prices. Some southern hemisphere countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America have been well positioned to take advantage of increased global demand for horticultural exports, particularly during the winter season in the Global North. However, this also exposes them to supermarket requirements Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Stockholm University Library, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:36:07, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.007

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on cost, quality and delivery schedules that put pressure on smallholders and smaller or less-efficient farmers engaged in retail value chains. In some countries retail pressures have led to a decline in engagement by smallholders and smaller farmers, with expansion of larger-scale commercial production and processing, but in others smallholders retain a foothold in value chains (Dolan and Humphrey 2000; Vorley et al. 2007). This chapter traces processes of downgrading and upgrading involving smallholders and wage labour on medium-sized and larger commercial farms as well as in packing and processing. It asks: What are the implications of economic and social downgrading and upgrading for different groups? How are gender articulations reshaped as production shifts from maledominated smallholder farming to a more feminized wage labour force? I examine these questions drawing on two case studies from the Ghanaian and South African horticulture sectors. These facilitate exploration of the embedded commercial tensions of supplying retailers that affect smallholders, larger farmers and workers in differing ways. In particular, it helps to unpack the diverse shifting gender patterns between paid and unpaid work. It examines how the trajectories of economic and social downgrading and upgrading can be mixed for different groups of smallholders and workers. Outcomes depend on form of value chain engagement, local commercial context, prevailing socio-economic and institutional norms and the status of workers—as family labour, seasonal casuals, on-farm permanent, in packhouses or in food-processing. The second section examines the case of Ghanaian pineapples, providing an example of smallholder exclusion and wage labour inclusion. The sector was a relatively recent entrant into supermarket exports, in the late 1980s. Development of a new pineapple variety led to a shift in production away from smallholders to larger commercial farming and processing, opening up new jobs for rural migrants and women. In a relatively short period of time, pineapple farming experienced countervailing downgrading and upgrading trajectories. This section examines the complex gendered articulations tied up with patterns of land tenure and migrant status. Farms provided waged employment for women and rural migrants, who previously had little recognition or rights. For some, this enabled relative social upgrading compared to their previous situation, in contrast to the downgrading of indigenous smallholders. The third section examines a higher tier of the pineapple value chain. A social entrepreneur driven by the goal of capturing value within Ghana established a fruit-processing company to export ready-cut pineapples. It continues to engage a small number of smallholders in provision of different pineapple and other fruit varieties, offsetting downgrading for some smallholders. This section again examines complex gender articulations. Its smallholder outgrowers (independent

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small-scale farms from which it contracted supply) remained predominantly male, reflecting embeddedness in traditional gender norms. The social enterprise drove social upgrading for local women as wage-workers in fruit processing, providing relatively good pay and conditions. This illustrates how outcomes can vary according to gender, land tenure and migrant status, with value chain integration playing out in complex ways for different groups of smallholders and workers. The fourth section examines the second case of the South African fruit sector. It provides an example of medium-sized farming steeped in gendered apartheid norms and practices undergoing processes of change through entry into global and African supermarket chains. This case study provides an example of a ‘modernizing’ industry at the upper tiers of the value chain generating regular quality jobs in packhouses and for permanent workers on larger commercial farms, many of them female. However, at the lower farming tiers of the value chain, commercial pressures and supermarket purchasing practices are driving the casualization of labour and the use of labour contractors (or brokers). Gendered outcomes in this context are complex, with some women benefiting from better rights and conditions generated at upper tiers of the value chain but many farm workers (both male and female, coloured and black African) trapped in poverty and insecurity generated by casualization. Contested outcomes were reflected in eruption of a significant labour crisis in 2012–13, when casual workers rose up using value chain ‘choke points’ to demand government increases the agricultural minimum wage. This led to partial success, but the sector has subsequently been undergoing significant restructuring, with further mixed upgrading and downgrading outcomes for workers and growers apparent. The fifth section compares the Ghanaian and South African case studies to illustrate how engagement in retail value chains can undermine traditional patterns of agricultural production with negative outcomes for smallholders and casual seasonal workers. However, it also generates better jobs in larger commercial farms, packhouses and food-processing, where women’s contribution and rights can be better recognized. This helps explore multi-scalar and embedded tensions in agricultural value chains linked to commercial retail dominated by global agrifood and supermarket buyers. It provides insights into some of the complexities of gendered articulations between the commercial dynamics of global retail value chains and the societal relations that have long relegated women to subordinate roles (both as unpaid family labour or as seasonal wage labour). Combined, the two case studies provide insights into the different ways downgrading and upgrading trajectories are gendered, with differing outcomes that yield both benefits and challenges for women and men involved in horticultural value chains supplying global retailers.

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Ghanaian Pineapples Pineapples are a relatively new export crop from Ghana that has grown since the 1980s and provide a contrasting story to Ghanaian cocoa examined in Chapter 5. Smallholders initially played an important part in their export production but the introduction of a new variety called MD2 by multinational companies precipitated a shift away from smallholder production to larger-scale commercial farms based on wage labour. Functional upgrading also took place through local establishment by a social entrepreneur of factory-based processing of fresh-cut pineapples sourced from both smallholders and larger commercial farms. These shifts involved many tensions, associated with economic and social downgrading of smallholders, in parallel with economic upgrading by larger commercial farms and a fruit processing company involving wage-workers. The research for this case study was based on two separate case studies in Ghana’s pineapple sector. The first involved a study of migrant pineapple workers in the Central and Greater Accra regions in 2006. Research was undertaken among workers on two types of farm: 1. exporter/producers and large farms selling exporting directly 2. contracted outgrowers, mainly independent smallholders selling to them

Research involved key informant interviews, a survey of 283 workers and FDGs. The profile of the workers overall was 27 per cent female, 59 per cent employed on exporter/large farms and 41 per cent on outgrower farms. See Barrientos et al. (2009) for more detail on the research methodology and findings.1 The second, smaller case study involved a research visit in 2014 to a factory processing pineapples as well as selected farms (small- and medium-sized) supplying it north of Accra. During this visit I reviewed company documentation and undertook semi-structured interviews with six managers, six workers (four women, two men), two farmers, three union officials and one foundation representative. Both were relatively small case studies (particularly in 2014), and the findings should be treated as indicative and not representative of the pineapple sector. Secondary data and information also provide important background to the case study.

Commercial Context and Smallholder Exclusion in Pineapples Pineapple production mainly takes place north of Accra in the Central and Greater Accra and Eastern regions. Exports grew following structural adjustment  I am grateful to J. Anarfi, N. Lamhauge, A. Castaldo and N. Akua Anyidoho for collaboration on this project. I am solely responsible for the views presented here.

1

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in the 1980s, with production increasing from 14,954 to 71,805 metric tonnes between 1994 and 2004 (GEPC 2006). Initial expansion involved a rapid process of switching from maize and cassava, providing a new source of income for smallholder households. Early estimates showed that 45 per cent of exports came from smallholders by the late 1990s, largely selling through large farms or exporters (Goldstein and Udry 1999). The main export destination is Europe (particularly Germany and the UK), where supermarket retailing has become the dominant retail outlet. As expansion grew, large companies began to enter the sector, a trend bolstered by a major upheaval in the mid-2000s. The traditional variety of pineapple grown in Ghana is Sweet Cayenne. However, Ghana faced a significant crisis from late 2003, when demand for Sweet Cayenne fell dramatically, and there was a sudden shift in demand for the new variety, MD2, in the main export markets. The reasons behind this shift are complex and examined in more detail elsewhere (Danielou and Ravry 2005; Fold and Gough 2008; Vagneron, Faure, and Loeillet 2009; Ouma 2015). In brief, MD2 was a variety that had been patented by Fresh Del Monte Produce and grown by its contract farmers in Costa Rica since 1993, mainly for the US market. When its patent expired in 2003, other large multinational fruit companies, particularly Dole, Chiquita and Fyffes, were also able to produce it. MD2 is a smaller fruit with a sweeter taste, preferred by many consumers in Europe and North America. From 2003, it was heavily promoted by companies supplying European supermarkets. This led to a sudden drop in demand for Sweet Cayenne—exports from Ghana fell dramatically, from 71,805 to 46,695 metric tonnes in one year from 2004 to 2005 (GEPC 2006). Despite the serious impact of the switch to the MD2 variety on smallholder pineapple farmers, the Ministry of Food and Agriculture viewed this as opening up new commercial opportunities. Greater consumer interest in pineapples led demand within Europe to double and within the USA to triple. Following the worst impact in 2005, exports partially recovered in 2006, when they grew to 60,751 metric tonnes (GEPC 2006). Although exports continued to be dominated by fresh fruits, local processing in sliced pineapple, fruit salad and juicing also began to expand (Danielou and Ravry 2005). Taking total exports together, in 2004 the value of fresh whole pineapples was $23 million and that of fresh-cut pineapples $5 million. By 2011, the value of fresh whole pineapples had decreased to $20 million, but fresh-cut processed fruit had increased to $17 million (Gatune et al. 2013: 21). This represented functional upgrading in the value chain, which I examine below. The 2003 crisis led to significant smallholder downgrading, with large numbers excluded from the pineapple value chain in Ghana as multinational companies gained a greater hold. The new variety MD2 plantlets were expensive and required Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Stockholm University Library, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:36:07, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.007

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more advanced cultivation and cool chain facilities, making them more difficult for smallholders to acquire or grow. The variety was developed for ease of mechanized production in the large farms of Latin America, and it was not easily produced within small-scale agriculture of Ghana (Ouma 2015). Growth in demand for MD2 led to a slump in price of Sweet Cayenne, with many exporters defaulting on their payments to smallholders during the crisis. Smallholders therefore had inadequate resources or capabilities to invest in MD2, as their market for Sweet Cayenne collapsed (Fold and Gough 2008). Multinationals and large farmers were thus much better placed to obtain and export MD2. The value chain out of Ghana was accessible only by larger farmers and companies that were members of the export association, which provided cool chain and transportation facilities from the port of Tema. At best, smallholders became reserve suppliers to larger farmers/exporters, who often approached them on an ad hoc basis when they needed pineapples. Exporters handled harvesting, cleaning, grading, packing and transport to Tema, from where they were shipped to Europe. Large export farmers significantly reduced the number of their smallholder outgrowers to a few who could produce MD2 to the standards required. One study of key export farms found a decline in the number of smallholders engaged in exports from 1,600 to less than 200 between 1999 and 2004 (Gatune et al. 2013: v) The insistence of European supermarkets on standards, particularly EurepGAP (later GlobalGAP), provided further hurdles that many smallholders were unable to circumvent. The only remaining avenue for smallholder production of Sweet Cayenne was local markets, at low prices, or fresh-cut fruit processors.

Gendered Articulations: Land Tenure and Migrant Status in Pineapples The crisis was disastrous for smallholder farmers. This was poignantly documented by Fold and Gough (2008), who undertook fieldwork in different periods just before and after the crisis. They combined a value chain approach with a livelihood perspective to analyse the implications for the well-being of smallholder farmers comparing 2003 and 2005 in Pokrom within the Eastern region. Most of the farms in their study were very small, with 60 per cent occupying 2 hectares or less (ibid.: 1692). They compared the situation between the two periods: [Pokrom] was a hive of activity with farmers and workers on their way to or from their fields, trucks piled high with pineapples were constantly passing by, workers were busy in a packing shed located on the roadside, and as far as the eye could see there were pineapple fields. The transformation two years later was dramatic. Many of the pineapple fields had been abandoned and were overgrown, the Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Stockholm University Library, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:36:07, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.007



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packing shed had been closed, young men were sitting around with nothing to do…. Pokrom had gone from a booming settlement, which indigenous people returned to in order to farm pineapples and where migrants came looking for farm work, to a stagnating settlement where the migrants had moved on and the local youth planned ways of getting out of their hometown. (Fold and Gough 2008: 1692)

Tensions arising from the commercial shift away from smallholders to larger farms in the Ghana case are, however, only part of the story. The crisis brought out shifting articulations based on deeply embedded gender norms relating to land access and tenure and migrant status. As discussed in Chapter 5 on cocoa, land tenure in Ghana is deeply embedded in traditional gender norms, although there are regional and ethnic variations. Despite matrilineal systems of inheritance in some regions, entrenched norms ensure most land goes to male relatives, and recognized landholders are predominantly male. Within smallholder production, men are more likely to take responsibility for cash crops, whereas women mainly work as unpaid contributing family labour in commercial crops and tend food crops for the household. Pineapples, similar to cocoa, are therefore deemed a ‘male crop’. There is some evidence that a minority of smallholders were women in production of Sweet Cayenne but disappeared in production of MD2 (Torvikey, Yaro and Teye 2016). Men undertake the main production and harvesting, even though women often aid their spouses, carry pineapples from the field and work in packsheds. This gender division of labour does not necessarily reflect differences in physical ability as claimed: carrying involves heavy loads, with women often transporting pineapples on their heads out of the fields. Ghana also has a long tradition of internal labour migration, but the status and rights of migrants remain socially and culturally configured according to traditional norms across generations (Litchfield and Waddington 2003). These determine both access to land and the community support ‘migrants’ are able to access in their home and destination communities. According to embedded norms, even those whose parents or grandparents migrated before they were born are deemed ‘migrant’ in the localities in which they live, meaning they do not have established land rights and still have reciprocal allegiances to their hometowns of origin (Manuh 2005). According to custom in most regions, only ‘indigenes’ whose families go back for generations and are deemed to originate from particular villages have full land tenure and social rights. Those descended from migrants have only informal land access or social rights, and those who have migrated themselves look to their hometowns for such rights and networks. This helps explain why, in the Central and Greater Accra regions, village chiefs were able to provide land to large commercial enterprises. Although the original Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Stockholm University Library, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:36:07, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.007

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expansion of pineapple production had been based largely on smallholder production in the Eastern region, this largely involved ‘indigene’ smallholders. With the growth of exports, larger, often foreign-owned, firms had moved into the sector. Limited access to ‘indigene’ land led them to expand production for export in the Central and Greater Accra regions more populated by ‘migrants’. Here, village chiefs were prepared to displace internal ‘migrant’ smallholders who had limited recognized land rights in order to release tracts of land to large commercial enterprises with which they did deals. Even though many smallholders might have farmed land in the same location for two to three generations, according to Ghanaian norms and practices they were still deemed ‘migrant’ without formal land tenure. They could thus be forced to move to make way for the larger, newly established commercial farms (Barrientos et al. 2009). Pineapple production is relatively labour-intensive compared with traditional crops, and smallholders also employ wage labour (Goldstein and Udry 1999). There is no reliable data on the exact numbers of wage-workers in the pineapple sector before or after 2003. However, key informant and trade sources indicate that the expansion of larger commercial farms and exporters in Central and Greater Accra regions increased the demand for waged labour in pineapples in this area significantly. Case studies before the crisis estimated that approximately one-third (35–40 per cent) of workers were migrants from poorer regions within Ghana, particularly the Volta and Central regions (Osae 2005). The risks migrant wage-workers faced were highlighted by the crisis that hit home in 2004. Many wage-workers employed by smallholders lost their jobs or went unpaid. Children (of both wage-workers and smallholders) were withdrawn from school as the crisis cut money to spend on fees, books and uniforms (interviews 2006). Migrant wage-workers without access to land for subsistence or alternative means of support were most vulnerable at a time of sudden commercial shock; many were forced to move elsewhere in search of work. At the same time, the expansion of larger-scale farms that were able to adopt MD2 in Central and Greater Accra regions provided new opportunities for waged employment, drawing in local migrant and some indigene workers. Reliable aggregate information on wage-workers in larger commercial pineapple production, or the gender profile of employment, is also not available.2 The case study provided insights into the type of labour and working conditions across the value chain in the four locations. Most pineapple producers (from the smallest upwards) hired  One recent study of 14 key pineapple export farms estimated the staff strength to be 3,785 (Gatune et al. 2013, 20). However, it is not clear whether this figure includes their directly employed seasonal workers and is unlikely to include wage-workers on their outgrower farms.

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workers, the majority of whom were ‘migrants’, with ‘indigene’ workers constituting only 10 per cent of the total sample interviewed in the research. This could reflect sampling bias, but key informants and focus group discussions indicated that indigenes remaining in those communities own land and/or engage in other activities and prefer not take up wage labour in pineapples. Migrants coming from much poorer regions generally saw pineapple work as facilitating an improvement in their situation. Their incomes helped them provide remittances and support to their origin households and hometowns, with whom they continued to keep close contact as part of cultural and social norms prevalent in Ghana. Although beyond the scope of the research discussed here, it is likely their remittances contributed to a wider process of poverty reduction elsewhere in Ghana, as they came from poorer areas such as the Volta region. The 2006 study found that the gender profile of pineapple employment varied between export/large farms and those on outgrower and smallholder farms. Export and large farms were found to employ a higher proportion (37 per cent) of female workers compared with 15 per cent among outgrower and smallholder farms. It also found that working conditions were generally better on export/large farms, with more workers having secure contracts and receiving the legal minimum wage and social security benefits than on smallholder farms (Barrientos et al. 2009). However, there were still labour problems on some larger farms. Temporary and casual workers sometimes work most of the year and should have had permanent status but were kept on temporary contracts, meaning they did not receive their full statutory benefits. Conversely, a minority of wage-workers on smallholder farms did receive due entitlements and benefits. Possibly, this reflected closer ties between smallholders and some workers they employ, often through personal links, especially migrant descendants who have lived in the same communities for a generation or more. A later study commissioned by the UK NGO Banana Link3 examined working and living conditions on four large Ghanaian pineapple export farms in 2010. It found that the companies in the study appeared to respect the rights of workers overall, including basic legal rights and freedom of association. However, issues were raised, including minimum wages being too low to meet basic needs and work-related health problems (Banana Link 2010). In sum, the pineapple case studies illustrate the complexities of commercial and societal articulations involving multinational companies driving a commercial logic on one hand and on the other hand societally embedded smallholders among  Banana Link is a not-for-profit NGO based in the UK that promotes fairer trade, better working and living conditions for smallholders and workers in both bananas and pineapples in Latin America, Africa and the Caribbean (http://www.bananalink.org.uk).

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whom there prevailed differential access to land based on gender and migrant status. The immediate impact of the pineapple crisis was devastating for smallholders. Indigenous smallholders shifted to new areas of work and deemed working as  wage labour on pineapple farms too lowly. Internal migrants from poorer regions, including women, found new openings for accessing paid work on larger commercial farms. While this study is not statistically representative, it indicates that workers on larger commercial farms at higher levels of the value chain can enjoy better conditions than those on smaller farms contracted to them, although on some, paternalist relations can mean smallholder workers are well-treated. Therefore, while many smallholders (predominantly male) were excluded from pineapple production by the expansion of MD2, this also opened up new opportunities for migrants, including more women, to gain from access to better wage employment.

Upgrading: Social Entrepreneur and Fresh-Cut Pineapple Export Processor We now examine a further dimension of economic upgrading in relation to one company established to export processed pineapples to European supermarkets. A UK social entrepreneur with strong links to Ghana in 1998 established a social enterprise company to manufacture fresh-cut fresh fruit (including pineapple, mango, papaya and passion fruit) for direct export. The main aim was adding value within Ghana rather than value being captured through processing abroad. The company has a large facility north of Accra, where it processes and packages fresh fruit daily for export by airfreight to Europe each evening, with fruit arriving on supermarket shelves within 24–48 hours of harvesting. A small quantity of freshcut fruit is sold to African supermarkets. The company is compliant with a number of certification standards, including GlobalGAP for its contracted farmers, HACCP, British Retail Consortium, Fairtrade and individual supermarket standards (interviews 2014). The company is one of the largest private sector employers in Ghana. In 2014 it employed over 2,600 workers, 62 per cent of whom are female (company documentation). This is over double the number of workers in 2008, which was 1,059 employees, 52 per cent female (ibid.). The gender profile of workers in 2014 was 41 per cent female among permanent workers (with unlimited contracts) and 26 per cent female among contract workers (with renewable contracts of one–five years). Women are most predominant in factory production as temporary workers (working up to five months per annum), where they accounted for 71 per cent of the 1,992 workers in 2014. Only 2 out of 16 agronomists in the company are women, in part reflecting social norms and few women gaining educational qualifications Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Stockholm University Library, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:36:07, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.007



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in agronomy. Of the seven senior executive positions, two are occupied by women, one of whom is the general manager. This study was too small to ascertain the migrant status of workers (which was not recorded by the company), but anecdotal information provided in interviews indicated that they were a mix of indigene and migrant workers. A gender division of labour operates across the fruit manufacturer’s value chain in terms of which tasks men or women are concentrated in, as indicated in Table 6.1. This profile partly reflects gender norms relating to activities. Farmers are predominantly male, as discussed further later. Transport, reception/sanitation and final loading are deemed to involve heavy tasks requiring lifting, and are predominantly male (although there was previously a woman driver). Women are particularly concentrated in handling and preparation of fruit, where skills relating to dexterity and quality are required (particularly in peeling, cutting and packing fruit, which is over 80 per cent female). Labelling and handling of fruit at the airport have more balanced gender ratios. Women are employed, according to one manager, not as a specific policy but because they are ‘better at doing meticulous work’, particularly relating to quality. Therefore, although the company provided opportunities for women to progress to higher categories of employment, they were nevertheless concentrated in the more insecure lower category jobs. This partly resulted from feminization of work in the fruit processing industry, which involved more seasonal labour, but it also reflected embedded norms regarding the ‘dexterity’ and ‘skills’ of women workers in handling fruit, gender differences in educational levels within Ghana and social norms governing appropriate female career choices (Torvikey et al. 2016). In order to attain high quality and JIT turnaround, the company’s employment strategy combines good educational standards in higher categories and retention of workers with more practical skills in lower categories. Permanent workers must have attained education to 18 years and be proficient in English, but temporary workers are only required to undertake a simple English literacy test, and lack of Table 6.1  Ghana fresh-cut fruit exporters: value chain gender profile Activity Ratio men:women Activity Ratio men:women

Farmers

Transport

Reception

Sanitation

Processing (peel/pack)

80:20

100:0

100:0

100:0

20:80

Labelling

Dispatch

Loading

Transport

Airport cool store

50:50

80:20

100:0

100:0

40:60

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educational attainment is not deemed a barrier to employment. The pay is well above the Ghanaian minimum wage, with the lowest salary being over double the legal minimum in 2014 (company documentation). Workers also receive a range of benefits, including access to a canteen and medical facilities. A crèche is available but underused, partly because family members often care for workers’ children, though some indicated it was because it is not attractive for children. The company has low worker turnover, retaining trained workers, which helps to ensure skills and quality. It provides a systematic training programme for all staff. At a minimum level, training is provided for all new recruits, covering basic food hygiene, health and safety and information on the Ethical Trading Initiative (ETI) Base Code. Production staff are given on-the-job training, and highergrade staff such as technical and supervisors receive specialized training (some externally provided). It is estimated that every worker in the factory will undergo some form of training at least twice a year. The company has a collective bargaining agreement (CBA) with a registered independent trade union, and written policies covering human resources, health and safety, training, discrimination and complaints procedures. Moving to the lower value chain tier, the company had 70 contract farmers in Ghana in 2014 supplying its daily fresh fruit in 2014. This was less than half the number supplying it in 2010, reflecting a general decline in the number of farmers growing pineapples (particularly smallholders) following the pineapple crisis and increasing sourcing difficulties (Gatune et al. 2013). The majority of contract farmers are on an annually renewable contract, with the fruit export processor responsible for their certification (a condition of GlobalGAP). However, the company has experienced problems with giving farmers support and some subsequently side-selling to other exporters (Ouma 2015). It also supplements its fruit from its operations outside Ghana, and has started using larger growers as well as smallholders. In addition to MD2, the company buys Sweet Cayenne pineapples and a variety called Sugar Loaf, which are more amenable to smallholder production, depending on customer preferences. The average farm size of its Sweet Cayenne and MD2 suppliers was 11 acres and that of its Sugar Loaf suppliers was 22 acres in the mid-2000s (personal communication). Problems facing the company and its smallholder suppliers as a result of the MD2 crisis and subsequent financial crisis are insightfully discussed in Ouma (2015). Before 2006, smallholders supplying Sweet Cayenne for processing enjoyed relatively close relationships with the company and were able to sell any surplus to other direct exporters. Once the MD2 crisis hit, some customers switched to MD2, and farmers producing Sweet Cayenne lost access to alternative markets, many facing serious financial difficulties. The company subsequently had difficulty encouraging contract farmers to produce Sweet Cayenne, and had to Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Stockholm University Library, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:36:07, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.007



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source MD2 from larger producers, who were in a stronger position in price negotiations. Further pressure occurred following the 2008 global financial crisis. European consumers became much more price-sensitive, and supermarkets now facing increased competition from discounters drove a harder bargain on price. These pressures led to tensions with smallholder farmers, and worker redundancies, from which it took time for the company to recover. As discussed earlier, pineapple farming is deemed a ‘male crop’, in part because of embedded gender norms relating to land tenure and responsibility for cash crops as well as activities deemed appropriate for men and women to undertake. Interviews indicated that approximately 80 per cent of the company’s contract farmers are male and 20 per cent female, with women mainly found in papaya farming rather than pineapples. One pineapple contract farmer indicated 30 per cent of his permanent workers were women employed in administrative roles, and approximately 40 per cent of his seasonal workers were women, involved mainly in helping pick and plant suckers, carrying and packing. He had firm ideas regarding which tasks were appropriate for men versus women and rebuffed my query that, if women could carry heavy crates of pineapples on their heads, could they not also do other physical tasks? As a social enterprise, the company has strong ties to the local community. A social impact study commissioned by the company by German academics found it had a good reputation as an employer and enjoyed high levels of employee satisfaction.4 The company engages in a number of different community projects that have been positively assessed for their impact (ibid.). The company estimates that each worker has approximately five dependants (personal communication 2014), indicating that over 13,000 people relied on income generated by its employment in 2014. Economic upgrading in this case appears to have played an important role in promoting social upgrading of workers, the majority women, within the value chain, and also extends to wider societal engagement beyond the commercial sphere alone. In sum, the above studies found that as we move up the value chain, wagedworkers on larger export farms tend to have better conditions and rights than those on smallholder farms, with the best conditions found in the fruit processing factory. This finding is not necessarily surprising. First, the larger exporter farms are newer and more modern, with greater investment in human resource management and better-formulated employment policies. Second, all exporter farms are directly subject to supermarket standards that specify that employment law and health and safety standards should be adhered to for all workers. In most  T he study, provided by the company, was undertaken by academics from a German university but not publicly available.

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supermarket value chains, larger farms are responsible for ensuring that outgrowers implement their standards, but enforcement at this level of the value chain is often lax. Third, the processing factory requires a much higher level of capital investment, skill and productivity, providing better conditions and training to attract and retain the best workers. This has contributed to economic and social upgrading for a limited number of small-scale pineapple outgrowers. Wage-workers in fruit processing have seen benefits, particularly women who form the majority of the company’s manufacturing labour force.

South African Fruit The South African fruit sector provides a contrasting example of mixed economic and social upgrading and downgrading outcomes from engagement in retail value chains. The country has a long history of producing and exporting fresh produce, mainly deciduous and citrus fruit as well as some vegetables. However, the economic and social context underpinning overall downgrading and upgrading trajectories are very different to Ghana. The sector underwent a significant process of change following the end of apartheid and transition to democracy from the 1990s. The fruit sector was opened up to external markets through economic liberalization, while labour regulation and protection of workers was extended to agriculture. These occurred at the same time as the increasing dominance of supermarkets in Europe—the main destination of South African fruit. Supermarkets demanded increased quality standards, requiring innovations in production and packing, along with competitive pressures to lower labour costs. The gendered articulations and contested outcomes of the process of transition from apartheid to democracy have been complex. As examined in more detail later, many workers experienced downgrading (particularly retrenched workers now employed seasonally or through labour contractors), but some workers (especially a largely female packhouse labour force) have experienced upgrading as more skills and innovation have been required to meet supermarket standards. The research underpinning this section is based on five studies I undertook with different collaborators in the South African fruit sector between 1998 and 2012. The first was undertaken in 1998–9 with Christian Aid (Barrientos, McClenaghan and Orton 2000) and the next as part of a research programme in 2000–2 on gender and ethical trade in the African horticulture sector (Barrientos, Dolan and Tallontire 2003; Smith et al. 2004). This was followed by a study on poverty in the South African fruit sector in 2003 (Barrientos and Kritzinger 2003, 2004; Kritzinger and Barrientos 2004). A case study undertaken in the South African fruit sector was included in the ETI Impact Assessment in 2005 (IDS 2006; Barrientos and Smith 2007; Barrientos 2008), and a study formed part of the Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Stockholm University Library, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:36:07, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.007



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Capturing the Gains research programme undertaken in 2012 (Barrientos and Visser 2012; Barrientos et al. 2016). In addition, during a three-month visiting fellowship at the University of Cape Town in 2015, I undertook 15 key informant interviews and 2 research meetings involving 20 participants to update data and triangulate information. Combined, the studies examined two tiers of production: farm level and packhouse, focusing on table grapes and deciduous fruit (apples, pears, peaches and nectarines) in the Western and Northern Cape. They covered different categories of permanent, temporary and seasonal employment in both tiers, as well as labour brokers that serviced some farms. They allowed me to observe changes in the sector over nearly 15 years.

Commercial Tensions in South African Fruit The South African fruit sector has a long tradition of exporting fresh fruit, although exports were restricted during the apartheid era. Apartheid had shaped a system of land tenure based on racial segregation that appropriated land from black African and coloured owners and promoted white-owned commercial farming. Following apartheid, economic liberalization led to the disbandment in 1997 of the statecontrolled single channel export marketing boards that had been responsible for exports (Mather and Greenberg 2003). The sector established itself as key global fruit exporter in the period from December to March each year, when its only other main competitors are Chile and New Zealand. Export liberalization occurred at a time when European supermarkets were rapidly expanding and transforming the governance of their value chains in contrast with that under the previous, more arms-length, market relations. Over 50 per cent of fruit is exported, mainly supplied to supermarket value chains, primarily based in Europe. However, recently supply has also been growing to supermarkets within South Africa, other parts of Africa (particularly for deciduous and citrus fruit) and a more diverse range of markets in the Middle East and Asia (Barrientos and Visser 2012). Economic liberalization exposed fruit growers to a combination of trade, commercial and supermarket pressures. On the trade front, fruit growers face tough phyto-sanitary and other regulations in its main markets, including the EU.5 On the commercial front, increasing dominance of supermarkets within Europe (and now also in South Africa) has put pressure on growers in two ways. The dominant position of supermarkets relative to many fragmented suppliers in a competitive international market has reduced the bargaining position of growers on the terms and conditions of supply, positioning them as price-takers (Barrientos Regulation (EC) 1234/2007 in conjunction with Regulation (EC) 1580/2007.

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Gender and Work in Global Value Chains Table 6.2  Estimated breakdown of table grape cost chain, South Africa to UK, 2011 Activity Retail price (RP) Delivered price to retailer DC CIF (cost, insurance and freight) FOB (free on board) DIP (delivered in port) Farm gate/packed price Delivered into packhouse

% of final supermarket retail price 100 58.2 33.44 29.67 26.39 25.72 18.05

Source: Industry key informant 2011.

and Kritzinger 2004; Visser and Ferrer 2015). This allows supermarkets to capture a significant share of the final retail price of fruit—in other words, an economic rent examined in Chapter 4. It is difficult to estimate the value chain breakdown, given variable fruit prices, exchange rates and costs. Table 6.2 provides an indicative estimate of the cost distribution along the value chain for fresh table grapes. This shows that 42 per cent of the final retail price is captured by supermarket buyers and 32 per cent in distribution; growers receive only 18 per cent of the final price (26 per cent if packhouses are included). Alongside the rising costs of adhering to private supermarket standards, industry informants indicate significant increases in fruit production costs. This has been attributed to increasing input costs, such as for pesticides and fertilizer, fuel and electricity, packaging and planting materials. Labour also constitutes a significant proportion of costs, which are estimated as comprising approximately 40–50 per cent of gross farm income (Hortgro 2012; key informant interviews 2012).6 In relation to the total value chain cost shown in Table 6.2, labour represents approximately 8 per cent of final retail price. Supermarkets have strict requirements for traceability of fresh produce and increasingly govern their supply chains through the application of stringent standards covering product specifications, environmental and social issues. Often, supermarket standards are stricter than international trade standards. They include the application of GlobalGAP and individual supermarket standards such as Tesco Nature, Waitrose Leaf and Marks & Spencer Plan A and wider social and environmental standards including Fairtrade and organic certification (Barrientos  One industry analyst, who provided the data under the condition of anonymity, estimated that for table grape farms as a whole (which are relatively labour-intensive), wages as a share of total farm costs had increased from 35 to 52 per cent between 2003 and 2011.

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and Visser 2012; Visser and Ferrer 2015). Growers also supply South African and Kenyan supermarkets, which apply standards covering visual product specification and quality, but tend (with some exceptions) to apply fewer environmental and social standards (Pickles et al. 2006). Economic upgrading has been essential for growers and packhouses wanting to sustain exports into European markets dominated by supermarkets. In particular, they have had to engage in process upgrading to meet rising standards, with two effects. First, they have added to producer costs, as they have to pay for implementation of private standards and audits. In 2012, GlobalGAP and most supermarket audits cost R6,000 (US$740) per farm per audit, excluding auditor transport and food. BRC cost R12,000 (US$1482) per packhouse. Ethical audits cost about R8,000 (US$988) per farm (industry informant 2011).7 With the advance of standards, many growers and packhouses have appointed one or more full-time managers to deal with standards (technical and social). They are responsible for all accreditation, audit visits, writing standards procedures and checking that supermarket demands are met. One large grower/packhouse participating in our research had complied with 32 audits in the year previous to our visit (Barrientos and Visser 2012). Second, application of multiple standards requires a more educated and skilled workforce with better literacy and numeracy at both farm and packhouse levels able to handle more complex systems, read and keep records, differentiate standards required by different markets and sustain productivity. The combination of cost and quality pressures has had both downgrading and upgrading consequences for producers and workers. Many smaller farmers have been unable to remain competitive and have sold up or gone into liquidation. These combined pressures have driven a process of concentration, as less successful farms are purchased by larger, more commercially viable, enterprises (Barrientos and Visser 2012). For example, the table grape industry experienced a 30 per cent reduction in the number of producers between 2007 and 2011 according to the South African Table Grape Industry (SATI 2008, 2011). Those growers who are able to cope with supermarket pressures have engaged in economic upgrading in order to apply a full range of standards and produce higherspec fruit (in terms of product quality and packaging). Large growers/packers and packhouses also are able to innovate and invest and have been able to functionally upgrade into higher-value activities such as dedicated packing, cool chain, distribution and marketing. They have also had to innovate and expand to keep abreast of increasingly complex supermarket standards and consumer preferences. Packhouse innovation has included investment in high-tech mechanized sorting and grading  R ate of exchange 2011 US$1 = R8.1, https://www.resbank.co.za/Research/Rates/Pages/ SelectedHistoricalExchangeAndInterestRates.aspx.

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equipment. The net effect is overall economic upgrading of the sector benefiting a smaller group of predominantly male producers in a context of rising quality standards and increasing costs. This facilitates the delivery of higher-quality fruit over longer periods of the year directly into the European supermarket distribution centres overseas and diversification into new markets including within Africa (Barrientos and Visser 2012). However, managing increased skill requirements in a context of increasing cost pressures has also had anomalous outcomes for workers and the profile of the labour force.

Gendered Employment Relations in the South African Fruit Sector These commercial dynamics have played out in a context of changing forms of institutional and societal embeddedness in the transition to democracy. Combined, they have had an important influence on changing gender patterns of work in South African fruit production. Apartheid previously involved paternalist employment relations based on racial segregation and gender discrimination. In Western Cape fruit farming, this was reflected in the prevalence of a coloured male on-farm permanent workforce, with a condition of employment being the availability of his female spouse to work when required seasonally (du Toit 1992; Kritzinger and Vorster 1996). Apartheid laws also restricted the movement of black African workers, who were recruited to fill peak season shortages from designated ‘homelands’ to which they had to return at the end of each season. Paternalism deemed the farm owner or baas to be in control of worker welfare within his domain, and many practices, including the provision of housing and food and the ‘dop system’ (free alcohol given to farm workers), enhanced worker dependence and subordination (Wiltshire 2016). Following the 1994 transition to democracy, a swathe of labour regulation has been enacted and extended to agriculture to promote rural workers’ rights, gender equality and black economic empowerment. These have included the Basic Conditions of Employment Act (BCEA),8 the Labour Relations Act, the Unemployment Insurance Act and the Extension of Security of Tenure Act (ESTA) (Visser and Ferrer 2015). In 2003, the state further promulgated the agricultural Sectoral Determination, stipulating working conditions and minimum wages for farmworkers. The combination of increased labour regulation and commercial exposure through export deregulation contributed to changing labour relations on farms.  T he current BCEA makes no distinction between different categories of workers, such as seasonal, part-time or permanent. Importantly, its definition of employee excludes independent contractors (see Section 1 of the Act).

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This includes retrenchment of workers living on-farm and externalization of farm labour through use of labour contractors or ‘brokers’ (du Toit and Ally 2001; Kritzinger and Barrientos 2004; Visser and Ferrer 2015). The outcome has been a small core permanent workforce remaining on-farm, with a large temporary and seasonal workforce (as well as some permanent workers) living largely off-farm. Gradually, more professional employment relations have displaced paternalism, although mindset change often lags behind formal regulatory change on many farms (Barrientos and Visser 2012; Visser and Ferrer 2015; Wiltshire 2016). The expansion of exports since the 1990s has led to a steady growth in fruit  sector employment. Whereas agriculture as a whole has seen a decline in employment by 21 per cent since 1983, employment in the deciduous fruit sector has increased 361 per cent. Growth in permanent workers (121 per cent) has been overshadowed by much faster growth in temporary workers (478 per cent) (Wiltshire 2016: 32). In 2015, the Fresh Produce Exporters Association estimated that there were a total of 460,000 workers in the industry also including subtropical fruit, employed in both farms and packhouses but excluding logistics.9 Of these, approximately 53 per cent were female. Over 2 million people are also indirectly employed or dependent on workers in the citrus, deciduous and table grape sectors.10 However, the profile of workers has changed. Fruit producers interviewed repeatedly raised the need to reduce expenditure on labour as one of the few costs they could control in a climate of spiralling production costs and pressure to supply supermarkets with consistent quantities of competitively priced highquality fruit. This has led to an overall reduction in permanent workers relative to seasonal workers employed. This trend has been particularly strong in the table grape sector, a relatively labour-intensive fruit to produce, since the 2000s. As Table 6.3 indicates, seasonal workers increased from 72 to 80 per cent of the total table grape workforce between 2007–8 and 2014–15, with much volatility in employment between these years. Third-party labour contractors (or labour brokers, as they are called in South Africa) play an important role in coordinating the supply of seasonal workers to many farms (du Toit and Ally 2001; Kritzinger and Barrientos 2004; Barrientos 2013b). They can vary from well-established to informal operations, with some being ‘fly by night’ operators. They can undertake a range of functions from providing workers specialized in certain tasks, such as irrigation, to providing  http://www.postharvestinnovation.org.za/industry-information/ (accessed June 2016).  Citrus Growers’ Association, Hortgro (deciduous fruit), SATGI (table grapes) and South African Sub-tropical Growers’ Association, cited in http://www.fruitsa-ethical.org.za/ who-is-fruit-south-africa.php (accessed July 2012).

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Gender and Work in Global Value Chains Table 6.3  Employment in South Africa commercial table grapes

Year

2007–8 2008–9 2010–11 2014–15

No. of permanent table grape workers 17,000 14,642 10,628 10,845

No. of seasonal table grape workers 44,700 52,433 42,505 42,293

% of grape workforce seasonal 72 78 80 80

Sources: SATI (2008; 2011; 2015).

general farm workers. The advantages for growers include flexibility and low cost of using labour contractors. Workers can be deployed only when needed, and payment only covers that period. The contractor takes on the responsibility for finding and controlling workers. The disadvantages include workers having little affiliation to the grower, and the challenge of ensuring quality. For workers seeking casual jobs, an advantage of going through labour contractors is that the contractors will find the jobs, organize transport, and so on, and can extend the period in work by moving workers between locations. Good labour contractors often develop close paternalist relations with their workers. However, it is difficult for most contract workers to access their labour rights, and poor labour contractors often treat workers badly, and workers have limited recourse. There has also been a changing gender, racial and migrant profile of workers. Women are particularly concentrated in the seasonal workforce, as shown by the example of employment in table grape production in the Hex River Valley (Table 6.4), where 65 per cent of total seasonal workers employed at the height of the  season are women. Seasonal workers not only are South African but also increasingly include international migrant workers from other African countries— again a significant proportion of them women. Table 6.4 illustrates this in the breakdown of seasonal workers by nationality and gender in the Hex River Valley. There is no aggregate data available for the number or gender profile of workers on farms or packhouses specifically supplying global supermarkets. Social audits provide one source of information profiling the different groups of workers. Audit data were provided by one UK supermarket (confidential interview July 2017) for three of the packhouses and four growers supplying its South African fruit. This indicated that of the total 2,000 workers at the farm level, 32 per cent are female, whereas of the 3,200 packhouse workers, 72 per cent were female, although only 43 per cent of permanent packhouse workers were female. There is also limited data on the changing profile of workers engaged specifically in supermarket supply. One large fruit grower/exporter supplying grapes from the Northern Cape to a number of European and South African supermarkets also Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Stockholm University Library, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:36:07, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.007



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Table 6.4  Hex River Valley table grape seasonal workers (September to April), 2013–14 Nationality

South Africa Zimbabwe Lesotho

Male

2,665 558 272

Female 5,218 910 318

Total

7,883 1,468 590

% female

Total

3,495

6,446

9,941

65%

66% 62% 54%

Source: Hex River Table Grape Association producer survey, cited in Visser and Ferrer (2015: 154).

provided comparative data for the gender profile of their workers in 2004 and 2014 (confidential interview April 2015). In this period, the company had functionally upgraded by moving from a farm-only to a farm–packhouse operation. As a result, the total number of workers employed also increased to include the addition of packhouse workers. Table 6.5 provides the ratio of female workers for different categories of work. At the higher end, only a small percentage of senior managers were female, rising from 7 to 9 per cent over the 10 years. This included female members of the family-owned company. A more significant increase had taken place in middle managers with the number of women employed rising from 0 to 14 per cent of staff, and a slight increase in the number of women in technical positions (for example, agronomist). Interestingly, a slightly higher ratio of men were now employed in administrative work (particularly, temporary positions). However, the percentage of supervisors who were female remained stubbornly low at only 13–15 per cent. All packhouse workers were temporary, 70 per cent of whom were female in 2014. Women were a minority of fieldworkers and had declined as a proportion of those in permanent work from 24 to17 per cent over the 10 years. In sum, we can see a clear gender profile of workers in global retail value chains, with women concentrated in work in packhouses and men concentrated in farm work. Permanent jobs are limited given the seasonality of fruit, but these are mainly male in both farms and packhouses. There is a trend towards increased casualization of work and increasing use of international migrant labour in some locations.

Economic and Social Upgrading—The Skills Challenge Economic upgrading has had implications for the social upgrading of those workers directly employed by successful growers and dedicated packhouses that are able to position themselves higher up the value chain. A key dimension is the Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Stockholm University Library, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:36:07, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.007

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Gender and Work in Global Value Chains Table 6.5  Gender profile of work: South African fruit growers

Category of work Senior managers Low-middle managers Technical   Administrative   Supervisor   Packhouse   Fieldworker  

Status

2004 Female % of total

2014 Female % of total

Permanent Permanent Permanent Temporary Permanent Temporary Permanent Temporary Permanent Temporary Permanent Temporary

7 0 2 0 80 100 13 0 n/a n/a 24 33

9 14 6 0 75 71 15 0 0 70 17 22

Source: Author (fieldwork in 2015).

need for better-trained and more skilled workers to cope with the application of diverse standards. At a farm level, for example, GlobalGAP requires workers managing vines and trees to be more literate and numerate so that they can complete the required documentation needed for certification. It is often permanent or temporary (rather than seasonal) farm workers who undertake the more skilled roles, receiving additional benefits over and above their wages. Dedicated packhouses often have a core permanent workforce, supplemented by temporary workers. Large packhouses operate as industrial units similar to factories. Here, a significant proportion of employment is female, reflecting social norms regarding women’s dexterity and skills in handling delicate fruit. However, the rising complexity of standards and the need to meet differential requirements of multiple supermarkets (global and national) have increased demand for a more skilled packhouse labour force, with higher levels of educational attainment (Fernandez-Stark, Bamber and Gereffi 2011a; Barrientos and Visser 2012). Mechanization of sorting has led to some displacement of labour in certain activities, but export expansion appears so far to have countered a net reduction in overall labour demand.11 Female packhouse workers have long enjoyed better 11

 A lthough mechanization is often associated with male employment, I witnessed the use of female fork lift drivers in a computerized sorting section of a packhouse. Women were

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pay and conditions than many male farm workers, and many packhouses are unionized with CBAs. A significant challenge facing the sector, however, is the lack of skilled labour available at all levels of production needed to sustain economic upgrading. This issue was raised in interviews with growers in 2011 and 2015. Interventions to facilitate skills development in the horticultural sector have been made at both government and industry levels. One body responsible for coordinating training in the sector is the Agricultural Sectoral Training and Education Authority (AgriSETA). This is funded by statutory skills levies paid by qualifying employers— those with an annual payroll of more than R500,000. Such employers must pay 1 per cent of the value of their payroll to the state, which is channelled to AgriSETA. Levy-funded industry bodies (such as Hortgro representing the deciduous and exotic fruit sector) are also required by government to spend a portion of their income on transformation. In response, they have developed technical training material for farm workers and emerging farmers. Such material usually comprises DVDs on pre and postharvest procedures, integrated pest management and the concept of the value chain. Many growers and packhouses also draw on a range of consultants that offer training services. Skills training is often focused on technical or production skills to raise productivity, although some also involves ‘soft skills’ development, including life skills such as health and financial planning. Some initiatives have also received support from UK supermarkets, increasingly aware that future skills challenges could constrain the future supply of quality fruit. One centre that has also benefited from the UK supermarket support was Koue Bokkeveld, an independent farming centre in Ceres in the Western Cape established in 2001 to provide farmers with a range of training-related services. Members receive a training package tailored to their specific needs based on an annual visit and review in order to plan training for the forthcoming year as a holistic programme that covers all categories of employees (from management to off-farm seasonal workers). The centre provides a combination of individual on-farm training courses and a range of off-site and centre-based evening courses. It is funded by membership fees, but it also assists farms in submitting their required AgriSETA forms and benefits from the rebate as one source of funding for the training it provides. Koue Bokkeveld undertakes mainly production-oriented training, but also teaches life, health, IT and computing skills. It used to hold literacy courses but as education improved, most farm and packhouse workers now come with Grade 9 employed, according to the manager, because they handled the advanced equipment more carefully.

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schooling or above and are able to read and write. In their first year of operation, Koue Bokkeveld trained 1,820 people; by 2011 this number had risen to over 11,000 (personal communication 2012). The centre has also participated in providing an Emerging Leaders training programme,12 supported by a UK supermarket. This aims to build workers’ confidence and skills to seek solutions to challenges beyond the workplace, manage finances and develop income-generating activities within their communities. Permanent workers are more likely to benefit from skills training, which needs to be extended to seasonal workers on a more systematic basis if all levels of workers are to be upgraded. However, many growers complain of the pressure of labour turnover, reducing their incentive to invest in training. This corresponds with findings from other global value chain studies, in both horticulture and other sectors (Fernandez-Stark, Bamber and Gereffi 2011a, 2012). Skills training is less often extended to workers’ rights, except where trade unions or NGOs are involved. It can contribute to but is not sufficient to create a more empowered workforce that is committed to horticultural work (Visser and Ferrer 2015). There are many challenges to skills upgrading in a societal context traditionally imbued by paternalist relations, where women are deemed to play a subordinate role. I witnessed some of the contradictions in the process of change on a grape farm and packhouse where I conducted three research projects spaced over a period of 10 years. Originally owned by the father of the current farmer, the farm had seen employment relations follow a traditional paternalist pattern. After the son took over the running of the farm in the mid-1990s, he introduced (against his father’s advice) more modernized employment relations that included promotion of women within the workforce. As part of this, he instigated mixed multi-skilled team working, with team leaders needing to be able to undertake a full range of farm activities. He wanted to promote three capable women workers to team leader position, but this required training them to drive tractors. He met fierce opposition to this requirement from the women themselves. After much persuasion, two agreed to undertake tractor training and become team leaders. The farmer said one became the best tractor driver the farm had ever had. In the on-site packhouse of this farm, a significant percentage of workers were women whose partners were male farm workers in the vineyards. The fact that women working in the packhouse could earn more in season than their male spouses was a source of tension in some households. However, I interviewed two households where the male farmworkers shared childcare and chores, particularly during the season, to support their wives working in the packhouse as a means of  See http://www.emerging-leaders.net/what-we-do/ (accessed June 2016).

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enhancing joint household income. Against the backdrop of paternalist relations in South Africa, these vignettes illustrate some of the complexities of changing and the contested articulations between global production and social reproduction at farm level. Nevertheless, gender bias remains prevalent across the fruit sector. One longserving female industry consultant recounted attending an Agri West Cape meeting with over 100 men and her as the sole woman participant (personal communication 2015). She said that, of 80 farms within her immediate locality, all were male-owned except one that had a female co-owner. Few women participate at senior management or production levels, and women are mainly employed in administration and human resource management. One area where change has occurred is at the supervisory level. Until the 1980s, all supervisors were male; this changed after one farm made a woman permanent and gave her a supervisory position. Now many supervisors are female, but once they reach this level they often hit a ‘glass ceiling’. Gendered articulations between commercial and social drivers have therefore changed, interwoven with the effects of economic liberalization, labour regulation and supermarket expansion following the transition to democracy. There have been strong downgrading trajectories, felt particularly by the entrenched on-farm workers and an increasingly marginalized casualized workforce, many of whom are employed through labour brokers. There have also been upgrading trajectories, felt in particular by women working in dedicated packhouses. Here, the expansion of production for global value chains and modernization of employment relations have contributed to better conditions, more rights and greater gender equality for some groups of women workers. However, the process of change has also involved tension and contested articulations at multiple scales—at local farm, national and global levels.

Contestation in the South African Fruit Sector Prevailing labour conditions in the South African fruit sector have triggered contestations involving civil society actors. South Africa had not initially been deemed by supermarkets as a high-risk country for poor labour conditions. A report by Oxfam focused on the gender dimension of the increased casualization of work driving poor labour conditions in South Africa, highlighting the pressure on growers by supermarket purchasing practices as a cause (Oxfam 2004). ActionAid subsequently launched a campaign in alliance with Women on Farms, a local NGO, targeting the UK supermarket Tesco as a driver of commercial purchasing practices underpinning poor labour conditions in the sector (Actionaid 2005; ActionAid 2007). South Africa was consequently deemed higher risk for labour Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Stockholm University Library, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:36:07, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.007

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conditions by UK supermarkets. A further report by Human Rights Watch also raised continuing concerns over labour conditions for some workers (HRW 2015). Following civil society campaigns and the introduction of codes of labour practice in the apparel industry, many UK supermarkets selling a range of products applied the same code to their fresh fruit and vegetable products (which are largely deemed part of the supermarkets’ own label). The ETI Impact Assessment (IDS 2006) found that overall the supermarket codes had had limited effect on permanent workers, as growers were aware of and applied labour legislation that was on the whole more stringent than the ETI Base Code. However, it also flagged up noncompliance issues, particularly among seasonal migrant and contract workers, with implementation of legislation and codes found to be poor and these workers often overlooked in social audits. This left the industry open to continued civil society campaigns. In the face of pressure to improve labour conditions, the fruit sector set up the Sustainability Initiative of South Africa (SIZA) to develop its own social standard and oversee compliance.13 Code implementation was subsequently enforced more rigorously on South African fruit farms producing for export. Subsequent research has found that farms complying with supermarket codes of labour practice selling to European supermarkets tend to have better conditions. Growers are also more alert to the need to comply with social audits than labour inspections, as noncompliance with supermarket codes carries greater commercial risks (Visser and Ferrer 2015). Nevertheless, permanent and regular workers have tended to benefit more from supermarket social compliance than insecure seasonal and migrant workers. Economic downgrading trajectories, particularly for a more casualized migrant workforce, have increased tensions between growers and workers. New forms of contestation have evolved using social media as a channel for collective organization. Things came to a head in the labour crisis that erupted in the fruit sector in 2012– 13. This occurred mainly in the Hex River Valley and in Ceres in the Western Cape, led largely by seasonal workers living off-farm. The crisis had been preceded by tensions between local workers and incoming migrant workers, with accusations of xenophobia, particularly in informal townships in the Hex. Casual workers recruited by labour brokers had no organizing power through farm-based trade unions. However, in the Hex River Valley they gathered daily at a meeting point in De Doorns to be collected by brokers, providing a point of interaction and discussion of issues, particularly of difficulties in subsisting on the See http://www.siza.co.za (accessed February 2015). SIZA covers the fresh fruit industry; the Wine and Agricultural Ethical Trade Association covers the wine industry in South Africa.

13 

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agricultural minimum wage set by the government (Alford, Barrientos and Visser 2017). Prior to the main export season, fruit workers protested over lack of a living wage, and demanded the government double the agricultural minimum wage from R65 to R150 (US$7 to US$17).14 The protests included chocking exports supplied to global retailers by blocking the main arterial routes leading to the port in Cape Town. They became quite violent, leading to two deaths. This triggered national attention and engagement by unions and government. The outcome was an increase in the agricultural minimum wage to R105 (US$12), representing a partial victory. However, it was not deemed sufficient to ensure a living wage as demanded by workers and calculated in a subsequent report commissioned by Fairtrade International (Anker and Anker 2013). Following the increase in the minimum agriculture wage in March 2013, there have been reports that farmers reduced labour costs by cutting back on discretionary non-wage benefits, which has affected permanent workers more (given that they were more likely to receive such benefits). There have also been reports that farmers have cut back where possible on the use of labour, particularly seasonal workers, whose numbers are easier to reduce from one season to the next, with women workers affected more (Visser and Ferrer 2015).

Future Challenges Commercial pressure from supermarkets and rising labour costs means many growers strive to increase labour productivity to compete and economically upgrade in retail value chains. This could affect the gender profile of workers in a labour-intensive industry such as fruit, but there are limits to the extent to which productivity can be raised. Packhouses are in a better position to mechanize, through deployment of sophisticated grading and sorting machines, but female labour still plays a critical role in the packing process itself. Despite mechanization, economic upgrading, cool chain innovation, product diversification (for example, dried and ready-cut fruit) and expansion into new markets are also creating more jobs in packing and processing. Following the rise in wages resulting from the fruit crisis, the NGO Women on Farms argued that farmers were reducing the use of female farm labour around the fruit-growing town of Ceres (Pitersen 2014). However, according to Koue Bokkeveld, they failed to take account of the increased employment (particularly of women workers) outside tertiary agriculture in packing and processing. Better cooling and storage facilities had made it possible to pack and process for 10–11 14

  Rate of Exchange 2012 US$1 = R8.7, https://www.resbank.co.za/Research/Rates/Pages/ SelectedHistoricalExchangeAndInterestRates.aspx.

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months per year. According to Koue Bokkeveld data, female employment increased from 1,707 permanent and 4,114 seasonal workers in 2008 to 3,330 permanent and 6,024 seasonal workers in 2014 (personal communication 2015). Industry data for South Africa as a whole for deciduous fruit and table grape employment indicates a slight increase, from 104,011 full-time equivalent (FTE)15 jobs in 2011 to 108,404 FTE jobs in 2015. A challenge facing the fruit industry is that there is an increasing scarcity of more skilled and educated workers, despite high levels of rural unemployment. This is the result of a combination of factors. The profile of the workforce has long been shaped by the social embeddedness of paternalist norms and cultures established under apartheid. Farmworkers were seen as subordinate, with little social investment provided (including education and skills), and discrimination based on gender and race was systemic. Although there have been significant advances in the legal rights of workers, paternalist attitudes persist among many within the fruit industry. As the South African economy grows, younger and more educated and motivated workers exit agriculture in search of better opportunities with higher esteem. Some growers are dealing with scarcity of ‘the right type of workers’ through recruitment of migrant labour from other countries (as illustrated in Table 6.4), sometimes with higher levels of education. Many growers are providing intensive training in order to upskill both permanent and seasonal workers. However, once skilled, workers have the option to seek work elsewhere with better remuneration and conditions. In sum, the South Africa fruit sector case study illustrates the complexities of downgrading and upgrading in global retail value chains. Embedded tensions are rooted in paternalist employment relations based on racial divisions that were displaced by extension of labour legislation enshrining workers’ rights. In parallel, the African National Congress (ANC) government adopted an export-led model based on free trade at a time when fruit growers were coming under increasing pressure on costs and standards from rising European supermarkets. Gendered articulations in fruit led to a shift from a predominantly coloured male workforce living on-farm, with women working as a condition of their partner’s contract, to a core workforce in which women are employed on a more equitable basis. This is complemented by a larger, more mixed, temporary and seasonal workforce living off-farm or in migrant worker accommodation. Economic upgrading to meet supermarket standards has promoted social upgrading of more skilled wage-workers but downgrading of an increasingly casualized farm labour 15

 F TE means casual labour has been converted to permanent equivalents. See Hortgro Fruit Statistics 2015 and Key Deciduous Fruit Statistics 2011, compiled by Hortgro: http://www. hortgro.co.za (accessed March 2015).

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force. Women have seen benefits when employed independently as on-farm workers, especially in packhouses, but face insecurity and vulnerability as seasonal workers.

Upgrading and Downgrading Trajectories Across Horticulture Comparing the Ghanaian and South African case studies, we see complex processes of downgrading and upgrading taking place. They illustrate how trends can be similar across countries but also vary depending on social, economic and political context. Global retail value chains are embedded in diverse local farming systems with different categories of fragmented work coexisting across production and processing. Economic and social downgrading and upgrading are highly complex, and can play out differently within and across groups of farmers and workers. I will briefly examine these in relation to three dimensions of: embedded tensions, gender articulations and contested outcomes. These affect the gender configuration of work and who benefits and loses through articulations with retail value chains, and where exclusions or disarticulations occur.

Embedded Tensions Embedded tensions were analysed in Chapter 4 as arising from a dichotomy between the commercial imperatives of profit and efficiency versus societal imperatives of caring and well-being. Such tensions are complex in agriculture, where production is based on land tenure systems that are deeply entrenched in laws, as well as long established norms and practices that define who and how land is accessed. Smallholders in South Africa were previously excluded from productive agricultural land under the apartheid system through eviction of black African and coloured farmers. In Ghana, smallholder farming continues to prevail, but in the case of pineapples has been disrupted by commercial trends in agribusiness and global retail. Tensions have arisen in both countries as horticulture producers have faced significant commercial pressures from meeting retailer requirements, including higher quality at lower cost and meeting tight delivery schedules. Combined with rising input and labour costs, there is increasing concentration, with a smaller number of larger growers being able to meet supermarket requirements. In Ghana, commercial pressures were reflected in the MD2 crisis, which resulted in a shift from smallholders to large-scale commercial farming based on wage labour. In  South Africa, the pressure to meet quality standards while sustaining rising production costs resulted in the casualization of labour. In both countries, therefore, increasing disarticulations from value chains for some farmers (particularly smallholders) unable to meet retail requirements has occurred in parallel with Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Stockholm University Library, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:36:07, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.007

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increased articulations for larger commercial farms and wage-workers. While the outcome has been economic and social downgrading of smallholders relative to larger commercial farms, the outcomes for workers are more diverse.

Gendered Articulations Gendered articulations were examined in Chapter 4, as embedded tensions are also shaped by gender norms in which sourcing localities. These are complex in agricultural systems steeped in traditional norms and practices that underpin the subordinate role of women and vary between countries. In Ghana, the gender profile of smallholders is deeply entrenched in land tenure systems that recognize men as the farmers. Women have a largely unpaid role as contributing family labour, which they combine with their household role as unpaid reproductive labour. Commercial innovation contributed to the disruption of these norms in pineapple production. Although indigene and migrant status meant different groups of smallholders were affected in diverse ways, with some male smallholders losing out (or exiting to other occupations) and other groups, including migrants and women, accessing paid work. In South Africa, subordination based on gender and race under apartheid had tied the seasonal availability of female labour to the employment of male coloured farm workers. This was broken by legislative reform under democracy leading to retrenchment from farms and expansion of a large pool of off-farm seasonal labour. Commercial production for export contributed to growth in wage work. Likewise, in Ghana, following the MD2 crisis, the expansion of larger commercial farms generated wage work. In both countries, therefore, women’s access to independent paid work has increased, but this is rarely on gender equitable terms. In farming, women are often concentrated in seasonal and temporary work that is insecure, with poorer conditions and protection relative to permanent male farm workers. However, the gender profile changes significantly as we move to wage work in the higher value chain tiers of packing or processing of fruit. Here, women are employed in large numbers for their dexterity and skills in both Ghana and South Africa. Many are on temporary contracts, given the seasonality of production, but they enjoy relatively good pay and conditions, access to trade unions and levels of social protection. Yet gender norms continue to prevail. Men are more likely than women to be permanent workers or in more senior positions, although in the case studies discussed, there are signs of change. In terms of economic and social downgrading and upgrading, therefore, commercial production for retail value chains has opened up opportunities for some women to access independent wage work, particularly in packing and processing, against a backdrop of downgrading or exclusion of smaller farmers. Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Stockholm University Library, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:36:07, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.007



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Contested Outcomes Contested outcomes have varied across different groups of smallholders and workers in both countries. Chapter 4 analysed contestation as encompassing individual, collective and collaborative dimensions. Fall-back options that open up or constrain the agency of smallholders and workers affect outcomes. In the Ghanaian pineapple sector, arguably individual contestation has been constrained. Migrant or indigene status affected access to land and the terms on which smallholders and workers were able to engage in pineapple production or able to exit in search of other alternatives. In South Africa, individual contestation has been limited to workers with better skills, who are able to move to better jobs. Collective contestation has played a role in larger packhouses and processing plants in both countries, where trade unions and CBAs have helped to promote labour standards. Collaborative contestation through NGO pressure for codes of labour practice, ethical trade and Fairtrade has provided other avenues to improve conditions for some smallholders and wage-workers in both countries. However, we saw earlier that these were more likely to benefit permanent rather than casual workers or those deployed through labour contractors. Civil society campaigns also played an important role in South Africa. The fruit crisis, when many casualized workers in the Western Cape rose up in demand of an increase in the agricultural minimum wage, reflected new forms of collective/collaborative contestation arising. In the short term, this led to a rise in wages, although the longer term implications for workers are less clear. In sum, economic and social downgrading and upgrading trajectories are very mixed in the cases from African horticulture examined here. They depend in part on commercial supermarket trends, but how these affect different groups of farmers and workers are mediated by gendered norms and practices in different contexts. Levels of contestation also play a role in shaping outcomes for workers, and the extent to which different groups of workers are able to capture improved conditions from working in global retail value chains.

Concluding Remarks These case studies help to illustrate the complex ways in which engagement in global retail value chains can, despite many challenges, help to disrupt traditional gender norms that have long subordinated the role of women in agriculture. The unintended consequence of supermarket requirements is that cost and delivery pressures can lead to downgrading, but the drive for quality can also have upgrading outcomes, particularly for women workers in packing and processing. Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Stockholm University Library, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:36:07, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.007

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Over time, the outcomes have been mixed, with economic and social downgrading of smallholders affecting some communities and new opportunities for social upgrading of women workers opening up in others. The interlacing of these articulations is closely bound up with not only the commercial shifts taking place but also the deeply embedded societal norms shaping land tenure based on gender, race and migrant status. They involve complex gendered articulations, with new opportunities for wage-workers, many women and internal migrants, for whom the prevailing land tenure systems have traditionally restricted access to land. Even where economic and social upgrading has occurred, gendered discrimination continues to prevail within agricultural production and the division of labour at different segments of the value chain. However, engagement in global retail value chains can also open new channels to promote more gender equitable outcomes for some groups of workers. Outcomes depend not only on commercial dynamics that can be both exclusionary and inclusionary but also on levels of contestation by workers. This raises questions in relation to the extent to which governments can influence outcomes in a value chain context, which Chapter 9 will examine further.

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7 Contested Terrain

The Limits of Social Compliance in Asian Apparel

Introduction Women have long played a key role in apparel production, both as contributors of family labour in traditional home-based work and as waged workers in largerscale manufacture. Apparel is a relatively ‘footloose’ labour-intensive industry, and production can easily be relocated across countries in pursuit of lower costs. The outsourcing of apparel production from Europe and North America to developing countries in the 1980s led to the rapid rise of female employment, particularly in Asia. This generated jobs for tens of millions of women workers, many of whom previously had limited labour market access. Indeed, women are a preferred ‘low cost’ labour force in many countries because of their perceived ‘docility’ and their socially acquired skills in making garments (Elson and Pearson 1981; Hale and Wills 2005). Developing countries often compete based on low labour costs to attract apparel FDI and buyers, driving a ‘race to the bottom’ (Applebaum et al. 2005; ILO 2016d). Civil society campaigns have long targeted global retailers and brands for driving a ‘low road’ sourcing model based on a cheap female labour force with poor working conditions and few rights (Oxfam 2004; ITUC 2016). However, as Chapter 2 discussed, the expansion of global value chains since the 1980s has also led some buyers to move away from traditional arms-length sourcing based on low-cost assembly of ‘cut–make–trim’ (CMT) to more integrated ‘full package’ sourcing strategies. These have been labelled original equipment manufacturing (OEM) and original design manufacturing (ODM). This move requires economic upgrading and innovation by suppliers in order to be able to take on higher-value functions, including design, input sourcing, finishing and distribution (Gereffi and Memedovic 2003; WTO 2013b). Economic upgrading often requires workforce innovation and more skilled workers, to enable the achievement of higher quality and productivity levels, with implications for social upgrading and improved labour standards (Barrientos et al. 2011; Fernandez-Stark et al. 2011b). Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Stockholm University Library, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:39:11, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.008

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Two types of supplier strategy can therefore be identified: the ‘low road’ of economic and social downgrading, based on low labour costs, and the ‘high road’ of economic and social upgrading, based on skill and productivity. In this chapter I focus on the ‘low road’; Chapter 8 examines a contrasting upgrading case study from an Indonesian apparel manufacturer. However, it is important to keep in mind that downgrading and upgrading strategies operate along a continuum, with boundaries between them blurred and with suppliers at different levels of upgrading found in the same locations. Upgrading in the upper tiers of the value chain may take place in parallel with downgrading in the lower tiers of the same value chain through the subcontracting of labour-intensive components of production to suppliers and/or the use of labour intermediaries to flexibly source workers and reduce labour costs. This chapter draws on the examples of apparel production in India and Bangladesh to explore the gendered complexities of apparel downgrading and upgrading. These cases provide contrasting examples of how, once production is embedded in specific locations, it can be shaped by gendered articulations that vary in different socioeconomic contexts. They also provide examples of how buyer sourcing and commercial pressures contribute to economic and social downgrading in complex multi-scalar value chains. They facilitate analysis of the limits of social compliance and how contestation continues to surface within lowroad segments of the apparel sector. The second section examines India, focusing on New Delhi and the National Capital Region (NCR). India has long been a textile- and garment-producing country, with a sizeable domestic market, which saw significant expansion of export production for global value chains from the 1990s. In New Delhi, domestic apparel production has long rested on the informal economy and the use of contractors and agents. For historical reasons associated with tailoring, readymade garment (RMG) production in New Delhi NCR is dominated by men in the upper tiers of production, unlike other parts of India. Women are concentrated in the lower tiers, particularly in home-based work. Labour conditions are poor for many workers in RMG, but gendered articulations between global production and social reproduction are sharpest in the lower tiers and among homeworkers. Subcontracting and the use of labour contractors can hide abusive working conditions, sometimes including trafficking and child labour. The third section examines Bangladesh, where expansion of apparel export production took off in the 1980s under the Multi-Fibre Arrangement (MFA), when garment producers in the East Asian NICs became subject to quota restrictions. Expansion of RMG in Bangladesh generated significant employment, drawing in a huge female labour force from rural villages that had previously been largely confined to the home. Women workers, mainly recruited from rural villages, Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Stockholm University Library, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:39:11, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.008



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have little experience of organization and often work long hours on low pay under poor and sometimes hazardous conditions. At one level, this has disrupted traditional gender norms, providing women with access to independent incomes. However, patriarchal norms infuse RMG production, where discrimination is deeply entrenched and women are often viewed as subordinate and ‘disposable’ workers. The fourth section examines how collaborative contestation across the apparel industry through campaigns by global and local NGOs and trade unions has played an important role in highlighting and contesting poor conditions and lack of rights for waged and home-based workers. This has led to the widespread implementation by buyers of social compliance programmes. However, the purchasing practices of some buyers can conflict with conditions set by their own codes of labour practice, and social auditing is shown to have systemically failed to address discrimination. Worker abuse and even use of child labour often prevail, particularly in the lower value chain tiers. The collapse of Rana Plaza in Bangladesh in 2013, killing over 1,100 workers, provided a wake-up call for global retailers. In the apparel industry, financial pressure and consumer demand for cheap ‘fast fashion’ continue to run counter to ethical concerns in global sourcing. Labour contestation persists, with increasing demands on governments to improve labour standards and wages. The fifth section concludes by drawing together lessons from the case studies. These illustrate diversities and similarities shaping embedded tensions, as global retail value chains interact with varying national industry, socioeconomic and institutional contexts. The case studies also illustrate the diversity of gendered articulations between global production and social reproduction across locations. In both countries, internal migrant workers play a key role in garment production, but their gender profile varies. Yet, despite many problems, waged work in garments has put many women on a previously inaccessible route to greater economic independence and empowerment. Tensions in the interaction of economic and social drivers often involve contestation by workers, civil society actors and at times governments challenging commercial outcomes. This can affect the ways in which global production is embedded across different societal locations, with mixed upgrading and downgrading outcomes for different groups of workers. The information I draw on for these case studies is based on research I engaged in directly between 2005 and 2008 and indirectly between 2008 and 2013, supplemented by secondary sources. In the Bangladesh RMG sector, I participated in a research in 2006 commissioned by an international organization as part of an assessment for a programme it was planning, although the report was not made public. Bangladesh RMG was the focus of one of the studies in the Capturing the Gains (CtG) programme undertaken in 2012 (Ahmed and Nathan 2016), in Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Stockholm University Library, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:39:11, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.008

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which I was indirectly involved. The Indian apparel sector was one of the case studies that formed part of the ETI impact assessment I coordinated in 2005 (ETI 2006; Barrientos, Sood, and Mather 2010).1 It was also the focus of research I undertook individually in 2008 on social contestation and corporate responsibility (Barrientos 2013a). Indian apparel was the focus of one of the studies linked to the CtG programme (Phillips et al. 2014), in which I was indirectly involved. The case studies are not representative, rather illustrative of changing profiles of production and work across countries. See the references provided for more detailed information on each separate study. Combined insights from these studies and other key research publications cited later help explore the diverse nature of the sector, complex processes of upgrading and downgrading and implications for gender patterns of work.

The Indian Apparel Value Chain: Factories to Homeworkers India’s large population means it has long had an internal market for apparel. It also has a long history of textile export, which was curtailed by competition from Britain following the industrial revolution (Beckert 2014). After World War II, Indian export production of cotton textiles and garments began to pick up. Indian producers were now better able to compete against British and US manufacturers based on the country’s low wage cost. Competition from newly independent developing countries led to the introduction of the MFA from 1974 to 2004. Indian textile and apparel exports were subject to quotas, but exports continued to grow. As Table 7.1 shows, India’s share in world garment exports rose from 1.7 per cent in 1980 to 4.0 per cent in 2015 (WTO 2015). Following the phase-out of the MFA in 2005, China became the dominant global apparel manufacturer, accounting for 39 per cent of export share in 2015. However, as Table 7.1 shows, India was able to position itself as the fourth-largest emerging economy garment exporter. In India, the sector benefited from a proactive industrial policy, established domestic markets and well-developed backward linkages into cotton and textiles, as well as availability of relatively skilled but cheap labour (Pickles 2012; Alexander 2015). Yet, underlying this aggregate picture is a diverse sector, shaped by its early production history embedded in traditional gender norms and practices (Mezzadri and Srivastava 2015). Apparel production is undertaken for both domestic and export markets in a number of locations, including Bangalore, Chennai, Mumbai and Tiruppur. Here, I focus on production for global retail value chains in Delhi NCR, which  I am grateful for the research collaboration with Kanchan Mather and Atul Sood. However the views presented here are mine alone.

1

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Table 7.1  Top emerging economy exporters of clothing (US$ billion and %) Value Year

China

Bangladesh Vietnam India

Turkey

Indonesia

Cambodia

Share in world exports (%)

2015

1980

1990

2000

26

0.0

0.6

2.6

1.7

2.3

0.2

1.5

175 22

18

15 7 6

4.0 ...

0.3 ...

8.9 ...

18.2

2015 39.3

5.9

0.9

4.8

3.1

3.3

3.4

...

0.5

1.4

3.0

2.4

4.1

1.5

Source: WTO (2015).

includes the three industrial clusters of Okhla (in New Delhi city), the New Okhla Industrial Development Authority (Noida) (in Uttar Pradesh) and Gurgaon (in Haryana).

Delhi NCR Following World War II, New Delhi maintained its long-standing reputation as a centre for specialized handloom industry, tailoring and embellishment, mainly for the domestic market. The RMG sector began to grow in the 1960s with a niche specialization in cotton woven garments (Singh, Kaur and Kaur Sapra 2004). The profile of the New Delhi apparel sector involved small-scale production based on low-cost (mainly rural migrant) labour with subcontracting of embellishment to home-based workers. As export production grew, New Delhi became an established exporter of men’s shirts and women’s shirts, blouses and skirts. Within the city, production became concentrated in the industrial cluster of Okhla, established in 1950. The export sector further expanded outside the city with the setting-up in the 1970s of Noida (12 kilometres from New Delhi city centre) and Gurgaon (32 kilometres from New Delhi) as townships and industrial clusters specializing in apparel production. Delhi NCR gained a reputation among global buyers for specializing in apparel with value addition craft-based features such as embroidery, crocheting and printing. Much of this craft-based production is outsourced through intermediaries to home-based workers in surrounding rural regions. For example, Uttar Pradesh has become an important source of low-cost home-based embellishmentsupplying producers in New Delhi (Unni and Scaria 2009; Mezzadri and Srivastava 2015). Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Stockholm University Library, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:39:11, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.008

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Apparel production globally is a highly feminized industry, but Delhi NCR bucks this trend. Across India as a whole, in 2011 women constituted 40 per cent of the garment workforce. In Delhi NCR, in most factories and sweatshops, over 90 per cent of recognized waged garment workers are male (Singh et al. 2004; Mezzadri and Srivastava 2015). However, this masks a more complex picture. The gender profile of employment stems from the tradition of male-dominated tailoring in New Delhi. This tradition continues in small and micro units, which rely for the most part on male migrant labour recruited from rural villages in other states, including Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. These units serve as the training ground for workers entering large and medium-sized factories, which consequently have a predominantly male labour force. Within factories, women constitute a small percentage of workers, undertaking more low-skilled and casual work. Many factories have a core permanent and regular workforce that is predominantly male and rely on labour contractors to recruit temporary workers to complement their core workforce and cope with seasonal variations. Labour contractors bring workers from rural villages, drawing in circular migrants who return to their villages for festivals and in low production periods, and are predominantly male. This is beginning to change, however. Some large and medium-sized factories are beginning to feminize their workforce and reducing reliance on labour contractors. Women predominate in home-based production that forms an important part of the supply network. However, these workers rarely show up in official estimates; hence, women remain a largely hidden component of the Delhi NCR apparel workforce (Singh et al. 2004; Mezzadri and Srivastava 2015). Until the mid-2000s, production for export and the domestic market tended to be undertaken by separate firms. However, a shift has taken place in the Indian retail market since the global financial crisis, contributing to greater interlinkages between global and domestic producers. This shift is accounted for in part by the lifting of strict restrictions on FDI in retail. From January 2012, access to the Indian market was allowed for single-brand retailers and for multi-brand retailers with up to 51 per cent joint ownership. This regulatory change was subject to a number of conditions, and each state government could accept or reject it. This allowed for the expansion of global and domestic retailers in an emerging economy enjoying rapid current and projected consumer growth (Senthilkumar and Shivakumar 2011; Technopak 2012). Both global retailers moving into the Indian market and leading Indian retailers are increasingly establishing domestic value chains, adopting similar supply channels as global retailers but linked to domestic producers. Some leading producers now supply both global export and domestic retail markets (Tewari 2013; Mezzadri and Srivastava 2015). In addition to brick and mortar retailers, Amazon entered the Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Stockholm University Library, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:39:11, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.008



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Indian market in 2013, and has expanded very rapidly (Walt 2016), although it is too early to assess the effect of e-commerce on domestic apparel value chains. Therefore, trends found in global retail value chains examined in Chapter 2 are gradually being replicated at a national level within India.

Downgrading and Upgrading Trajectories The profile of the Delhi NCR apparel sector has been shaped over a prolonged period of time by its historical origins. It is composed of a complex network of formal and informal producers that include large, medium and small units, workshops and home-based workers. Production is also deeply embedded in traditional societal and gender norms that have shaped work and employment across the sector. In order to unravel this complex web, it is helpful to divide the apparel sector into five tiers (Hurley 2005)—although this is a simplification given the complexity within the sector and overlaps between the tiers. Tiers 1 and 2 comprise large and medium-sized suppliers closest to the brands, most of which are formally registered and have a strong export orientation. Tiers 3 and 4 are small and micro enterprises (or workshops) that are informal, largely trade through arms-length intermediaries and produce for the domestic market or are subcontracted by Tier 1 and 2 firms. Tier 5 comprises home-based workers, usually working through a putting-out system for intermediaries. However, these tiers are not necessarily discrete, as much production takes place through complex subcontracting networks that transverse the different tiers. I first examine upgrading and downgrading trajectories in the first and second tiers with closer links to global retailers. Subsequently, I examine Tiers 3, 4 and 5 in order to unpack ways in which they intersect with the upper two tiers. However, my focus is solely on how the sector interlinks with buyer-led retail value chains (whether export or domestic) rather than the sector as a whole.2 Tier 1 and 2 producers comprise both large and medium-sized firms. There are different ways of differentiating these, including level of investment, value of turnover and daily production runs (Mezzadri and Srivastava 2015). In terms of labour profile, large firms employ over 2,500 workers (some many thousands of workers) and medium-sized firms 500–2,500 workers (Singh et al. 2004). Firms in Tier 1 are more likely to be formally registered, having obtained a certificate under the Register of Companies, which involves fulfilment of requisite conditions and clearances relating to, for example, land, building design, labour, utilities, tax status and registration with the Apparel Export Promotion Council (APEC).  For more comprehensive and informative overviews of the New Delhi garment sector, see Singh et al. (2004) and Mezzadri and Srivastava (2015), which I also draw on here.

2

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Many are situated in the newer industrial clusters of Gurgaon and Noida. These factories are oriented primarily towards export, have close relations with leading global buyers and are regularly monitored by both buyers and the government. Many factories have undertaken some form of economic upgrading to meet higher quality standards required by higher end-buyers. They tend to have high levels of capital investment relative to the lower tiers and use more advanced technology (including computer-aided design and sewing and embroidery machines). Many leading global buyers sourcing within this group also have their own offices in New Delhi and regularly meet suppliers, with whom they have established close sourcing relations. Tier 3, 4 and 5 producers comprise a mixture of small and micro-sized units and home-based workers. This group is very diverse and can range from established factories to small backstreet workshops. Home-based workers live not only in Delhi but also in the surrounding regions, including the neighbouring states of Uttar Pradesh and Haryana, that provide embellishment (beading, embroidery and hand-craft) outsourced through intermediaries by factories within Delhi NCR (Unni and Scaria 2009). Production in this group is mainly for the domestic market but also involves subcontracting from larger factories supplying global retailers or sourcing through intermediaries for domestic retailers. It is in this group that sweatshop conditions are most commonly found, and a number of studies have highlighted the adverse conditions workers often experience (for example, Singh et al. 2004; Mezzadri 2008; Phillips et al. 2014; ILO 2015a; Mezzadri and Srivastava 2015; Mezzadri 2016). Problems include insecure work, long hours and harsh conditions, often including physical and verbal abuse, with lack of regard for workers’ health or safety. Child labour is not uncommon, and, as discussed later, trafficked labour has been found in subcontracted suppliers linked to global retail value chains (Barrientos 2013a).

Gender Articulations Gender articulations are closely intermeshed with the position of women in the different tiers of production and how these are connected through global value chains. In relation to the upper tiers, research undertaken in the Delhi NCR apparel sector (including Gurgaon and Noida) as part of the ETI impact assessment in 2005 has helped unpack the gendered complexities of production. The study focused on six Tier 1 factories that supplied global retailers and brands that were ETI members. It was found that, at times of high demand, these six units often outsourced production to smaller fabricating units within the same enterprise. Each supplier had multiple units—a total of 31 units for the six suppliers—although the research did not cover these other units. The six factories had to some extent Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Stockholm University Library, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:39:11, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.008



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economically upgraded in terms of the functions they undertook for their buyers and worked closely with the buying teams based in New Delhi.3 Within the six sites, interviews were carried out with managers, senior managers and workers, recording histories and experiences of suppliers.4 Interviews were also undertaken with key informants, including trade union and NGO representatives as well as professionals well versed with the garment sector. In total, 150 workers were interviewed in focus groups and individually surveyed out of a total of 5,143 workers reported as working across the main units. Out of a total of 150 workers, 101 were male and 49 female, reflecting the fact that employment is predominantly male in the Delhi NCR garments sector, as discussed earlier. Approximately 15 per cent of the workers in the six units in the ETI study were permanent or regular workers, and 85 per cent were either temporary or contract workers hired through third-party contractors. Written documentation provided in advance by the suppliers did not present information on contract workers; however, verbal site interviews with management and workers revealed that all but one of the units employed contract labour. A likely reason for the contradiction is that they did not want written evidence of having temporary and contract labour for fear of coming under pressure from labour inspectors. The unit not using labour contractors had previously used them but had stopped doing so because of the difficulties of ensuring compliance with the brand’s code of labour practice. Gender discrimination was found to be rife in the six units. Women were concentrated in semiskilled jobs, were largely taken on as temporary workers and were the first to be laid off in any production downturn. There was little training or promotion of women workers, and lower investment in their capabilities denied them access to better-paid, more skilled work. Women workers in some units also reported restrictions on their reproductive rights, with limited and monitored access to toilets, which created problems for those who were menstruating or were pregnant (Barrientos et al. 2010). Many workers were internal migrants from outside New Delhi, recruited either directly or via local contractors with whom they had already had connections. Hence, embedded gender relations in the rural sector helped shape employment relations in the city. Visits to the communities (colonies) where garment workers lived found that permanent workers enjoyed relatively better housing conditions than contract  Given that the focus of this research was the impact of the ETI code of labour practice on workers in selected units, we only superficially investigated the level of economic upgrading undertaken by factories. Further research would have been required to fully substantiate this. 4  Within our sample, two suppliers said they did not subcontract work because of buyer codes; the others did. The research team was unable to obtain contact details for subcontractors at the lower levels of the chain or agreement to carry out interviews at that level. 3

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workers. Their housing was generally clean, and many owned household appliances (TVs and radios). A visit to a colony where many contract workers lived revealed appalling conditions, with the majority of workers who had migrated from rural villages living in squalor (Barrientos et al. 2010). In the lower tiers of the Delhi NCR value chain, sweatshops, own-account and home-based workers are mainly subcontracted through intermediaries or receive work under the putting-out system. A gendered division of labour prevails. Intermediaries are primarily male, and sweatshops mainly employ migrant male workers. Home-based workers are primarily female and often involved in embellishment of garments for export factories selling into global value chains (Unni and Scaria 2009). This reflects a prevailing gender ideology that women are ‘less able’ to manage commercially, and their place should be confined to the home. In some cases, complex outsourcing networks can involve two or three intermediary contractors linking a home-based worker to a larger factory. Contractors compete for work based on speed of delivery and lowness of price. They then exert pressure on home-based workers for quick turnover, while providing low remuneration and no security of work. Agreements are oral only, payment is by piece and sometimes terms are not given until after delivery. Many home-based workers draw on other family members, including children, to meet targets and produce at low remuneration. One study in Uttar Pradesh comparing home-based workers selling into domestic versus export supply chains found the pressures were greater for the export market than for the domestic market (Unni and Scaria 2009). This reflects pressures exerted by global retailers on suppliers regarding cost, delivery and quality discussed in Chapters 2 and 3 that can have knock-on effects in every tier of their value chains (Raworth and Kidder 2009; Barrientos 2013b). The complex nature of subcontracting in lower value chain tiers also hides adverse practices, such as child and unfree labour. A study of child labour in New Delhi undertook research in five locations situated near major garment-producing centres (Phillips et al. 2014). It involved interviews with 220 households, 19 of which were household enterprises where employees and employers lived and worked together, and 201 home-based units where workers were mainly family members. It is only through this methodology, carried out by locally based researchers with experience and who are sensitive to the issues, that child labour can be examined. Export factories will not provide information on subcontracting, often involving arms-length intermediaries, that could reveal any non-compliance on their part. This research found child labour to be pervasive in the lower informal tiers of the Delhi NCR apparel chain, to which production linked to global retail value Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Stockholm University Library, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:39:11, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.008



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chains is often subcontracted. While child labour had greatly reduced in factories, largely as a result of social compliance, there was increasing use of child labour in home-based working, in part because of increased pressure to lower costs. Of the households sampled, 69 per cent reported some form of child labour, with 370 children between 5 and 14 years of age engaged in some form of income-generating activity (Phillips et al. 2014: 434). Remuneration is often in the form of a single payment to the head of the household, irrelevant of who produces the goods, and use of child labour reduces the costs of production. In the survey, 45 per cent of children (5–11 years old) received no payment. Adverse practices included advance payment of wages to parents, which were then cleared over time through the children’s earnings. It can be seen, therefore, that, although nominally separate, the informal economy is not only prevalent in domestic production but also interlinked with production for global retail value chains. Economic upgrading in the formal apparel industry to meet global buyer requirements has been associated with social upgrading for a small proportion of largely male permanent workers. However, the many temporary, sweatshop, own-account and home-based workers have few or no opportunities for social upgrading. Those recruited through labour contractors or intermediaries often endure the worst conditions. This profile is deeply embedded in gendered social relations that have long shaped the Delhi NCR apparel sector. Women are concentrated in least skilled and lowest-paid work in factories or in more skilled but poorly remunerated home-based work.

The Bangladesh RMGs Sector Bangladesh, in contrast with India, did not have a large domestic or informal sector engaged in garment production that predated its expansion into garment exports in the 1970s (Ahmed and Nathan 2016). The growth of RMG in Bangladesh is directly linked to the global trade regimes that have regulated international trade in clothing since the early 1970s. Bangladeshi producers grew by exploiting the trade preferences and country quotas within the MFA5 and the EU’s Generalised System of Preferences (GSP).6 As discussed in Chapter 2, these trade agreements, aimed primarily at protecting domestic manufacturers in the developed world (as with the MFA), provided preferential quota access to the latter’s markets for a As discussed in Chapter 2, as part of the Agreement on Textile and Clothing, the MFA governed world trade in textiles and garments from 1974 to 2004 related to the amount developing countries could export to developed countries. It expired on 1 January 2005. 6  T he GSP allowed exemptions to developing countries such as Bangladesh from the general rules of the WTO on exporting textiles and other goods to EU member countries. 5 

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number of low-income developing economies. Under the MFA from 1974 to 2004, Bangladesh’s status as a low-income developing country meant it was free from the quota restrictions that affected some of its quota-constrained competitors. Early export growth of RMG was stimulated by other Asian countries (particularly South Korea, Taiwan and China) investing in and sourcing from Bangladesh in order to take advantage of its lack of quota restrictions and abundant labour supplies. This took place partly through FDI, which was restricted to export processing zones (EPZs) until 2005, or through triangular arrangements between foreign and Bangladeshi-owned producers. This facilitated transfer of knowledge, technology and skills, and Bangladeshi entrepreneurs were attracted into RMG given the low levels of start-up capital required. It consequently became dominated by locally owned firms (Kabeer and Mahmud 2004b; Staritz 2011). This facilitated rapid growth in Bangladesh RMG exports, which grew from 0 per cent in 1980 to 6 per cent of world exports by 2015, as shown in Table 7.1 (WTO 2015). There were concerns that the phase-out of the MFA and quota restrictions on competitors in 2005, and subsequently the global financial crisis in 2008, would adversely affect Bangladesh’s RMG. However, it was able to maintain and grow its export position (Gereffi and Frederick 2010; Staritz 2011). China had become the largest apparel exporter but faced increasing export costs owing to an unfavourable exchange rate, rising wages and labour shortages. Hence, more orders were switched to Bangladesh (both directly and through triangular arrangements), and the sector continued to grow rapidly based on its cost advantages as a high-volume low-price producer. This is reflected in overall annual export growth of 13.1 per cent between 1995 and 2014, when the RMG sector accounted for 82 per cent of Bangladesh’s total exports (Huynh 2015; BGMEA 2018). Early expansion of the RMG industry in Bangladesh was based on assembly CMT production of woven garments (including trousers and shirts) where fabrics were almost wholly imported. Knitted garments (including sweaters and T-shirts) subsequently grew in response to trade preferences under the EU’s GSP, which gave preferential treatment (subject to rules of origin) to knitted garments using locally produced fabrics. At the same time as RMG’s overall expansion, woven RMG has experienced a relative decline, from 75 per cent of export value in 1996–7 to 51 per cent in 2016–17 (BGMEA 2018). Given the use of domestically produced yarn in knit production, this sector also has higher local value added than woven RMG, allowing Bangladesh to capture more of the economic gains from export production (Curren and Nadvi 2015; Ahmed and Nathan 2016). The expansion of knitted garments has also allowed some producers to economically upgrade by providing a wider package to buyers, including sourcing of inputs, innovation in production and finishing. Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Stockholm University Library, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:39:11, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.008



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Within the sector, there are two tiers of garment producers (in addition to a third tier that supplies trim and accessories). Tier 1 firms tend to be large, with more than 2,000 workers, and have direct contracts with buyers or export agents. Tier 2 firms are medium-sized, with a few hundred workers, and act as subcontractors, allowing larger factories to manage fluctuations in orders and prices and accepting orders when they would otherwise be over capacity (Kabeer and Mahmud 2004b; Ahmed and Nathan 2016). Often, this is done illicitly without formal buyer agreement, although interviews with one factory owner indicated that some buyers turned a blind eye in order to get orders completed quickly (factory owner personal communication 2013). Many informal subcontractors not directly engaged in exports are not included in the data held by the main industry bodies—the Bangladesh Garments Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA) and the Bangladesh Knitwear Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BKMEA). One study estimates a total of 7,000 factories in 2013, including subcontracted factories producing indirectly for export (Labowitz and BaumannPauly 2015: 19). Bangladesh’s ‘competitive advantage’ has been the availability of a large source of low-waged, largely female, labour. However, the gender profile of RMG has changed as the industry has grown. While there has been an expansion in total employment, a relative decline has occurred in the proportion of women to men. According to the BGMEA (2018), total employment has increased, from 1.3 million workers in 2,503 factories in 1996–7 to 4 million workers in 4,482 factories in 2016–17. There are no accurate industry figures on the ratio of women to men.7 However, numerous research studies indicate that the percentage of women had declined from 80–90 per cent in the 1980s–90s to around 55–60 per cent by 2016, as shown in Table 7.2. We can make an approximation of the total number of women employed in RMG by combining BGMEA estimates of total employment with research estimates of the gender ratio provided in the literature cited in Table 7.2. These numbers may not be precise, but they illustrate that, while there has been a fall in the proportion of women workers, the total number of women workers has increased from approximately 0.4 to 2.2 million. An important factor in the changing gender profile has been the expansion of knitwear, in which production involves a lower share of women relative to men workers. Women are concentrated in woven RMG production, where they are mainly employed as machine operators and helpers, whereas men occupy supervisor, manager and skilled positions, such as in cutting and finishing (Hossain 2011).  BGMEA is aware of the lack of accurate data on workers, and has stated that it is addressing this through the introduction of a biometric database that all factories need to implement (Munni 2018).

7

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Year

1984–1994 1995–2004 2005–2014 2015–2017

Employment (million workers) (a) 0.418 1.599 3.21 4

Estimates of % women working in RMG (b) 90 80 60 55

Estimated number of women (million) (c) 0.376 1.279 1.926 2.2

Sources:

(a)  BGMEA (2018).

(b) These are approximations only, based on research studies; factories report no accurate data on the number of women workers, according to BGMEA (2018). Estimates from Staritz (2011); Labowitz and Baumann-Pauly (2015); ILO/IFC Better Work (personal communication January 2016); Munni (2018); and Moazzem, Centre for Policy Dialogue, Dhaka (personal communication July 2018). (c) Calculated based on prevailing researcher estimates of % women cited in (b)

Prevailing gender norms view knitwear, which is more capital-intensive, as ‘men’s work’, owing to the perception that men are more suited to operating fabricknitting machines than women (Hossain 2011; Staritz 2011).8 Expansion and maturing of the sector have also led to an increase in the average age of workers to early 20s, as well as an increase in the employment of married women rather than solely single girls (Kabeer and Mahmud 2004a; Hossain 2011).

Downgrading and Upgrading Trajectories Bangladesh RMG production is based primarily on low-wage and ‘low-skilled’ workers. The sector views low wages as its ‘competitive advantage’, and average labour costs per hour are much lower than in its main competitor countries (China and India) (Staritz 2011; ILO 2013). While wage costs are low, productivity is also low, reducing the competitive advantage of low unit labour costs. A key reason for poor productivity is the low level of skills or training across the workforce (workers, supervisors and middle managers). Workers (particularly women) are

 T he ILO/International Finance Corporation (IFC) Better Work programme in Bangladesh has also found that 55 per cent of the workers in the factories engaged in its programme are women. This is attributed to both the number of factories producing knit and a decline in the migration of Bangladeshi men to the Gulf (following falling oil prices) who are therefore seeking work in RMG (personal communication January 2016).

8

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recruited with only basic literacy and numeracy, as helpers; they acquire on-thejob training and usually transfer to machine operator roles after three–six months.9 Low skills are seen as a key constraint to upgrading within the industry, particularly to full-package OEM and ODM production that involves a range of functions and skills (Fernandez-Stark et al. 2011b; Staritz 2011).10 Employers are generally unwilling to invest in more training, given high labour turnover in factories. The skills gap among managers is often filled through recruitment from overseas. There have been a number of public and private training initiatives, often supported by overseas donors, but their scope and efficacy has remained limited (Staritz 2011; Fernandez-Stark et al. 2011; ILO 2013; IFC 2018). As a high-volume low wage-cost producer, Bangladesh has long had a reputation for poor labour conditions, and has been seen as an example of a country in the ‘race to the bottom’ in the competition for contracts (Ahmed and Nathan 2016). Both research and civil society studies have documented many of the problems (for example, Oxfam 2004; Hale and Wills 2005; Hossain 2011; ILO 2013; HRW 2015). Poor labour standards include low pay, long working hours, lack of contracts, health and safety problems, lack of awareness by workers of their rights, significant occupational segregation and discrimination, a gender pay gap, employment insecurity, long working hours, compulsory overtime and lack of childcare and maternity leave. The insecure working environments of some factories also pose severe risks to workers, with deaths occurring as a result of fires and unsafe buildings. This was highlighted by the Rana Plaza collapse, which killed over 1,100 workers in 2013, although this was only one of many factory accidents (Miller 2012; Anner, Bair and Blasi 2013; HRW 2015). Workers lack independent representation or union organization, in a context of deeply entrenched conflicts between trade unions and employers, who view cheap labour as their comparative advantage. While a relatively large number of trade unions are reported (up to 300, according to one estimate), in reality, unions only cover 2–4 per cent of factories within the RMG sector, owing to employer harassment, prohibition on union presence and dismissal of union members. As a result, only 1 in 10 registered unions within the RMG sector are active and effective (Grimshaw and Muñoz de Bustillo 2016, 89). Despite poor working conditions and lack of rights across the sector, there are differences between factories located within EPZs and those outside. Workers  As discussed in Chapter 3, ‘skills’ are defined mainly in relation to educational and training levels and take little account of women’s socially acquired skills, which are undervalued. 10   Other constraints include problems with access to energy (regular power shortages), transport, logistics and persistent allegations of political corruption (Staritz 2011; Labowitz and Baumann-Pauly 2015). 9

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employed in EPZs have been found to have more years of schooling, to receive slightly better wages, more often to have an employment contract and to have more access to benefits than their counterparts in smaller factories located in Dhaka (Kabeer and Mahmud 2004a). EPZs have stricter social compliance monitoring than non-EPZ factories, undertaken by a combination of EPZ authorities and counsellors, which carry out regular factory checks, and they tend to have higher exposure to global buyers requiring compliance with codes of labour practice (Ahmed and Nathan 2016). EPZs tend to contain larger factories with more capital investment and higher numbers of workers, and are more likely to have upgraded in the value chain to full-package OEM and ODM production (Staritz 2011). They also need to recruit and retain more skilled workers with slightly higher education levels in order to be able to sustain full-package OEM and ODM production (FernandezStark et al. 2011b). Hence, they offer slightly better terms and conditions. However, EPZs account for only 5–10 per cent of garment factories and workers, and much full-package production takes place in non-EPZ factories (Ahmed and Nathan 2016; Moazzem and Raz 2014). Studies are increasingly stressing the need for workforce development and skills training if the Bangladesh garment industry is to raise productivity and remain cost-competitive in a context of increasingly stringent buyer requirements including full-package provision (Hossain 2011; Huynh 2015).

Gender Articulations The garment industry was responsible for a rapid expansion of female employment in a country deeply imbued with patriarchal norms. Traditionally, women are confined to the private sphere of the home, whereas men have the role of breadwinner in the public sphere. Bangladesh has been summed up as society ‘characterized by the practice of female seclusion, patri-lineal principles of descent and inheritance, patrilocal principles of marriage and strict patriarchal authority within the family’ (Kabeer and Mahmud 2004b: 94). The processes by means of which women have been drawn into waged employment have been complex, involving many tensions.11 In part, they result from a preference by factory owners for a more ‘docile’ workforce (compared with male workers), which is pliable in meeting the cost pressures and demands of buyers. Initial recruitment was from villages where owners had connections, and where they offered to provide patriarchal oversight of employees. Within factories, a hierarchical gender division of labour was established, with men in management 11

 For an in-depth analysis, see Kabeer (2000).

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and supervisory positions and concentrated in segregated segments of production deemed ‘male’ (for example, cutting) and women concentrated in sewing (Kabeer 2000; Hossain 2011). The legal minimum wage acts as a benchmark for wages in the lower categories of RMG work. However, a number of studies in Bangladesh have highlighted the failure of the legal minimum wage to represent a living wage. The monthly rate set for the lowest-skilled Grade 7 jobs in 2013 was Taka 5,300 ($67). This falls well below the Taka 16,460 ($214) for Dhaka City and Taka 13,630 ($177) for satellite districts that the Global Living Wage Coalition has calculated as necessary to subsist. This latter assessment uses the Anker methodology developed at the ILO, which involves a detailed analysis of nutritional levels, housing costs and health and related expenses for a worker and their dependants (Khan et al. 2016; Anker and Anker 2017). It is significantly below all other accepted calculations of a living wage and even the Taka 6,784 ($85) World Bank poverty line (Moazzem and Raz 2014; FLA 2018). Women are concentrated in the lowest categories of work (Grades 7 and 8), with average earnings only marginally above the minimum wage. They face specific gendered problems, including discrimination in training and promotion, and a significant pay gap persists between average male and female earnings (Hossain 2011; Grimshaw and Muñoz de Bustillo 2016).12 Social norms also discourage women from seeking promotion to supervisory or management positions, and they can be socially isolated if they do. It is estimated that, whereas women constitute the majority of production workers, only 9 per cent of supervisors and 7 per cent of managers are female.13 Women often face challenges of sexual harassment and verbal and physical abuse, both within and beyond factory walls, in their families and communities, in a societal context where gender norms demean women working in the public sphere (Hossain 2011; Fairw Wear 2018). Women often work in garment production for a limited number of years and do not necessarily see it as a long-term commitment. Social pressures also constrain the length of time they work in RMG, and many leave when they marry and start a family. This contributes to high turnover of workers within the sector. Some factories try to encourage workers to subsequently return by recognizing their previous experience and offering childcare facilities. However, interrupting their work and then combining work with child care responsibilities reduce further any chances of promotion.  In 2010, average earnings in RMG were Taka 4,488 for men and Taka 3,329 for women, with 90 per cent of female earnings compared with 67 per cent of male earnings determined by the minimum wage (Grimshaw and Muñoz de Bustillo 2016: 77). 13   Dr Moazzem, Centre for Policy Dialogue, personal communication June 2018. See Moazzem (2018). 12

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There is debate in the literature over the extent to which the garment industry in Bangladesh has exploited women workers or contributed to their economic and social empowerment (Pearson 1998). Despite the serious problems with working conditions discussed here, women choose to migrate away from their rural villages in large numbers to seek garment employment in an environment where traditional patriarchal constraints are less severe, they have more anonymity and they can attain some economic independence. While constrained by poverty and limited alternatives, many young women knowingly choose to become garment workers (Kabeer 2000; Kabeer and Mahmud 2004a). Bangladesh has seen significant improvements for women over the period of RMG expansion, despite a patriarchal context of deeply embedded inequality and subordination. Advances include a doubling of labour force participation by young women, a fall in fertility rates from seven to just over two since 1971, increased school enrolment among girls from a third in 1991 to 56 per cent in 2005 and delayed marriage and child-bearing, including a reduction in child marriage (World Bank 2012; Kabeer 2013; Heath and Mobarak 2014). These studies indicate that the expansion of RMG employment has played a significant role in women’s advancement. For example, rising school enrolment has in part been stimulated by the need for girls to acquire more literacy and numeracy to attain RMG employment. Despite low wages, RMG employment and workers’ remittances back to poor rural households have contributed to declining poverty rates in Bangladesh since the 1980s (Kabeer and Mahmud 2004a; Labowitz and Baumann-Pauly 2015).

The Limits of Social Compliance—Contested Outcomes The apparel sectors in India and Bangladesh raise serious issues in relation to labour standards, and gender discrimination is deeply entrenched. In both countries, implementation of labour laws is weak or non-existent, particularly in the lower value chain tiers. Inadequate labour inspectorates with few resources underpin the lack of legal enforcement. In Bangladesh, for example, it is estimated that only 20 labour inspectors take care of more than 2 million workers (Grimshaw and Muñoz de Bustillo 2016: 30). Laws covering freedom of association and collective bargaining remain a particular challenge, and factory owners are often hostile to trade unions. Parliament has proved weak in regulating the garment sector. It is estimated that 10 per cent of Bangladesh’s national legislators are direct owners of garment factories, and many more have financial interests in the sector (Yardley 2013). In this context, private governance has come to the fore as a means of addressing a public governance deficit.

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In the early years of expanding apparel production, an important source of contestation came from the global union federation (ITGLWF, now IndustriALL) and international NGOs. Anti-sweatshop campaigns in North America and Europe led leading brands and retailers to adopt codes of labour practice as a condition of supply by factories. They also led to the formation of MSIs such as the ETI, the Fair Wear Foundation and the Clean Clothes Campaign in Europe, as well as the Fair Labor Association, Workers Rights Consortium and Maquilla Solidarity Campaign in North America (Barrientos and Smith 2006; Bair and Palpacuer 2012). A significant number of brands and retailers sourcing from India and Bangladesh apply codes of labour practice and participate in different initiatives aimed at improving labour conditions. Despite this, poor working conditions and lack of rights persist in both countries. The challenges are particularly acute for women workers, as highlighted by CSOs (Oxfam 2004; HRW 2015). Social compliance has had some effect in terms of improving ‘measurable standards’ (child labour, paying the legal minimum wage, contracts and legal benefits) in Tier 1 factories with high visibility and buyer oversight (such as in EPZs). However, this rarely extends to Tier 2 subcontractors, where poor conditions are often prevalent (Ahmed and Nathan 2016). It has also had little effect on underlying systemic issues, particularly discrimination, freedom of association and living (not legal minimum) wages (Barrientos and Smith 2007).14 A study of social audits undertaken in 2,447 factories in Asia between 2009 and 2012 highlights the failure of social compliance to uncover discrimination. This found 99 per cent compliance with no discrimination, with 220 factories in India found to be 99.9 per cent compliant and 147 factories in Bangladesh found to be 99.6 per cent compliant (Distelhorst and Locke 2018, and author personal communication). This indicated an even higher score than on freedom of association, where 95 per cent compliance was recorded even though over half the factories were in China, which has no independent trade unions. Yet the audits were undertaken in countries with deeply embedded gender discrimination, with India and Bangladesh ranking 119 and 125, respectively, on the United Nations Gender Inequality Index.15 Research in both countries has found verbal abuse and  Many factories developed strategies for ‘dodging’ auditors. Neil Kearney, the now-deceased President of the ITGLWF, recounted a story of one factory that played music through loudspeakers on the factory floor. When any buyer or auditor entered the front reception area, the music was immediately changed to a designated tune, indicating that all workers not formally contracted (including those underage) needed to leave the building immediately through a back entrance before the visitor had time to reach the factory floor (Kearney, personal communication 2007). 15  See http://hdr.undp.org/en/composite/GII (accessed June 2017). 14

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sexual harassment of female garment workers in the apparel industry to be rife. In a survey of 658 RMG workers in Bangladesh, 75 per cent of workers said abuse and sexual harassment were an issue, and in a related study in India, women workers did not feel they were able to answer (Fair Wear 2018). There are a number of reasons why social auditing is failing to pick up discrimination, examined in more depth in Chapter 9. Gender bias often prevails among those commissioning or undertaking audits. Buyers do not identify gender as an issue of concern; auditors may treat discriminatory practices as a cultural ‘norm’; and audit teams often lack gender diversity, training, experience or awareness. Audit methodologies based on a ‘tick box’ approach also mitigate against precarious workers disclosing sensitive gender issues such as sexual harassment or verbal abuse (Auret and Barrientos 2005; Toffel and Hugill 2016; BSR 2018). In Asian culture, women workers may feel ashamed acknowledging that they have suffered sexual abuse (Fair Wear 2018). Social compliance is primarily a risk aversion tool to avoid reputational damage to retailers and brands. It is not designed to address systemic issues underpinning the business model, such as gender discrimination, undervaluation of women’s work through low wages or power asymmetries that disadvantage women. Concerns have long been raised that the purchasing practices of global buyers also contribute to poor labour conditions (Acona 2004; Barrientos and Kritzinger 2004; Oxfam 2004; ETI 2005). Research since the 2008 global financial crash indicates that increased demand for high-volume low-price apparel has been accompanied by intensified buyer pressures on suppliers for quicker JIT turnaround of garments at lower prices (Staritz 2011; ILO 2017b). At the same time, buyers expect suppliers to deliver a broader range of functions, including on labour standards, at even more competitive prices. Indeed, some argue a double standard often prevails within the same retailer or brand, with the corporate social responsibility team requiring compliance with the company’s code of labour practice while the sourcing team imposes commercial demands that can be met only by violating the same code (Raworth and Kidder 2009). Lower supplier margins reduce the resources needed to invest in the necessary innovation to raise productivity. Buyer pressures are often met by lowering labour costs, increasing the use of casual labour, deploying labour contractors to provide workers or subcontracting production without buyer agreements (Huynh 2015; Barrientos 2013b). These pressures have knock-on effects across apparel value chains that are deeply embedded in traditional societal norms and institutions. They involve systemic tensions between the commercial drivers of profitability and social principles of worker rights and household well-being. As analysed in Chapter 4, these are gendered tensions that on the one hand can disrupt gender norms and on the other replicate embedded inequalities and discriminatory practices within value chains. In this context, social compliance is a very narrow model focused Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Stockholm University Library, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:39:11, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.008



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within the walls primarily of Tier 1 suppliers, taking no account of gender norms shaping social reproduction or commercial engagement with a fragmented labour force (Pearson and Seyfang 2001; Barrientos et al. 2003). However, an important difference between global value chains and more conventional arms-length markets is that linkages are more easily traced between end-buyers and the ultimate production site. Buyers are not immune from the wider societal implications of their commercial sourcing practices nor the contestation that can be provoked. These tensions are illustrated by the following examples of illicit subcontracting and child labour in India and labour unrest and risks to worker safety in Bangladesh.

Subcontracting and Child Labour in India Downgrading trajectories in the Delhi NCR garment sector play out through complex value chain layers, as examined earlier. The rise of private governance in the 1980s led to the application of buyer codes of labour practice to higher value chain tiers. However, as the ETI impact assessment in Delhi NCR found, even at this level it was primarily a small percentage of permanent/regular workers who saw benefits in terms of measurable standards (payment of minimum wage, overtime and statutory benefit). Temporary workers experienced some impacts. However, some suppliers rotated their temporary workers between factory units in order to avoid them working 240 days in any one unit and gaining access to the benefits enjoyed by permanent workers. Contract workers experienced the least impact. Employment through a contractor reduced the factory owner’s sense of responsibility: it is the contractor who gives the pay to workers. Offsite interviews with contract workers revealed that they often did not receive the legal minimum wage, and payments could be delayed or made in instalments. No proper written records were maintained, and some contract workers reported double book-keeping, with a separate record kept only for buyers and labour inspectors (Barrientos et al. 2010). However, this study did not extend to lower value chain tiers. Many brands have dealt with the reputational risk of labour abuse occurring in lower value chain tiers by stipulating that no unauthorized subcontracting can take place. Gap Inc. is an important global buyer sourcing from New Delhi, with a strong compliance department established following media and NGO exposures in the 1990s. This included teams based in some sourcing countries, including India. Initially, the company thought it could oversee social compliance alone—but it soon realized that the complexity of the issues meant engagement with civil society would be required. Gap then became more involved in global and multistakeholder initiatives, including joining the UK ETI and Social Accountability International (Ansett 2007). It also participated in the ETI Purchasing Practices Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Stockholm University Library, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:39:11, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.008

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group, established in 2005 in response to the Oxfam (2004) report on women in global supply chains. Gap also partnered with the UK NGO Women Working Worldwide to examine how it could improve its sourcing arrangements in order to avoid adverse effects on women workers (ETI 2005; Barrientos 2013a). Despite its extensive social compliance programme and engagement inMSIs, Gap faced a crisis in 2007 when a journalist exposed child labour in its Delhi NCR value chain. The publicity could not have been worse: the journalist pictured child labour sewing labelled Baby Gap clothes in awful conditions in a backstreet sweatshop. It soon transpired that the children had been trafficked by intermediaries who had bought them from families in Bihar (Barrientos 2008; Tewari 2016). Gap’s immediate response was to sack its supplier for breaking its contractual agreement not to subcontract illicitly. The fact that Gap Inc. had now established a social compliance programme and joined MSIs helped manage the media attention. However, the incident led to a realization that the problems involved were more complex than social compliance or what Gap alone could address (Tewari 2016). Gap’s next response was to organize a large conference in New Delhi in 2008, attended by 150 people and bringing together many leading brands, the government and CSOs, to discuss how to address the issues through a collaborative approach. More strategically, Gap engaged with the Indian government, particularly the Ministry of Women and Child Development (MWCD) and the Ministry of Rural Affairs. MWCD formed a task force on human trafficking to develop a pilot linking women garment workers in vulnerable areas to export markets (Tewari 2016). The pilot was located in Mewat in Haryana, a few hours’ drive from the NCR–Gurgaon region, where many Gap suppliers were based. The project had four principles: cut out middlemen; curtail competition between buyers that undercut prices; provide a safe, easy-to-monitor environment free of child labour and trafficking; and ensure workers are paid fair and transparent wages (Tewari 2016: 297). Women were trained by the factories that place orders and were paid directly into their bank accounts. They worked in a local community centre rather than their individual homes, with a crèche managed by an NGO to avoid the use of child labour. An important difference between this and other projects was the involvement of the government, working in collaboration with a brand and local CSOs. A study of the project by Tewari (2016) found a number of challenges. It required much ‘handholding’, and only one brand and two exporters became involved, leading to dependency on them. It was established at a time of high demand for embellished products, but workers could not work long hours, so many workers were bought in to help fulfil orders. However, the pilot was affected Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Stockholm University Library, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:39:11, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.008



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by the 2008 financial crisis and the subsequent downturn in export markets. One of the exporters subsequently faced financial difficulties, went bankrupt and then recovered. A key member of the Gap team responsible for the project left the company, and key government officials involved moved to other posts. Orders fell, trust by women declined and by 2013 only 50–60 workers remained. While other buyers lauded the project, they were not prepared to pay for it. Despite the challenges, the project continued, albeit at a lower level, and informed the development of other potential projects involving the government. Tewari (2016) drew three lessons from the project. First is the need to focus on ‘place’, linked to yet beyond value chains, and reflect local institutional relationships linking workers and workplaces. This has important implications for women workers in societies where their mobility is socially constrained. Second, lead firms provide crucial links between workers and global markets but are not sufficient to diffuse good working conditions beyond Tier 1 suppliers. Governments and local CSOs also need to be involved. Third, handholding was of crucial importance to the early success of the programme but it left unresolved the question of financial sustainability as production was scaled up. This example illustrates embedded tensions between the commercial dynamic of profit and market share and the societal dynamics shaped by gender norms and traditional labour practices. Corporate buyers are no longer insulated from the societal embeddedness of production, and knock-on effects of sourcing practices can ripple across complex value chains involving subcontracting of suppliers and workers. Addressing complex problems requires engagement by multiple actors in global value chains, including buyers, suppliers, the government and CSOs. Levels of labour agency and organization, and worker contestation using social media even in settings where trade unions find it difficult to operate, affect outcomes for workers’ rights. However, ultimately, commercial drivers and market shifts can override societal and labour engagement in addressing issues. This has implications for the analysis of the inter-layering of public, private and social governance, which will be examined in Chapter 9.

Bangladesh Labour Unrest and Factory Safety Downgrading trajectories in the Bangladesh apparel value chain have been linked partially to subcontracting, as examined earlier, although informal producers play a smaller role than they do in India. When the export sector was new, suppliers mainly handled cost pressures from buyers through the employment of a lowwage female labour force that is perceived to be more ‘docile’ than male workers (Kabeer 2000). This drew in young inexperienced women workers from rural villages. However, as the sector expanded, levels of labour unrest within factories Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Stockholm University Library, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:39:11, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.008

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have begun to grow. A key grievance has been in relation to low wages, which were at the heart of the ‘low road’ Bangladesh model. Contestation has taken different forms in the Bangladesh context: individual, collective and collaborative. Individual contestation arises from worker dissatisfaction, contributing to high labour turnover within factories and young women workers often leaving the industry after only five years. Many factory owners see workers as ‘disposable’ and easily replaced—attitudes reinforced by gender norms that undervalue women’s role outside the home. Yet worker turnover also limits investment in skills training and undermines the ability of the industry to raise productivity. However, those factories that are economically upgrading often face a skills shortage. Some are trying to increase incentives for women workers to remain or return after having families by offering childcare facilities. Collective contestation through trade union organization is also limited, in part because of hostility of employers towards unions and difficulty in organizing RMG workers. However, ‘unofficial’ labour unrest has grown significantly since the 2000s, as an older and more experienced workforce has become more aware of their rights (Hossain 2011; Hossan, Sarker, and Afroze 2012). The focus here has mainly been on wages, with increasing demands for the government to raise the legal minimum wage. The first industry minimum wage was introduced in 1985, but this has been uprated only infrequently. There was no increase between 1995 and 2006, during which inflation increased by around 5 per cent per annum on average, leading to a 42 per cent reduction in the real value of the minimum wage (Grimshaw and Muñoz de Bustillo 2016). From 2005, the industry was beset by a series of wildcat strikes, protests and campaigns that were inflamed by arrests of striking workers and clashes with the police. These often involved large numbers of women workers. Minimum wages have subsequently been uprated more frequently (in 2006, 2010 and 2013), largely resulting from continued waves of labour unrest, as well as international civil society pressure on some buyers to intervene.16 Despite increases in RMG minimum wages, they still remain very low in real terms and in comparison with Bangladesh’s main competitors, and well below a living wage, as discussed earlier (Khan et al. 2016; FLA 2018). Despite rising minimum wages, factories complain that they have not seen a general increase in buyer prices to compensate for increased costs. The president of the BGMEA stated in 2010, ‘After an 80% revision of wages with an associated 16

 In February 2010, a group of global buyers, worried that allegations of sweatshop conditions could tarnish their reputation, sent a letter to the Bangladeshi prime minister urging swift action to tackle the problem (Staritz 2011: 151). Some individual buyers also attempted to introduce living wages into their sourcing, although doing this unilaterally posed problems, given that factories sell to multiple companies.

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10–20% increase in production costs, we are waiting for increased prices from the buyers who petitioned the Prime Minister to force us to double the wages’ (cited in Staritz 2011: 152). A relatively small adjustment in this distribution across the value chain could have a significant impact on wages, so long as workers receive the benefits (Huynh 2015). Labour costs are low as a proportion of the free on board (FOB) price, ranging from about 3 per cent to less than 20 per cent, even at full efficiency (Ahmed and Nathan 2016). In terms of final price, it is estimated that a breakdown of a €29 shirt includes workers’ pay 0.6 per cent, profit to the factory in Bangladesh 4 per cent, profit to the brand 12 and 59 per cent (covering costs and profits) to the retailer (ITUC 2016). However, ‘factory owners are hard-faced about paying rotten wages not because they’re vital in themselves, but because they’re just about the only cost factories can control’ (Miller 2011, cited in Ahmed and Nathan 2016). There are reports that some employers delay paying workers minimum wage increases and use tactics such as moving workers to lower grades to reduce the wage level paid (Ahmed and Nathan 2016; Grimshaw and Muñoz de Bustillo 2016: 84; personal communication with UK buyer 2013). It can be difficult for workers to identify this given the lack of clarity on the breakdown of wages received. Collaborative contestation, both national and global, has also been building as a result of a series of factory accidents. The collapse of the Spectrum sweater factory in 2005 led to the death of 62 workers, with 84 injured. A fire in the Tazreen Fashions factory in Dhaka, in 2012, led to the death of 112 workers and many injured. In addition, it is estimated that, between 2006 and 2013, over 587 garment workers died in a total of 245 separate factory fires, with large numbers injured. These were followed by one of the biggest disasters in apparel industrial history, with the collapse of the eight-storey Rana Plaza building in Savar outside Dhaka, housing five garment factories, with 1,130 deaths and 2,500 injured workers. A distressing aspect of this disaster was that garment workers were ordered back into the factory the day after cracks first appeared, to meet delivery schedules. Workers in other firms in the same premises had not been ordered to return. These disasters have been examined in detail elsewhere (for example, Miller 2012; Anner et al. 2013; CCC and SOMO 2013; HRW 2015). This reflects systemic problems within the Bangladesh garment sector, including rapid growth with insufficient capacity-building, lack of government regulatory oversight, corruption in the application of building and labour regulations, buyer pressure to fulfil orders to strict time limits at low cost, failure of social compliance to address key issues affecting workers’ rights and a disdain by some factory owners for the lives of a mainly female garment workforce. The collapse of Rana Plaza was a ‘wake-up call’ for the industry nationally and globally, Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Stockholm University Library, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:39:11, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.008

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and resulted in significant action involving a large number of buyers, trade unions, NGOs, trade organizations (BGMEA and BKMEA), the Bangladesh government and international organizations, including ILO. It led to further attempts to establish trade unions and freedom of association within the RMG sector, although three years later unionization remains very low (an estimated 2–4 per cent, according to industry sources). Following Rana Plaza, the Accord and Alliance were established to address factory safety. The Accord represents a new approach and the potential to extend joint liability for workers’ rights to include global buyers (Anner et al. 2013; IndustriALL 2013). Despite the Bangladesh apparel sector largely pursuing a ‘low road’ model, debate remains over the extent to which workers are passive victims of employer exploitation and global capital or have agency, both individually and collectively. For many women workers, the apparel industry provides an avenue for exiting the patriarchal confines of the home, and a means of achieving economic independence (Kabeer 2000). It also opens up new channels for contestation by a largely feminized workforce. However, processes of contestation in the context of global retail value chains do not necessarily follow traditional patterns of industrial relations based on workplace disputes between workers and employers. In global retail value chains, contestation is multi-layered, also involving global buyers and CSOs, and multidimensional, transcending the spheres of global production and social reproduction. Chapter 9 will examine the governance implications of labour contestation in more depth.

Concluding Reflections These case studies illustrate the complexities of value chains that link global buyers and socially embedded production in diverse socioeconomic contexts. Embedded tensions between the commercial drivers of global sourcing and societal norms shape this interaction in differing ways. In Delhi NCR, sourcing strategies are geared towards a highly fractured value chain that involves both large- and mediumscale factories as well as sweatshops and own-account and home-based workers. Here, the industry is underpinned by traditional production methods, with a strong reputation for embellishment, which continues to be supported by a large domestic market. In Bangladesh, expansion of the export industry was based on avoidance of trade quotas under the MFA and pursuit of a low-road low-cost production model and availability of a pool of cheap female labour. The case studies also illustrate the diversity of gendered articulations between global production and social reproduction across locations. In both countries, internal migrant workers play a key role in garment production, but their gender profiles vary greatly. Delhi NCR has largely bucked the trend towards feminization Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Stockholm University Library, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:39:11, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.008



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of apparel production. Traditional employment patterns established by tailoring in Delhi NCR continue to feed a largely male workforce into export production. Women constitute the vast majority of home-based workers, reflecting deeply embedded gender norms that confine women to the home. Bangladesh has followed a different trajectory. The feminization of apparel employment has disrupted deeply embedded gender norms that have traditionally confined women to the home. Yet gender discrimination is deeply entrenched within the industry. In both countries, societal undervaluation of women’s work plays an important role in generating a low-cost labour force, even when women are deployed in more skilled embellishment. Yet, despite the problems, wage work in garments in both countries has provided many women with a route to greater economic independence and potential empowerment. Contestation by workers and CSOs both within the countries and globally has been fuelled by tensions between commercial and social drivers of global value chains. Early civil society campaigns led to the expansion of social compliance, and most global buyers now apply codes of labour practice to avoid risks to their brand reputation. However, codes have failed to address systemic issues, including gender discrimination, freedom of association and factory safety. Buyer purchasing practices driven by a financial model of short-term gain have continued to drive a low road of economic and social downgrading. In India, this has contributed to the persistence of illicit subcontracting and child labour, and in Bangladesh to labour unrest by a supposedly ‘docile’ female workforce. Value chain linkages mean buyers are unable to distance themselves from the worst abuses among suppliers, as shown by the child labour crisis in Delhi NCR and the factory collapse at Rana Plaza. These have led to close buyer engagement in their supply base, such as the Mewat pilot in Delhi and Accord in Bangladesh. Whether and to what extent private-sector-led initiatives are sufficient to stem economic and social downgrading in the face of wider global financial pressures discussed in Chapters 2 and 10 remains questionable. However, in both countries, there have been increasing calls for government to play a greater role in protecting workers’ rights and supporting women workers. This raises broader issues in relation to the public, private and social governance of global retail value chains, which Chapter 9 will examine in more depth. Before that, Chapter 8 will examine circumstances of the opposite trajectory of economic and social upgrading occurring in global retail value chains, comparing case studies from Nike’s pilot in an Indonesian apparel manufacturer as well as in Kenyan flowers. This will provide the basis for a more informed analysis of public, private and social governance as a means of redressing the low-road trajectory and enhancing the high-road trajectory to promote workers’ rights and gender equality in retail value chains. Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Stockholm University Library, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:39:11, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.008

8 Upgrading Strategies

Innovation, Skills and Rights

Introduction Global retail sourcing, with its search for cost-effective and cost-efficient production, involves both ‘low road’ and ‘high road’ trajectories. Previous chapters mainly examined the ‘low road’ trajectory of economic and social downgrading, drawing on examples from the cocoa, fresh fruit and apparel sectors in Africa and Asia. An important argument of this book is that retailers and brands seek not only competitive prices and fast delivery but also quality products. A continuum prevails between the low- and high-road ends, with retailers and suppliers positioned in relation to different consumer end-markets. For niche retailers and brands, a focus on quality requires their suppliers to pursue a ‘high road’ trajectory. Investment in innovation and enhanced capabilities facilitates economic and social upgrading. Raising productivity and enhancing skills makes it possible to produce higher-quality products while being efficient and competitive. To achieve this, retailers need to attract and retain more highly skilled workers (often female) by offering better pay, conditions and rights. This has implications for gender patterns of work and the relationship between productive wage work and reproductive unpaid work undertaken largely by women. This chapter examines a high-road trajectory drawing on two examples, one from Nike’s equitable manufacturing (EM) initiative and the other from the Kenyan flower sector. These cases show that a pathway to economic and social upgrading with gender-equitable benefits for workers entails many challenges. Global production is embedded in social norms and institutions that underpin gender discrimination in supplier workplaces and sourcing countries. Women have been drawn into production as a ‘docile’, low-cost labour force, whose socially acquired skills help deliver on speed and quality at competitive prices. Yet global value chains have opened up channels for new forms of contestation, often led by CSOs with women workers also playing an important role. In both the Nike apparel and Kenyan flower value chains, contestation by CSOs played an important role in pushing back on poor labour conditions during Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Stockholm University Library, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:41:12, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.009



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the early stages of global sourcing. However, in both cases, once innovation set in, and the benefits of raising productivity and skills became apparent, economic upgrading became linked to social upgrading. This has led to improved conditions and rights for a largely female workforce. It has also had wider implications for promoting gender-equitable outcomes and addressing issues ‘beyond the workplace’ that affect women’s combined productive and reproductive roles. The second section examines how, following NGO campaigns in the 1990s, Nike’s initial response was resistance, followed by a focus on social compliance to address labour standards, combined with promotion of ‘lean’ principles to promote efficiency in its sourcing base.1 Although these strategies yielded results, Nike also recognized their limitations in a rapidly changing commercial, environmental and social context. This led them to pilot new approaches to EM in 17 countries between 2014 and 2017 (Nike 2016, 2018). This included a pilot on Leadership Mindset and Worker Engagement (WE). Once the WE pilot was completed (and before other pilots were finalized), they developed a Lean 2.0 strategy. This aimed to link supplier capability building with continuous improvement in leadership, human resource management (HRM), worker engagement and wellbeing and social dialogue. The WE pilot was undertaken in Indonesia, which this chapter examines in more depth. It aims to enhance participation and provide greater voice for a largely female apparel workforce, and to enable workers or ‘team members’ to raise and address issues affecting them, both within and beyond the factory, through better management/worker communication, well-being Kaizens and social dialogue. An assessment of the EM pilot commissioned by Nike yielded positive results, showing enhanced worker well-being and increased productivity. Following the pilot, Nike suppliers are scaling up Lean 2.0, which could enhance interaction between commercial and social dimensions of production, with implications for the wider empowerment of women workers. The third section examines the case of the Kenyan flower sector, where gendered interactions between the commercial and social dimensions of work have become part of business strategy of leading flower farms. This has resulted largely from trade union and NGO campaigns in the 2000s that focused on issues such as work insecurity, sexual harassment and reproductive health. These led not only to better enforcement of social compliance but also to wider strategies to address gender discrimination. The latter included provision of permanent contracts, boosting union membership among female workers and establishing women’s committees on many of the larger flower farms, particularly those supplying European supermarkets. These provided a mostly female workforce  T he earlier strategy is termed Lean 1.0 to differentiate it from its later development through Lean 2.0, discussed further below.

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with channels to voice concerns within and beyond the narrow confines of production. Initial management resistance was overcome by recognition of the positive business benefits at a time of economic upgrading within the flower sector. These contributed to positive social outcomes for many workers and their communities on more commercially successful flower farms with the capability to economically upgrade and promote more equitable employment strategies. The fourth section compares lessons from both case studies in relation to economic and social upgrading by assessing the linkages between innovation, skills and rights. This section compares insights from the Nike Indonesian WE pilot and the Kenyan flower sector. It develops an analytical framework or matrix that links different levels of economic upgrading, related skills requirements and social upgrading (examined in Chapter 4). It also explores some of the challenges, including whether private actors alone are able to deliver on gender-equitable benefits and a living wage for workers. It argues that a combination of factors need to coalesce, including a change in buyer strategy, management attitude, worker voice and institutional environment, to promote economic and social upgrading. The fifth section concludes by briefly considering the process or ‘journey’ involved in economic and social upgrading to promote more gender-equitable outcomes for workers, and governance strategies needed to scale this up across wider value chains. This is explored in more detail in the following chapter.

Beyond Compliance: Nike’s EM Initiative Nike was one of the early US brand name companies to pursue global sourcing as a means of competing against more established European and US sports firms. Nike focuses on the design and retail of sports footwear, apparel and equipment to a high-quality specification. It outsources most production but works closely with manufacturers to meet the brand’s product specifications and conditions of supply. Initially, sourcing was undertaken from Japan. However, as Nike expanded, and the manufacturing capabilities of other countries deepened, sourcing shifted to lower-income developing countries, mainly in Asia (Knight 2016). Nike provides an example of a high-profile brand that was targeted by campaigners in the 1980s (Klein 2000; Nisen 2013). As a sportswear provider to many US universities, it was particularly exposed to student-based campaigns over poor working conditions in its value chain. Its initial response was denial and resistance, arguing that workers were not Nike employees and that its sourcing was creating jobs in low-income countries. Nike subsequently changed tack, and aimed to make its supplier factories ‘shining examples’ of good practice (Knight 2016: 373). It was among the first companies to pursue social compliance through introduction of its Code of Conduct in 1992 to improve working conditions. It Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Stockholm University Library, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:41:12, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.009



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helped establish the Fair Labor Association (FLA) as an independent monitoring body, and became a participant in various MSIs, including the ILO/IFC Better Work programme. In 2005, Nike was the first major brand in the industry to pursue a strategy of transparency by voluntarily publishing information on its key suppliers (Youssefi 2007; Locke 2013). In 2002, Nike introduced the M-Audit, a rigorous auditing system based on the Nike Code of Conduct, which all contract manufacturers had to observe. This incorporated ILO core conventions in relation to workers’ rights, including freedom of association, collective bargaining and no discrimination.2 Nike’s social compliance team is largely dedicated to code implementation, and undertakes the majority of Nike audits. In addition, FLA carries out independent auditing of a selection of suppliers every year, and Better Work monitors factories participating in its programme (Locke 2013; Nike 2016, 2018). Despite significant investment in social compliance, Nike continued to face challenges ensuring adherence to labour standards was applied systematically across its supply base. Studies by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology found that, while there had been improvements on some measurable standards, such as health and safety, other issues (such as working hours and compensation) remained problematic, with few changes in enabling rights such as freedom of association and no discrimination. Many factories also tended to move in and out of compliance over time (Locke 2013). Nike’s social compliance programme continued to evolve, and in 2018 its code of conduct and code leadership standard were updated to a broader emphasis on sustainability (including women’s rights) (Nike 2018). Nike initially adopted lean manufacturing around 2002, as part of the transformation of its global sourcing strategy. The principle of lean was originally developed by Toyota as an alternative to Fordist mass production to promote high-performance management systems, with the goal of enhancing operational efficiency across the automotive supply chain. It subsequently evolved and was applied to other industries, including retail and apparel (Abernathy et al. 1999; Stone 2012). Lean involves transforming production processes in order to reduce waste, enhance JIT throughput, focus on added value and, in garments, facilitate customized ‘fast fashion’. The principle of lean is to increase operator participation in problem-solving to attain continuous improvement and raise productivity (Distelhorst et al. 2016). To be effective, workers need to be flexible and to develop multiple skill sets, which requires factories to provide them with skills-training and capability-building. However, studies across different industries found that, in reality, with the application of the  See http://www.nikeresponsibility.com/report/uploads/files/Nike_Code_of_Conduct.pdf (accessed March 2016).

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first generation of lean (termed Lean 1.0 to differentiate it from a later generation), factories focused mainly on production aspects, failing to develop their worker incentive and compensation systems to align with these aims (Stone 2012; Lollo and O’Rourke 2018). This opened lean to criticism that workers often experience the pressures of JIT while reaping insufficient rewards (Miller and Williams 2009). NGOs also argued that women workers were often at the sharp end of these pressures, receiving the least rewards while carrying multiple burdens of waged and unpaid care work (Raworth and Kidder 2009). The subsequent generation of Lean 2.0 incorporated stronger promotion of worker well-being and high-performance work practices (Stone 2012; Lollo and O’Rourke 2018). Nike’s development of the first generation of lean involved engagement in the economic upgrading of suppliers. Contract factories were supported to develop their manufacturing and supply chain capabilities. A study of two Mexican suppliers to Nike undertaken in 2005 compared Plant A, which had adopted lean production, with Plant B, which was pursuing a modular system of mass production. Both were socially compliant with Nike’s code, but the study found profitability, wages and working conditions were better in Plant A (Locke 2013). Nike continued investing in building the capability of the senior management in its strategic manufacturing partners through the provision of courses by dedicated training centres in Vietnam and Sri Lanka. By 2012, Nike had trained senior and middle managers from contract factories producing 91 per cent of its footwear and 44 per cent of its apparel, covering 61 per cent of total workers in its direct value chain (Nike 2014). Nike also increased its focus on the social upgrading of workers, developing its supplier capability programme as a partnership model to incorporate the enhancement of social performance through lean. This aimed to (a) reduce excessive overtime and improve compensation systems3 and (b) enable team members to become more skilled and able to signal and address problems. Nike also engaged more closely with civil society and academic stakeholders to develop and assess its programmes (Locke 2013). While continuing with the auditing and monitoring of its code of conduct, from 2012 Nike moved to the more holistic approach of Lean 2.0. This involved enhancing management capabilities, HRM processes, worker engagement and well-being, communication at all levels and social dialogue (Nike 2016, 2018). Part of advancing its innovation strategy involved integrating its factory evaluation and scoring system into a new Sourcing & Manufacturing Sustainability Index (SMSI). This formed part of the overall Manufacturing Index, based on which Nike assessed its strategic contract manufacturers. It also rationalized its  T hese are two issues with the highest reported non-compliances in factory assessments— with 56 per cent reported for non-compliance on hours and 27 per cent for non-compliance on wages in 2015 (Nike 2016: 63).

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value chain, reducing the number of direct contract factories while maintaining growth in output.4 This involved more strategic engagement with a smaller group of high-performance factories, facilitating an enhanced business, environmental and social vision associated with Lean 2.0. An important argument of this book is that, as consumer-oriented value chains have evolved, interconnections between the commercial, social and environmental dimensions of production have become more apparent. This trend was reflected in Nike’s pursuit of the need for continuous innovation and improvement to promote social and environmental sustainability. Over the past 20 years, we’ve learned a lot—grappling with how to apply and enforce standards, seeing the limitations of policing and monitoring, and encountering entrenched behaviors and old ways of thinking. As a result, we’ve come to realize that real progress only happens when factory management understands that a lean, green, equitable and empowered workplace is a productive, profitable and successful business model. (Nike 2016: 50)

This perspective informed Nike’s EM strategy, developed from 2012.

EM: Nike’s Workforce Strategy Nike recognized that Lean 2.0 required a more skilled and committed workforce, with benefits accruing to both factories and workers. To build a skilled workforce, manufacturers needed to do more than offer better terms and conditions. Equitable manufacturing provides a means of promoting management leadership and worker engagement, well-being and empowerment, combined with enhancing productivity and efficiency. Pilots were undertaken in 17 factories in China, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam between 2014 and 2017. They examined different dimensions, including enhancing worker engagement and social dialogue, improving incentive and compensation systems and connecting workers to technology and service networks (Nike 2016). One of the EM pilots was undertaken in an apparel factory in Indonesia between 2014 and 2016, with a focus on leadership mindset and worker engagement. This aimed to address a prevailing management culture that often failed to consult or engage workers, treating them instead as recipients of higherlevel decisions. The pilot factory was selected based on its commitment to lean principles, completion of HRM training, unionization and achievements beyond minimum compliance measured by means of the Nike SMSI assessments.  T he number of Nike contract factories reduced from 785 to just over 500 between 2013 and 2017, while the total number of workers remained at approximately 1 million (Nike 2014, 2018).

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The Indonesian pilot was not specifically gender-focused; however, approximately 90 per cent of workers in the selected factory are female, including all line workers and supervisors. Men are concentrated in managerial and technical positions, with approximately 25 per cent of middle and senior managers being women. It was recognized from the outset that gender would be an important dimension of the initiative. An advisory group was established comprising civil society actors and academics to provide oversight of progress in the EM pilots. I participated in this group as a gender advisor. The EM pilot impact assessment was not conducted by academics, although Nike engaged with academics to examine some initiatives and pilots (Locke et al. 2007; Locke 2013; Distelhorst et al. 2016). The information provided here is not therefore based on an independent academic research, but it provides insights into Nike’s own learning from the EM pilot. From the outset, Nike set up the pilot to ensure systematic monitoring of the impact. Quantitative assessment of impact was carried out for Nike by an independent research organization, and qualitative assessment was undertaken by a local CSO. Assessment involved identifying pilot lines on which the EM intervention was implemented and control lines where no intervention was undertaken. A longitudinal survey was undertaken on both lines; this involved an initial baseline survey with regular follow-up surveys at six-monthly intervals. This used a computer-aided survey tool undertaken by workers facilitated by the research organization. The CSO carried out complementary focus group discussions and in-depth interviews with workers. The baseline survey, worker focus groups and interviews helped identify key issues of concerns to workers. Nike’s findings from the EM pilot illustrate the analysis in this book that global retail value chains are embedded in gendered societal norms underpinning a division of labour in which women’s primary role has traditionally been viewed as in the home. When women enter paid employment, these norms permeate gender patterns of work. These include management/worker relations within the factory and issues beyond the factory gate that are of particular concern to women workers. The pilot also illustrates how company interventions can disrupt these gender norms and promote worker well-being. For a significant proportion of women workers, this can involve crossing the ‘divide’ between women’s productive and reproductive roles, with implications for women’s economic empowerment.

Gendered Articulations in the Indonesian Apparel Industry Indonesia is a country of authoritarian state power relations underpinned by deeply embedded norms of gender subordination. These are based on an ideology Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Stockholm University Library, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:41:12, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.009



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that a woman’s social role is ‘natural’ and preordained by her biological capacities. The family provides the foundation for society and is based on a hierarchical subordination of women to men and children to adults (Robinson 2009). According to this ideology, women’s social engagement is limited by their family role. However, this sociocultural foundation was at odds with Indonesia’s economic strategy of export manufacture pursued from the 1970s. Export manufacturing and insertion into global value chains grew rapidly from the 1990s, including the garment industry (Kadarusman 2010). Female employment expanded rapidly, particularly in the apparel industry, where it had risen to 80 per cent of the workforce by the late 1980s (Robinson 2009: 90). Discriminatory practices and undervaluation of women’s contribution to work prevail in many developing countries. Tensions between female employment in export industries and traditional gendered norms that view women as subordinate and confined to a reproductive role permeate most workplaces. Sexual harassment and verbal abuse often occur, mainly by male managers and supervisors in relation to subordinate female line workers. Such issues examined in Chapter 7 in relation to Bangladesh and India are found to be prevalent in Indonesia (ILO/IFC 2012). A narrow social compliance approach based on auditing has largely failed to address issues of gender discrimination. Social audits involving annual inspections based on checklists provide an inadequate methodology for identifying or addressing sensitive issues affecting many women and ethnic groups (Auret and Barrientos 2005; Barrientos and Smith 2007; BSR 2018). This failure is illustrated by a recent analysis of 2,447 Asian apparel factories, discussed in Chapter 7. This reported 99 per cent compliance with no discrimination (Distelhorst and Locke 2018). Yet audits were undertaken in many countries that were internationally recognized as having a poor record on discrimination. Indonesia was one country included in the Distelhorst study that reported 99 per cent compliance with no discrimination. Yet Indonesia was ranked 100 out of 132 in 2011 on the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Gender Inequality Index (UNDP 2011). In contrast, using a different methodology, a base line study for the impact assessment undertaken for the ILO/IFC Better Work programme in Indonesia found an alarmingly high percentage of workers reporting concerns over sexual harassment (85 per cent). Many were also concerned about verbal abuse (79 per cent) and physical abuse, such as striking or pushing (87 per cent). Only 30 per cent of workers said that they had reported concerns to a supervisor, manager or trade union representative (ILO/IFC 2012: 19). The study attributed this to insufficient legal redress for such behaviour and lack of social justice in the Indonesian work environment in general. Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Stockholm University Library, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:41:12, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.009

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Nike is also a member of Better Work, which monitors factories participating in its programme. Better Work also plays a capacity-building role at the country level, which involves not only identifying but also providing ongoing support to address issues that arise. The impact assessment, conducted by Tufts University, found that, overall, factories engaged in the Better Work programme saw a reduction in gender discrimination. Across all countries covered by the assessment, this included a fall in the gender pay gap, reduced sexual harassment and increased women’s access to parental care. It also found that improvements for workers were associated with a rise in factory productivity, profitability, supply chain position and order sizes (ILO/IFC 2016). This indicates that going beyond a narrow compliance approach and building capacity within factories can have important implications in terms of addressing embedded gender discrimination, as well as enhancing business performance.

WE: Indonesia Pilot The leadership mindset and WE pilot in Indonesia focused on development and application of a combination of tools to enhance worker capabilities, engagement, well-being and voice. These included the development of management leadership and supervisor capabilities, well-being Kaizen workshops for workers, problemsolving and skills development of workers. Supervisor and team leader capabilities were enhanced to improve communication, and social dialogue to enable team members (workers) to raise and help address wider issues within and beyond the factory. The impact assessment commissioned by Nike indicated positive results for the factory and workers in the pilot compared with control lines, with some unintended gender outcomes. The pilot provided space for workers to voice issues and for solutions to be put in place to address them at an underlying level. Workers in the Indonesian pilot factory had raised as one of their main frustrations in work poor treatment by supervisors, particularly when targets needed to be met. As one team member indicated: When we are working, we have complained, but the supervisor sometimes just doesn’t give any attention. Doesn’t give the solution. (CSO focus group discussion December 2013)

Supervisor and team leader capabilities were enhanced through skills training to improve transparency and problem-solving flows between supervisors and workers. Positive changes subsequently reported by workers on the pilot lines included a change in attitude among supervisors and less disruption to production because of an ability to report and deal with problems. Supervisors also indicated

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positive outcomes in their relations with team members and found they no longer shouted as often. Well-being Kaizen workshops were held with team members to enhance their ability to identify and develop solutions to problems and follow through continuous improvement.5 These involved identifying and collectively working on improvements within and beyond the factory floor that enhance worker wellbeing. They were complemented by quality circles to provide space for small groups of workers to regularly participate in collective problem-solving activities. Skills assessments and training helped address skills gaps and promote the multiple skills needed to enhance performance. Assessment of the pilot for Nike found it enhanced team-building and worker participation in identifying and solving problems. In Kaizen workshops, team members not only raised issues but also engaged in data-gathering and analysis and making recommendations to management to address them. Prior to the pilot, managers tended to talk down to workers through one-way communication flows; the pilot encouraged changed attitudes at all levels. One factory manager indicated: I never realized workers had such good ideas. (Nike, personal communication June 2018).

Social dialogue was promoted by establishing daily morning meetings on every pilot line where issues could be discussed. The process involved, first, line supervisors leading discussion on production issues; second, line representatives leading discussion on wider issues (for example, transport or toilets) without supervisors present, with issues subsequently raised with the appropriate person (for example, supervisor, union or human resources); and, third, five-minute stress management exercises. Social dialogue was reported to operate better in theory than in practice in factories (Nike, personal communication June 2018). However, training in stress management helped managers, supervisors and workers engage better with each other, building better teams. Some workers also reported using the stress management techniques they had learnt at home, including in managing arguments with partners. From a gender perspective, EM provided an opportunity for workers to voice concerns and engage in seeking more effective solutions that link their paid work and household roles. The types of issues female workers raised included problems  As part of the EM pilot, well-being Kaizen workshops normally lasted five days, with workers attending on full pay. As noted later, overall increases in productivity compensated for the costs of releasing workers from the production line.

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coping when children or family members were sick and problems with transport getting to and from work. As one worker in a CSO focus group discussion commented during the Indonesia apparel pilot: If kids are sick, that’s the worst issue. If there’s any other issue, it won’t affect as much as when kids are sick. (December 2013)

This was also identified as an important cause of sudden unplanned absenteeism. WE led to the establishment of multi-skilled relief teams on pilot lines to provide more effective cover for all aspects of production when workers were suddenly absent. A communication channel was set up, enabling workers to call in immediately they knew they would not be able to work. They did not have to state the reason, which could include their own or family sickness. Women workers could now be upfront about an absence, avoiding the stress of trying to work and cope with a sick family member, while the relief teams could ensure line production was not disrupted. The assessment found that an overall productivity increase of 19 per cent on pilot compared with control lines (Nike 2016: 54), which more than covered the cost of relief teams. The WE focus on engaging workers meant they were provided with a safer space to raise sensitive issues in relation to harassment and abuse, issues which a more limited social compliance approach has failed to identify. For example, across its supply base, Nike’s audit reports indicate 98 per cent compliance on no discrimination and 96 per cent compliance on no harassment or abuse (Nike 2018: 42). As discussed earlier, this reflects a general failure of social audits to uncover sensitive gender issues. Another failure is that the results imply that these issues are not of concern to workers. Yet the worker survey undertaken in the WE assessment found that 34 per cent of respondents said they did have concerns about harassment of workers within their factory and that, of those, 53 per cent discussed with the trade union representative (Nike, personal communication June 2018). This indicates the issues are of greater concern to workers than social audits reveal. Raising sensitive concerns that remain largely hidden represents an important step towards addressing them. Overall, the impact assessment of the WE pilot commissioned by Nike was positive. In comparison with the control lines, the pilot lines reported 19 per cent higher productivity and 7 per cent better quality levels. Workers themselves reported feeling more energized and 22 per cent better valued on the pilot lines (Nike 2016: 54). An issue raised by many garment workers, including in Indonesia, is that wages are insufficient to meet living costs (FLA 2016; Grimshaw and Muñoz de Bustillo 2016). In the EM pilot in Indonesia, the impact assessment found that workers on the pilot lines received higher wages than the control lines as a result of their more Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Stockholm University Library, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:41:12, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.009



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consistently hitting performance targets (Nike, personal communication June 2018). However, a separate background research study for the EM pilots indicated that traditional wage systems often remain static, even in factories at the forefront of innovation.6 To address this, the separate study in another EM pilot factory tested three different approaches to improve compensation systems, focusing on productivity improvements, shared value creation and employee engagement. This found that introduction of more flexible compensation systems that incentivize workers, that are aligned with lean principles and that empower workers to participate in decision-making and problem-solving can have positive benefits for factories as well as workers (Nike 2018: 45). Higher take-home pay for both workers can go hand in hand with higher productivity and profitability in factories. The study posited the likelihood that inadequate worker compensation systems may be holding back productivity and profitability. It concluded that carefully designed compensation that incentivizes productivity improvements and shares the gains more equitably may provide a pathway to achieving the goals of a living wage.

Rolling Out and Scaling Up The EM pilots provide an example of a leading brand promoting economic and social upgrading as an integrated sourcing strategy within its global value chain. From a gender perspective, it illustrates that company interventions in high-road production can transcend the boundaries between commercial production (paid work) and social reproduction (unpaid care work) examined in Chapter 4. Following completion of the EM pilot phase, Nike aimed to build worker engagement into its strategy of Lean 2.0 to be adopted by all key contract factories. At the time of publication, it was undertaking a review of the scaling-up process. Initial indications were that some dimensions scaled up well as part of Lean 2.0 (for example, well-being Kaizens), but other dimensions needed more development (including social dialogue) (Nike, personal communication June 2018). The longer-term goal is for all contract factories to implement the principles of equitable manufacturing as an integral part of their business. Nike’s global value chain is extensive, involving significant levels of female employment. In 2018, Nike had more than 500 contract manufacturers employing just over a million workers, (approximately 80 per cent female), mainly in developing countries. The EM pilot combined commercial engagement with worker participation and voice, extending Nike engagement beyond the narrow confines of the factory floor. Given the high level of female employment within  T his study was not publicly available at the time of writing, but is referenced in Nike (2018: 45).

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Nike’s value chain, once scaled up EM has the potential to affect the well-being of over a million women and men workers by enhancing their voice within factories, and the lives of many more millions in their households. If other brands replicate the approach, this could extend this to many millions more. As a company worldwide, in 2018 Nike had approximately 73,000 direct employees, 48 per cent of whom were female (Nike 2018: 56). In line with UK legislation, in 2017 it had to report on the gender pay gap among the UK employees. It reported an hourly mean pay gap of 10 per cent among its wholesale staff and 3 per cent among retail staff in the UK (ibid.). This compares favourably with the retail industry mean of 16.4 per cent and the national mean of 17.4 per cent ( Jahshan 2018). However, the #MeToo movement that started in the USA in 2017 highlighted how pervasive gender discrimination and harassment are across all occupations and societies. Following this, Nike reviewed issues of gender discrimination within its own organization, leading to the departure of some senior executives (Cresswell, Draper and Abrams 2018). In response, Nike’s diversity strategy covering its own employees has been given a significant boost within its own organization (Nike 2018). Nike learning from the EM pilots helps illustrate how and why interactions between commercial production and social reproduction are becoming more pertinent for some brands and retailers. This has potential knock-on effects for promoting gender equality and empowerment of women workers across global value chains. In line with other leading retailers and brands,7 Nike could even further promote gender equality among contract factories across its global value chain.

‘Scented Bouquets’: A Gendered Approach to Social Compliance in Kenyan Flowers The Kenyan flower sector is another case where prominent campaigns in the 2000s highlighted poor labour conditions, targeted in particular at leading supermarket buyers. Flower work is highly feminized, particularly in packhouses, and in Africa many women workers were recruited from smallholder agriculture, where gender discrimination is deeply entrenched. Campaigns by trade unions and NGOs in the 2000s targeting Kenya highlighted very poor labour conditions  See Scott (2017). Examples of leading retailers and brands addressing gender issues include Walmart Women’s Economic Empowerment; Gap Inc.’s PACE programme; and Marks & Spencer’s Plan A Commitment, made in 2017, to promoting gender equality within its global supply chain, with the goal of 25 per cent of management among its first tier suppliers being female by 2020.

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and problematic issues, including serious health and safety risks and sexual harassment (Hale and Opondo 2005). These led to pursuit of social compliance through the adoption of supermarket and flower trade codes, involvement with MSIs and workers moving from temporary to permanent contracts, which enhanced women’s union representation. Many farms adopted gender strategies (including women’s committees and participatory social auditing), moving beyond a compliance approach narrowly focused on commercial production to a broader approach that provided women with the space to raise broader concerns (such as sexual harassment, childcare, transport and housing) (ibid.). In the commercial dimension, economic upgrading in Kenya was driven at the same time by a move from stems to more elaborate bouquets, and in Uganda by specialization in cuttings. This required the need to recruit and retain more skilled and productive workers who were able to attain quality standards in more specialized activities. In the dimension of commercial and societal interaction, social compliance and more gender-sensitive strategies on many flower farms led to improvements in workers’ terms and conditions. Government policy also facilitated both economic and social upgrading. Together, these strategies contributed to enhanced business performance and the retention of a more productive workforce (increasingly permanent). Floriculture therefore also provides an example of extension into the ‘grey’ area of global (re)production—transcending commercial and social reproduction—contributing to a combination of economic and social upgrading. The research for this section draws in part on my coordination of two research projects in the African horticulture sector, which included Kenyan and Ugandan flowers, and participation in Kenyan horticulture research as part of the Capturing the Gains programme in 2014 (Barrientos et al. 2003; Smith et al. 2004; Evers, Amoding and Krishnan 2014a). I subsequently undertook follow-up research in the Kenyan flower sector in March 2015, during which I held 14 key informant interviews to update earlier data and information and observed a training course near Lake Naivasha. I was also on the advisory committee of the Oxfam/ International Procurement & Logistics (IPL) poverty study in the Kenyan horticulture and floriculture sectors, whose findings I draw on here (Oxfam/IPL 2013). Kenya has become a significant exporter of cut flowers since the 1970s, when it first entered the sector. Export sales have grown 11-fold, from 10,946 tonnes in 1988 to 122,825 tonnes in 2015, of which 38 per cent went to the EU (KFC 2016). Kenya accounts for 6.4 per cent of world flower exports and is the fourth largest exporter to the Netherlands (50 per cent), Columbia (14 per cent) and Ecuador (8 per cent) in terms of value (ITC 2013). Kenya benefits from favourable climate and soil conditions for flower production, with access to handling facilities in Nairobi airport, from where flowers are airfreighted on a daily basis. Flower exports rely on Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Stockholm University Library, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:41:12, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.009

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a sophisticated infrastructure, cool chain and distribution system, given that they have high value in pristine condition but perish quickly, losing all value. The main destination for Kenyan flowers within Europe are the Dutch flower auctions, through which approximately 50 per cent of sales pass. However, direct sales to supermarkets are growing (particularly in the UK), and 25 per cent of Kenya’s exported flowers are delivered directly to supermarkets (Schuetze 2014; KFC 2016). As exports have expanded, there has been a process of upgrading from lower-value bulk stems to sleeving, labelling and bouquet production, which supermarkets in particular require and which adds greater value at source (Evers et al. 2014a). The growing influence of supermarkets has been identified as both a driver of rising standards and a source of pressure on growers, given the former’s powerful commercial position (Dolan, Opondo and Smith 2004; Oxfam/IPL 2013). As examined in Chapter 2, these pressures include more stringent quality standards (product, social and environmental), often with insufficient remuneration, given the additional costs suppliers bear. Pressures also include meeting very tight JIT schedules, which in air-freighted flowers can fluctuate at short notice. Concerns have been raised about wider purchasing practices, such as supermarkets using their dominant position in destination markets to negotiate more unfavourable conditions and prices to suppliers (ETI 2005; FTAO 2014). In this commercial environment, it is the larger producer/exporters who are more able to economically upgrade. They are better equipped to achieve economies of scale, raise productivity and undertake the capital investments needed to innovate and meet more stringent quality demands. Few smallholders participate in flower production. One exception is Wilmar, which exports to the Dutch flower auctions, sourcing from 3,000 small-scale producers, mainly of summer flowers (Oxfam/IPL 2013).

Gendered Articulations in the Kenyan Flower Sector The Kenyan flower sector has high levels of female employment. As the sector has expanded, the number of flower workers in Kenya has increased from an estimated 40,000–70,000 in 2003 (Smith et al. 2004) to 100,000 workers in 2015. The sector also provides indirect work for another 500,000 people, with impacts on the livelihoods of over 2 million dependants (KFC 2016). Women make up approximately 75 per cent of flower workers, but there has long been a gender division of labour in the profile of horticulture and floriculture employment. Women form the majority of workers at field and packhouse levels, but a minority of workers in all categories above, including supervisors and managers, the majority of whom have traditionally been male. Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Stockholm University Library, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:41:12, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.009



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Women are employed for their dexterity and skill in handling delicate flowers and fresh produce that are easily damaged, but also because they are seen to be more pliable and accepting of their conditions of employment (Dolan and Sorby 2003; Dolan et al. 2004). Women are most concentrated in packhouses, where they are generally paid more than field and greenhouse workers. Packhouse workers often have better levels of educational attainment and on many farms receive additional workforce training (Fernandez-Stark et al. 2011a; Gibbon and Riisgaard 2014). As Table 8.1 indicates for the year 2000, traditionally, middle and senior management in the sector has been predominantly male, as is the ownership profile, although, as we will see, this is changing. In the 2000s, Kenya was subject to civil society and trade union campaigns related to poor labour conditions (Dolan and Opondo 2005; Riisgaard 2009; Nelson et al. 2011). These campaigns highlighted poor conditions experienced by the largely female labour force, including high levels of job insecurity, poor remuneration and health and safety hazards. The latter included failure to observe stipulated re-entry periods into greenhouses after spraying, which can have serious effects, particularly on the reproductive health of women workers. Research also highlighted problems of sexual harassment, often by male supervisors, who had significant power over female temporary workers (Dolan et al. 2004; Smith et al. 2004; Hale and Opondo 2005). These problems reflected wider prevalence of gender violence within the country, where 24 per cent of women are reported to have been victims of rape and more than 60 per cent report having been victims of physical abuse as adults (World Bank 2007:  16). Trade union and NGO campaigns led to the introduction of codes of labour practice by supermarket buyers, leading flower companies, international flower industry bodies and actors in Kenya (these included the Kenya Flower Council Table 8.1  Gender profile of employment of a large floriculture/horticulture export firm Female as % of category Category of worker/employee Field/greenhouse workers (permanent and temporary) Packhouse workers (permanent and temporary) Supervisors Technical/specialized Administrative Lower/middle managers Senior managers

2000

2014

55 57 33 11 27 0 25

62 66 87 55 82 60 43

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[KFC] standard, MPS (Milieu Project Sierteelt), Fairtrade and the UK ETI Base Code). Campaigns involving women-focused NGOs, particularly Kenya Women Workers Organization (KEWWO) and Women Working Worldwide (WWW), focused specifically on lack of rights and on discrimination against a largely female temporary labour force. Pressure on flower growers to improve labour standards continued to mount, underpinned by a three-month ultimatum by the Kenya Human Rights Commission (KHRC). The ETI organized a delegation (including UK supermarket representatives) to visit Kenya in November 2002 (Hale and Opondo 2005). Fear of loss of market access increased within the flower sector. Rival companies and stakeholders came together in the Horticulture Ethical Business Initiative (HEBI) (Dolan and Opondo 2005; Riisgaard 2009). This dissolved after a few years, in part because of NGO and union tensions and lack of union participation. However, it played a role in galvanizing changes within the sector (Nelson et al. 2011). Campaigns by Kenyan CSOs also helped leverage improvements in the labour law, enshrined in the Employment Act (2007) and the Constitution of Kenya (2010) (KHRC 2012). Larger flower companies subsequently made a number of improvements in the way they approached HRM and the terms and conditions of employment. Health and safety improved, with much better provision of personal protective equipment and observation of re-entry periods post-spraying. Some flower farms set up gender committees tasked with addressing issues such as sexual harassment and discrimination (Oxfam/IPL 2013; Evers et al. 2014a; Said-Allsopp and Tallontire 2015). Some drew on the methods of participatory social auditing in order to bring out the voices of workers in the audit process (Auret and Barrientos 2005; Hale and Opondo 2005). However, a participatory learning philosophy never displaced the ‘check list’ approach of social compliance (Nelson et al. 2011). Workers in a number of studies subsequently reported improvements in employment conditions and less on-farm sexual harassment (Oxfam/IPL 2013; Evers et al. 2014a). 8 Although, as noted later, not all farms made the same progress. In interviews I undertook in 2015, I was keen to understand the main reasons for the latter change. Key informant interviewees indicated that formal procedures had played a role (including proper HRM strategies with clearer grievance procedures and penalties, gender committees and participatory auditing). However, some argued that increasing job security and the changing gender profile of employment had been structurally more significant. An important change on many farms has been in relation to job security. In Kenya, research on flower export farms in 2002 found high levels of job insecurity  Sexual harassment, which is a deeply embedded social issue, is reported to have reduced on site but continues at community level.

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overall across the flower industry, with approximately 35 per cent of workers on permanent contracts and 65 per cent on temporary or casual contracts (Dolan and Sorby 2003; Smith et al. 2004). However, there were exceptions, and this ratio varied by farm. For example, in the same year, a study of seven progressive farms at higher value chain tiers found a reverse ratio of permanent to casual workers (Dolan et al. 2004). A decade later, some flower industry observers report an improvement in the situation; however, accurate industry data are unavailable (Riisgaard and Gibbon 2014: fn. 9). One study of 11 flower export farms carried out in 2012–13 at the upper tiers of the value chain found an estimated 80 per cent on permanent contracts and 20 per cent on temporary or casual contracts (Gibbon and Riisgaard 2014). Permanent workers are more likely to be unionized and covered by collective bargain agreements with management. Changing to permanent status also undermines the power of male supervisors to harass or request sexual favours from women based on their influence on the hiring and firing of workers. Importantly, some respondents indicated a key change had been an increase in the number female supervisors, combined with proper supervisor training. We can see an example of this for one large horticulture and floriculture company, which has approximately 5,000 workers engaged in both production and export. Table 8.1 shows that in this company, women increased from 33 to 87 per cent of supervisors between 2000 and 2014.9 In the same period, the company saw a significant increase in women in management. Lower- and middle-level managers saw an increase in the proportion of women from 0 to 60 per cent; for senior management the increase was from 25 to 43 per cent, raising the earlier gender glass ceiling. Despite improvements in other areas, a challenge remains that, although nominal wages have improved for flower workers, there has been no progress towards workers earning a living wage. Riisgaard and Gibbon (2014) found in their study of 11 Kenyan flower farms that, although there had been significant improvements in the ‘social wage’ (holiday, maternity and sick leave, pensions and insurance) between 2002 and 2011, in real terms the monetary wage had declined absolutely and relative to the national minimum agricultural wage. A separate study of living wages in the Kenyan flower sector in March 2014 focused on the area near Lake Naivasha, where much flower production is concentrated but where many workers live in urban townships, which have higher  T hese data combine both floriculture and horticulture. The latter is seasonal and requires more temporary labour than flowers. I have therefore not included the temporary to permanent labour ratios, which would not give a clear picture of the changes in the flower sector alone. I was provided the data in aggregate form (horticulture and floriculture) without a breakdown, on condition of strict confidentiality.

9

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living costs than rural areas (Anker and Anker 2014). The living wage calculation was based on an average family size of two adults and three children, with 1.69 full-time equivalent workers per couple. Based on this, it estimated a living wage for Lake Naivasha of KSH 17,276 (US$201) per month net. It compared this with prevailing wages received by typical farm workers, where new hires receive approximately KSH 9,221 and workers with 20 years of service KSH 13,918 net pay per month (including in-kind benefits). It concluded that real wages had declined over the previous 10 years, and there is now a significant gap between prevailing real wages and a living wage, even for longer-serving workers (Anker and Anker 2014: 46–7). Civil society pressure, supermarket codes of labour practice and regulatory changes have all contributed to improvements in labour conditions in the Kenyan flower sector. However, there is also a commercial dimension to the changing employment conditions. The studies discussed relate mainly to export companies that have economically upgraded within the flower value chain—they have innovated and undertaken value addition, including through bouquets, and much of their sales goes directly to supermarkets. Social upgrading is not necessarily solely a result of civil society pressure and standards but is also linked to commercial changes associated with economic upgrading. However, failure to ensure a living wage also indicates unequal sharing of the benefits to the largely female workforce and their households.

Upgrading Journey: Finlays Horticulture Linkages between economic and social upgrading are not automatic. This is illustrated by an in-depth case study of one firm, Finlays Horticulture,10 carried out as part of a research for an IFC report (IFC 2013) on business and women’s employment. This provides some insights into the process by means of which social upgrading took place in this particular company. Finlays Horticulture was a vertically integrated producer and exporter of flowers and fresh produce from Kenya to Europe, with flowers accounting for 44 per cent of output in 2011. At that time, it had 7,900 employees, 48 per cent of whom were female, and sourced from its own farms as well as dedicated smallholders. 10

 T he wider Finlays group subsequently divested the horticulture/floriculture section of its business to a private equity company in October 2015 to focus mainly on the drinks section of its business, retaining only a few flower farms linked to its tea estates. Here I report on the company profile and findings from the IFC study undertaken in 2012. This is complemented by research I undertook in March–April 2015. It does not cover commercial changes that subsequently unfolded.

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A turning point for the company was the first social audit, undertaken in 2004, as a result of allegations of human rights abuses and sexual harassment discussed earlier. The social audit raised a number of issues relating to social compliance and the conditions of workers, 80 per cent of whom were female at that time. Improvements in Kenya’s employment law in 2007 further helped consolidate better standards. In the context of both private and public pressure, Finlays introduced clearer policies and procedures on HRM, health and safety, workers’ rights and training. It recognized the trade union and also established other forums for workers to raise issues, including a gender committee (Finlays 2012; IFC 2013). It became a significant exporter of Fairtrade-accredited roses sourced from Fairtrade-certified farms, generating a social premium at community-level investment. At that time, there were no women in senior management, and the highest women had reached was the supervisory level. There was some resistance from the senior management team to introducing changes with cost implications to the company (key informant interview March 2015). As one interviewee suggested, managers could not see why they should address issues relating to social reproduction (such as lactating mothers leaving early to feed their babies). Nevertheless, in response to civil society pressure and ethical trade oversight by supermarkets, changes were undertaken to ensure social compliance. All aspects of the changes played a role, but bolstering the training programme also had important implications for the upskilling of the workforce. By 2012, the company had a programme of 200 different courses available (IFC 2013). Training operated across all categories of employment: waged workers, supervisors and management. It covered technical skills, workers’ rights and communication, and extended into community programmes and leadership training. Women who had long had lower attainment levels in secondary education (World Bank 2007) benefited in particular from training and upskilling. The introduction of women’s committees also helped enhance women’s confidence and empowerment. A tipping point was reached when the management started to see the potential benefits to the business. The combination of training, worker representation and voice and better communication led to a more committed workforce, retention and promotion of skilled workers. These changes were taking place in parallel with economic upgrading of the company, as it increased production of higher-value production, involving greater technical complexity and the need for a more skilled workforce. The company found they had knock-on effects on productivity. On some cut flowers, a fully productive worker can harvest and bunch twice what a lowproductivity worker can—that is 2,000 stems per day compared with 1,000 stems. ‘One production manager estimated that for overall farm productivity, 50% of productivity relates to worker motivation, the other 50% to agricultural practices’ Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Stockholm University Library, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:41:12, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.009

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(IFC 2013: 78). There was a reduction in accidents, as well as less absenteeism and lower staff turnover. These outcomes helped trigger a mindset change within senior management, and promoting equal opportunities became more embedded within the company. Many challenges have remained but clear progress has been made. The management did not foresee promoting gender equality as a benefit but has now enhanced gender diversity across management, and in 2012 appointed its first female board-level director. This provides an example of where economic upgrading and social upgrading have gone hand in hand with promoting gender equality. Stakeholders I interviewed in 2012 and 2015 indicate that other companies at higher value chain tiers that have functionally upgraded have likewise enhanced the skills, rights and gender diversity of their workforce and management structures (reflected also in the example provided in Table 8.1). However, progress is most visible only on a portion of all farms. One indication of value chain positioning across flower farms can be attained from KFC member lists and levels of certification. In 2016, KFC had 98 members responsible for approximately 70 per cent of total flower exports. Certification with social and environmental standards is an important criterion for KFC membership, and there are different certification levels (gold, silver and non-certified). Of KFC’s 98 member farms in June 2016, only 6 had gold or gold status, 52 had silver status and 39 were non-certified (one of which had recently registered).11 It can be inferred that companies with gold and/or silver status are more likely to be at higher value chain tiers selling directly to supermarkets or selling certified flowers in the Dutch flower auctions. Those that are non-certified or active non-KFC members are not likely to have access to supermarket value chains. Finlays Horticulture flower farms had gold/silver status in 2015. Therefore, the IFC (2013) case study is of a company at the forefront of economic and social upgrading in the value chain. Many with silver status can also be characterized as leading the way on upgrading. To have achieved this status requires process upgrading to comply with standards and implies some degree of functional upgrading to be competitive in an increasingly demanding market, but those without certification or non-KFC members have at best some way to go. Hence, it is not possible to 11

 See http://kenyaflowercouncil.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Certification-registerJune-2016-1.pdf (accessed June 2016). All sales directly to supermarkets require full certification with standards, and an increasing proportion of flowers sold through the Dutch flower auctions also comply with environmental and social standards. KFC has joined the Global Social Compliance Programme (GSCP) in order to benchmark its standards in relation to international standards and to join the GSCP equivalence process contributing to the harmonization of social and environmental standards across global value chains and buyers (Pickles et al. 2016).

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generalize from a small number of cases where economic and social upgrading has occurred across the industry. It is therefore not surprising that reports of labour rights violations and gender discrimination continue to surface in the sector, particularly on farms at lower value chain tiers (KHRC 2012; Oxfam/IPL 2013). In sum, in a socio-economic context where gender subordination prevails, the early phase of flower farm development was characterized by poor working conditions and health and safety issues, as well as significant discrimination and harassment on many farms. There have subsequently been many positive improvements in terms of labour standards, rights and gender equality. Advances have come about in part as a result of civil society contestation, supermarket and buyer codes of labour practice and reform to employment legislation. These have been consolidated through economic upgrading by leading export flower farms and a realization that addressing gender inequality and discrimination could contribute to commercial success. However, despite many gains, real wages remain a significant challenge, and on this issue in particular civil society pressure continues. This again raises questions as to the extent to which the commercial model itself needs to change if greater gender equality is to be systemically integrated into global retail value chains.

Upgrading, Skills and Rights: Gender Implications In both the cases, of Nike and the Kenyan flower sector, linking economic and social upgrading along their value chains has involved a journey, with the full gender implications often resulting from unintended outcomes. In this section, I further examine the gender linkages between upgrading, skills and rights, drawing on both cases for illustration. I also examine the challenge illustrated by both cases in relation to attaining a gender-equitable living wage for workers, despite pursuing the ‘high road’ of economic and social upgrading. Table 8.2 presents a simplified matrix to examine the linkages between upgrading, skills and rights as well as the implications for women workers. This identifies the different dimensions based on concepts analysed in more detail in Chapter 4, which I briefly recap here. Economic upgrading relates to meso-level global value chain analysis where: process upgrading involves a change in the type of production undertaken; product upgrading involves a switch in the type of product produced; and functional upgrading involves a change in the type of productive activity undertaken. While separated for analytical purposes, in reality these are often overlapping. Skills upgrading relates to improvements in tangible skills, including qualification and training, as well as intangible skills, including women’s societally configured ‘nimble fingers’ enhancing the quality of products. Social upgrading includes measurable standards such as health and safety, as well Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Stockholm University Library, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:41:12, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.009

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as enabling rights, particularly no discrimination and freedom of association. The ‘low road’ to ‘high road’ continuum is depicted by the arrow linking the two ends of the continuum in the left-hand column. Possible implications for women workers at each level are indicated in the right-hand column. The first row depicts a scenario where no upgrading is taking place, with supply sold via intermediaries at the lowest competitive price. Workers are hired simply for their ability to do the job, with no particular investment in their skills, based on terms and conditions determined by local labour markets. Women are employed because they are seen as a cheap and compliant source of labour. This row is more relevant to examples of low-road production provided in the previous chapters, including unremunerated family labour in cocoa, seasonal workers in fresh fruit,

Table 8.2  Simplified matrix—economic, skills and social upgrading Economic upgrading Low road

High road

Implications for women workers

Skills upgrading

Social upgrading

GVC entry level: Products sold through transactional buyer–supplier linkages. Process upgrading: Improvements in production processes to comply with buyer standards. Product upgrading: New and advanced products for same or new buyers.

Basic socially acquired skills to undertake job. On-the-job training only.

Local labour market conditions prevail.

Women employed as cheap and ‘disposable’ labour.

Some skills needed. Some training provided. Workers trained to do same jobs better.

Social compliance addresses measurable standards: minimum wage, contracts, health and safety.

Higher skills required to do more complex tasks. Training provided and hiring more skilled workers.

Functional upgrading: New higher-value operations adopted to move up chain.

Knowledge enhancement—to do higher-level activities. More skilled workers hired. Full skills training provided.

Measurable and output standards for some workers. Rights and entitlements to attract and retain skilled workers. Enabling rights for larger section of labour force. Better worker bargaining and exit options.

Women employed for under-valued skills and low pay. Access to basic rights and protection. Women employed for tangible and intangible skills. Access to better jobs and opportunities. Potential for greater equality and economic empowerment.

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CMT operators in Bangladesh garment factories that have not economically upgraded and homeworkers in Indian apparel. In relation to the apparel and flower value chains, conditions depicted in the first row generally prevailed at an early stage of global sourcing. In both cases, collaborative contestation involving civil society campaigns played a significant role in challenging brands and retailers to improve conditions. These often had a gender focus, given the concentration of women in more vulnerable categories of flexible work (Oxfam 2004; Barrientos 2013a). In both cases, an initial response to campaigns, by Nike and Kenyan flower producers, was resistance or denial. However, subsequent acceptance of the need to improve workers’ conditions represented a turning point in terms of economic and social upgrading, with the latter focused mainly on social compliance. The second row identifies process upgrading, for example, where a supplier responds to buyer requirements on quality by introducing product and social standards. This requires some level of tangible and intangible skills acquired through hiring strategies (for example, employing workers with more literacy) and on-the-job training. Women are employed in activities involving ‘nimble fingers’ to provide intangible skills that enhance quality at low cost, given that it is deemed ‘socially acceptable’ to poorly remunerate women. Suppliers are subject to buyers’ social compliance programmes and have to meet legal minimum requirements, which are checked in their social audits. Compliance can require some basic social upgrading if workers’ conditions were previously below legal levels to provide women workers with basic legal protection. In relation to the second row, introduction by Nike of social audits and capability-building played an important role in the process upgrading and ensuring social compliance. This process was also significant in the Kenyan flower sector in the early 2000s. However, as discussed in Chapter 7, social compliance has been more effective in relation to measurable standards (such as health and safety) but has largely failed in relation to enabling rights, particularly freedom of association and no discrimination, including verbal abuse and sexual harassment. This is reflected in the low level of reporting of non-compliance on no discrimination and on harassment and abuse in Nike audits (Nike 2018). In the Kenyan flower sector, a continued focus by civil society on sexual harassment, despite supermarket codes, led some flower farms to introduce participatory social auditing, more rigorous supervisor training and introduction of gender committees, to better address gender-sensitive issues (Said-Allsopp and Tallontire 2015). The third row depicts product upgrading, where a supplier now makes differing higher-value goods. In the case of Nike EM, this involved yet further innovation in its branded sportswear goods, with higher-tech specifications. In the Kenyan case, this involved producing sleeved bouquets of flowers rather than separate Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Stockholm University Library, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:41:12, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.009

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single stems. Both sectors required a more skilled workforce and the provision of more specialized training. To attract and retain such workers, suppliers need to offer better terms and conditions, giving workers the ability to pursue better options to claim their rights. The legal minimum wage now becomes a benchmark, rather than a fixed payment level. In the Kenyan flower sector, this led to a switch for many workers from temporary to permanent contracts, as illustrated in Table 8.1. Given skills shortages, some companies also offer better non-workplace benefits and incentives, such as nursery provision, to attract and retain more skilled women workers. This also requires better provision of their enabling rights, particularly freedom of association, collective bargaining and no discrimination. A tipping point was reached in both cases when Nike EM and flower suppliers realized that enhancing skills and rights could raise productivity, quality and profitability, and facilitate economic upgrading. This involved a process by means of which a number of dimensions began to coalesce, including closer buyer/ supplier relations, changing management attitudes and improved management/ worker communication, including worker voice. In both the Nike and the Kenyan flowers cases, a ‘light bulb moment’ occurred when management realized the potential benefits of better worker engagement and began to pursue this more actively. This was reflected in, for example, the Nike Indonesian pilot when one factory manager said he had not realized workers had such good ideas. The fourth row depicts functional upgrading, where a supplier moves to different types of activities in the value chain (such as dedicated service or logistics). Functional upgrading involves innovation and capability-building requires additional skills upgrading. This requires both recruiting workers with a higher knowledge set and qualifications, and providing more specialized external and internal training programmes. Here, skills are both tangible and intangible, where intangible skills include more effective leadership by managers and supervisors, communication, adaptability, team-working, multitasking and problem-solving to build more functionally efficient value chains. It also requires more qualitative engagement by the workforce in how innovation is achieved, and incorporating them as team members that are more empowered to raise and address issues. Incentivizing this engagement requires greater acknowledgement of workers as people whose human capital needs nourishing, as well as understanding and respecting their wider social needs. Both Nike apparel and the Kenyan flower sector provide examples of some functional upgrading of the most capable suppliers providing a higher level of service to buyers, with gender implications for workers. Nike now sources from a smaller group of higher-performance factories, and leading flower farms in Kenya provide a more integrated sourcing channel directly to some supermarkets. Multiple skills are needed to attain these positions. Skills development has long Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Stockholm University Library, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:41:12, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.009



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been gendered and socially configured, as discussed in Chapter 3, with an emphasis on men’s ‘hard’ skills over women’s ‘soft skills’ in a commercial context. However, moving to higher-value production through functional upgrading and multiskilling requires many of the ‘soft skills’ that are socially deemed feminine qualities (Fernandez-Stark et al. 2012). This is reflected in the Nike Indonesian factory pilot, which emphasized the importance of developing skills such as management/ worker communications, adaptability, team-working and social dialogue as essential to raising productivity and efficiency. Functional upgrading in value chains also involves changing notions of ‘quality’, which relates not just to products but also to socially and environmentally configured notions of ‘quality’. As discussed in Chapter 4, socially ascribed notions of ‘quality’ encompass a gender dimension, where ‘caring’ (also socially deemed a feminine trait) for environmental and worker well-being are given greater prominence. This is reflected in Nike’s case in its emphasis on sustainability as critical to commercial success, with environmental and social dimensions of production more integrated into factory performance. Both examples show that attaining continuous improvement requires more equitable employment relations, with management playing a key role in facilitating the process. Functional upgrading, and the associated skills and quality dimensions, means suppliers need to engage with and respond to workers’ needs and rights. In the Kenyan flower sector, this was achieved through gender committees, as well as trade union organization and collective bargaining for women workers, who had now moved from temporary to permanent positions. In Nike’s EM pilot factory (which was already fully unionized), this was attained through leadership and skills training, well-being Kaizen groups and social dialogue enabling workers to raise concerns and providing channels for them to be addressed. Worker engagement and voice have facilitated raising and addressing gender issues that extend beyond the narrow confines of the workplace to women’s reproductive roles. Balancing paid work and childcare is a particular concern for women workers that has been better addressed. In the Kenyan flowers case, supermarkets have provided longer lead-times on orders so that overtime and related childcare arrangements can be planned in advance. In the Nike Indonesia pilot, multi-skilled relief teams were established, making it possible to cover worker absences if they or their children were sick. Worker engagement through better communication between management, supervisors and workers, gender committees and social dialogue has also enhanced the workplace environment, helping workers feel that they are able to raise gendersensitive issues. In particular, concerns over verbal abuse and sexual harassment have been more easily identified than they have been through standard social audits. This may initially increase reporting of such issues (such as in the Nike Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Stockholm University Library, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:41:12, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.009

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WE survey) but also enhances the potential to address them over time, as found in Kenya, where many flower workers now report lower incidence of harassment on farms. Outcomes have resulted in greater synergy between workplace issues and reproductive responsibilities (particularly childcare) experienced by a largely female labour force. The matrix depicted in Table 8.2 also allows us to examine the gendered implications of moving along the upgrading continuum from low to high road. Improved conditions and rights are not solely driven by workplace agitation, union bargaining and civil society campaigns. They also result from the commercial requirements to engage with a more skilled, productive and innovative workforce. There is a risk that functional upgrading may disadvantage some women where they have lower education and training compared with men. However, automation also reduces the need for physical labour to operate machines and depends more on qualifications, training and skills. This is affected by societal norms and government provision of education, which can vary by country. Automation also generates other jobs, such as in services, which involve significant female employment. The risks of automation to women workers are therefore complex— and will be examined further in Chapter 10. The matrix in Table 8.2 provides a simplified framework for assessing the relationship between economic and social upgrading and downgrading. In reality, distinctions between the different levels are often blurred. In applying the framework elsewhere, the situation is likely to differ by sector and country, as commercial production is embedded in differing socially configured gender relations. A central lesson from the cases examined here is that economic and social upgrading is not automatic. It has been a journey involving a combination of contestation, buyer intervention, changing management attitudes, capability enhancement, skills development and social dialogue.

Challenge of a Gender-equitable Living Wage Economic upgrading and rising productivity through innovation have also facilitated increased wage payments. In both the Kenyan and the Indonesian cases, nominal wages paid to workers have increased (Oxfam/IPL 2013; Nike, personal communication 2018). However, in both cases, there are also challenges to ensuring that nominal wage increases are sufficient to cover the rising costs of living and provide a living wage for workers. Linked to this are challenges promoting more gender-equitable remuneration, given that women are often concentrated in lowerpaid positions.

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Some codes of labour practice (including the ETI and Fair Wear codes) stipulate payment of living wages; in other codes (such as FLA), compensation must cover basic needs and provide a discretionary income. However, determining living wage levels is complex, and most global buyers and key suppliers use the legal minimum wage as a benchmark in their social compliance programmes, even though this is recognized in most export-focused middle- and low-income countries to be below a living wage (Vaughan-Whitehead 2014; JETIs 2015). Externally, leading brands and retailers have come under civil society pressure with respect to wage levels paid within their value chains. Examples include the Kenya human rights campaign on flowers. With rising food and consumer prices, workers’ incomes are insufficient to cover their cost of living (KHRC 2012; Oxfam/ IPL 2013). The Asia Floor Wage Alliance has been prominent among CSOs agitating for a living wage in the apparel industry (Bhattacharjee et al. 2009; Luce 2009). Civil society campaigns have continued to target higher niche sportswear brands, including Nike, Adidas and Puma (Basic 2016). Calculating whether wage increases are sufficient to sustain a living wage is complex, and researchers and CSOs adopt different approaches (Miller 2014; Vaughan-Whitehead 2014). Wages can vary according to different payment systems operated by producers (fixed or piece rate and bonus payments) and may include in-kind benefits. Net pay needs to be calculated after government taxes and related deductions. To attain a living wage, net pay needs to cover the prevailing cost of food (based on nutritional requirements), housing, transport, health, education and related living expenses. These will vary depending on the average number of dependants it is estimated the wage needs to cover. Living costs vary according to country and location, are affected by inflation and exchange rates and need to be converted into purchasing power parity to compare across countries (Anker 2011; FLA 2016; Anker and Anker 2017). A ‘wage ladder’ is often used to assess worker compensation in relation to different benchmarks, such as the World Bank poverty line, the legal minimum wage and trade union and civil society living wage estimates (Fair Wear 2011; JETIs 2015). Economic and social upgrading appears to enhance nominal wages, working conditions, skills development and social benefits for workers, as illustrated by the Nike Indonesian pilot and Kenyan flower sector cases. Where women are the majority of the workforce, this can have wider gender repercussions. As the ‘male breadwinner’ model has eroded in many countries, families are more dependent on the joint earnings of women and men. Improved economic benefits for women workers in particular enhance the well-being of households and communities, with studies finding that women are more likely than men to devote a larger share of their income to their children and families (World Bank 2012). However, lack of a living wage for workers limits the contribution of their wage work to household Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Stockholm University Library, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:41:12, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.009

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welfare or wider economic and social development, affecting both their own and future generations. Economic and social upgrading also has implications for gender patterns of work. Women workers are heavily overrepresented in the lower-paid categories of work ( JETIs 2015). I have argued in Chapters 3 and 4 that this reflects the embeddedness of global production in societal norms that undervalues the contribution of women’s work. These norms permeate production sites and factories, shaping employer– worker relations. It is possible that one reason for the failure of a largely male management to improve compensation systems for a largely female workforce in apparel factories relates to the weight of traditional societal norms that undervalue the contribution of women’s work over the rationale of aligning compensation with the principles of lean. Gender norms are reflected across the length of global retail value chains, from producers to brands and retailers, in which a ‘glass ceiling’ has long prevailed. However, there are signs that economic and social upgrading provides openings for the promotion of women to higher-paid categories of work. In the Kenyan flower example, which has been running longer, an initially unintended outcome of upgrading has been a change in the gender profile of work. As Table 8.1 indicates, women in one leading flower company were promoted not only to supervisory positions but also to more senior management positions, and there is anecdotal evidence of similar trends on other farms. Enhancing their skills and capabilities provides women workers with better negotiating power and options that enable improvements in terms and conditions, in addition to participation in collective bargaining agreements. Over time, the process has helped further change the management culture and disrupt prevailing gender norms relating to the ‘subordinate’ position of women. This is a process that requires constant surveillance if progress is not to be reversed, but it illustrates the potential of engagement in global retail value chains to open up opportunities for the greater economic empowerment of women workers.

Concluding Comments A key message from this chapter is that economic and social upgrading can occur with positive outcomes in terms of more gender-equitable benefits for workers, but this is not an automatic process. Rather, it is a journey involving a range of interventions and strategies at different but overlapping stages, also shaped by context. In our cases, campaigns and contestation by CSOs played a key role early on. These were initially met with denial and resistance by the companies. This was followed by social compliance and building production capabilities. This helped improve measurable labour standards but was insufficient to address enabling Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Stockholm University Library, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:41:12, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.009



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rights, including entrenched gender discrimination and related issues such as verbal and sexual abuse. A tipping point for companies was the realization that enhancing worker engagement and well-being, along with gender diversity, could have positive business outcomes. Advancing beyond this point requires the coalescence of multiple strategies—including closer buyer–supplier relations, changing management attitudes, supervisor skills and training, worker voice and organization, communication and social dialogue. The cases examined here illustrate that in global retail value chains, inter-firm linkages between buyers, suppliers and workers have become more interdependent. This has led to greater buyer and supplier engagement in addressing the wellbeing of workers and that of their households and even communities. These cases also illustrate that in such circumstances, formal boundaries between productive (paid) work producing goods for sale and reproductive (unpaid) work helping care for household members and nurture future generations can become more blurred. While global production is embedded in traditional gender norms, worker engagement in global retail value chains can help disrupt these. However, there are questions as to whether upgrading processes found in ‘niche’ value chains, such as Nike branded sportswear and Kenyan flower bouquets, can be replicated and scaled up in more mainstream mid- and low-end value chains? Also, the challenges of attaining a living wage for workers and the extent to which a largely female labour force is able to capture gender-equitable gains raise questions as to how far change can be attained through commercial value chain channels alone. The governance of global retail value chains is a key dimension in promoting interventions and strategies that are able to unlock more gender-equitable gains for workers. Who drives these interventions and strategies, and how they can be replicated across a range of value chains, remains an open question. This chapter has focused largely on governance by lead buyers (mainly Nike and UK supermarkets), with limited discussion of social governance by CSOs through campaigns and alliances or governments. In the Indonesian apparel pilot and Kenyan flower sector cases, private and civil society actors have clearly played an important role in promoting economic and social upgrading. Governments and international organizations also have a potentially important role, one that I have barely examined so far. Governments frame the wider institutional and economic context in which suppliers and labour markets function and economic and social upgrading takes place. In many sourcing countries, governments alone have generally proved ineffective at promoting gender equality. However, harnessing the combined strength of private governance (buyers), social governance (civil society) and public governance (governments and international organizations) has the potential to scale up strategies and interventions to promote more gender-equitable outcomes for workers across different value chains. This will be the focus of the next chapter. Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Stockholm University Library, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:41:12, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.009

9 Governance Challenges

Promoting Gender-Equitable Value Chains Introduction Global sourcing has been driven in part by a search for low-cost and fast delivery, associated with a ‘low road’ outcome for workers. However, the drive for quality and innovation, especially in niche value chains, has also supported a ‘high road’ outcome for some in terms of improved conditions and rights. Yet economic and social upgrading in global retail value chains is far from automatic, as the previous chapter examined. It involves a journey of contestation, intervention and collaboration (Gereffi and Lee 2016). Governance matters if this journey is to promote more sustained gender-equitable benefits for workers. However, the dynamics are changing in a global value chain context, where private, social and public governance all play a role. Global governance relates to the way international relations are managed, involving nation states and regional and international organizations. With greater global integration, global governance has evolved from a focus on inter-state activities to encompass the many ways that public and private actors and institutions manage their common affairs (Held et al. 1999; O’Brien et al. 2000). In the context of global value chains, the initial focus was mainly on private governance. It is now recognized that value chain governance involves a diverse range of company, civil society and state actors who are able to influence the norms and rules framing the operation of value chains across global, national and local scales (Ponte and Sturgeon 2014). Three dimensions of private, social and public governance are identified as  playing roles in global value chains (Mayer and Posthuma 2012). Private governance has received the greatest attention in the GVC literature. This involves the power of lead firms to coordinate and distribute resources along their value chains. This mainly relates to product, environmental and labour standards applied by lead firms and private sector bodies (Gereffi et al. 2005; Gibbon and Ponte 2005; Nadvi 2008).1 Social governance relates to the ability of CSOs,  Private governance is defined here as incorporating both internal and external dimensions of corporate policy (including value chains), whereas corporate governance relates more

1

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including NGOs, trade unions, charities and community groups, to  influence social norms, policies, institutions and markets at national or international levels through advocacy and campaigns (Mayer and Posthuma 2012). Public governance involves rules, regulations and government policies within nation states, as well as international agreements and multilateral institutions, that can that affect the operation of global value chains (Gereffi 2005; Neilson and Pritchard 2009; A. Smith 2015; Horner 2017; Phillips, Mayer and Posthuma 2017). MSIs often constitute hybrids that reflect the inter-layering of different dimensions, particularly private and social governance. A political-institutional perspective informs analysis of the interlayering of the different dimensions of governance (Bartley 2007). Institutional analysis encompasses the formal rules and regulations and informal norms and social relations that configure economic and social interactions (Granovetter 1985; Neilson and Pritchard 2009). These can vary across territorial locations, shaping uneven outcomes within and between different groups of producers and workers across global value chains in different local contexts. Feminist political economy also draws on institutional analysis, arguing that markets are themselves gendered institutions that act as bearers of gendered rules and norms (Elson 1999; Beneria 2007). The embeddedness of institutions in social norms configures the gender profile of governance. Governance has long been deemed the preserve of governments, reflected in a gendered division between the public and household spheres, with men dominating in the public domain of state and government (Goetz 1997). Feminist political economy has contributed significantly to critical analysis of gender bias within national and international institutions but is only beginning to be applied to global value chains (Pearson and Seyfang 2001; Hoskyns and Rai 2007; Stewart 2011; Gottfried 2012). In this chapter, I develop analysis of the interlayering of the three dimensions of governance—private, social and public—in relation to global retail value chains. I examine how jointly they reflect and straddle the economic spheres of commercial production and societal sphere of social reproduction. I argue that social governance in the form of advocacy and campaigns has been a key driver of private governance of labour standards. However, top-down corporate codes of labour practice confined to the commercial sphere of production have singularly failed to identify or address gender discrimination prevalent within global value chains. I analyse how social governance straddles the economic and societal spheres, and unpack it in relation to different forms of contestation—individual, collective and collaborative. How these different forms of contestation play out varies across value chains and geographical locations. Social governance continues to challenge gendered power narrowly to a company’s relation to its own employees and shareholders (Palpacuer 2008). Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Stockholm University Library, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:43:53, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.010

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asymmetries and inequalities prevailing global retail value chains. Increasingly, bottom-up labour unrest over lack of a living wage is influencing the governance debate. Contestation is shifting the demand onto nation states for more effective public governance to hold corporates to account and protect workers’ rights. The second section examines analytical approaches to governance in a global value chain context. It builds on global (re)production network analysis developed in Chapter 4 to examine how social governance has come to the fore in global value chains that increase linkages between the economic sphere of commercial production and the societal sphere of reproduction. It develops a gendered analysis of the interlayering of governance incorporating the three dimensions of private, social and public governance. The third section examines the opportunities and limitations of private, social and public governance in more detail, with empirical illustrations from case studies examined in previous chapters. The fourth section analyses the interlayering of private, social and public governance, and the underlying tensions between them. It also explores the role contestation has played in governance formations across diverse settings, and how contestation is leading to social pressure for legislation to play a more effective role. The last section briefly concludes.

Analysis of Governance in Global Retail Value Chains The analysis of governance in GVC and GPN approaches has evolved in different ways since its early inception. A tension has prevailed between a focus on interfirm governance informed by a narrow economic paradigm of transaction costs and a broader approach to governance that views value chains as socially and institutionally embedded in in diverse contexts. Arguably, the different approaches reflect tensions examined in Chapter 4 between the economic sphere of commercial production and the societal sphere of social reproduction, where global value chains transcend boundaries between the two domains. This has implications for a gendered analysis of governance that incorporates both the commercial and the societal dimensions that are able to influence gendered processes of downgrading or upgrading. Early GVC analysis adopted an institutional perspective to explore the ways in which global retailers and brands (such as Walmart and Nike) were establishing forms of governance through which they could control their suppliers. This involved a distinction between producer- and buyer-driven governance, where the former mainly involved capital-intensive manufacturers and the latter global retailers of final consumer goods (Gereffi 1994b). Subsequent analysis drew on transaction cost economics to analyse increased complexity of global value chain structures, resulting in the need for enhanced levels and forms of buyer coordination. Gereffi et al. (2005) developed an analytical framework incorporating Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Stockholm University Library, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:43:53, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.010



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five possible governance strategies for the organization of value chains depending on the complexity of transactions, the codifiability of information and supplier capabilities. Private standards play an important role across different forms of vertical governance (Nadvi 2008; Henson and Humphrey 2010). However, a narrow transaction cost approach was criticized for taking GVC analysis away from its wider sociological roots and directing it towards a narrow focus on commercial inter-firm relations (Bair 2005, 2008). Others expounded the concept of private governance to incorporate the role of institutional embeddedness of commercial actors, as well as asymmetries of power between firms and wider social actors (Bair 2005; Gibbon and Ponte 2005; Coe et al. 2008; Neilson and Pritchard 2009). Here, there is greater focus on the embeddedness of commercial operations within societal norms and conventions, which can play an important role shaping how governance is exercised across different value chain tiers and contexts (Hess 2004; Ponte and Gibbon 2005; Riisgaard and Hammer 2011). A broader approach to ‘multipolar governance’ has been elaborated to analyse the roles played by the strategic actions of powerful actors both inside and outside value chains. This involves a range of actors and networks (including public regulators and civil society) that influence value chain structures and practices (Ponte and Sturgeon 2014). A complementary analysis of governance has been developed within the GPN approach (Coe et al. 2008; Coe and Yeung 2015). Here, emphasis is placed on spatial multi-scalar interlinking of global, national and local forms of governance that can combine to influence labour outcomes (Alford 2016). Both GVC and GPN researchers have paid increasing attention to the role of nation states in this more multidimensional analysis of governance (A. Smith 2015; Phillips et al. 2017). A similar tension is discernible in the related sociological analysis of ‘transnational private governance’. This identifies two key perspectives (Bartley 2007). A ‘market-based’ approach is narrowly focused on corporate strategies (individual and collective) to avert reputational risk. A ‘political institutional’ perspective views standards as arising from contestation between commercial and social actors. This informs analysis of complex ‘interlayering’ of social standards, national laws, customary rights and norms that shape practice on the ground and levels of enforcement (Bartley 2011). This perspective has been applied to the analysis of environmental and social standards (including social compliance with codes of labour practice and fair trade) (Bartley et al. 2015). An institutional perspective in GVC and GPN analysis also explores the private, social and public dimensions of global governance (Mayer and Posthuma 2012). This facilitates an interlayered analysis of governance at trans-scalar global, national and local levels that are embedded in diverse regulations, norms and Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Stockholm University Library, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:43:53, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.010

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practices and play out differently across a fragmented workforce (Neilson and Pritchard 2009; Alford 2016). Interaction between public, private and social governance can involve complementarity where one fills a gap in another, substitution where one replaces another, or enforcement where one strengthens implementation of the other (Amengual 2010). The gendered interlayering between public rules and social standards is insufficiently explored. Feminist political economists argue state institutions and regulations, as well as formal, informal and customary practices, are societally shaped by and bearers of norms that reflect prevailing gender relations (Beneria 1999; Elson 1999). These underpin a gender division between men’s dominance in the commercial sphere and women’s subordinate position in the reproductive sphere (Folbre 1994). This affects the differential terms and conditions of men’s and women’s access to labour markets, land ownership, resources or finance in diverse national and local contexts (Agarwal 1995; Neilson and Pritchard 2009; Stewart 2011). It is also reflected in societal divisions between formal and informal work (Elson 1999; Carr et al. 2000). From the perspective of the global (re)production framework developed in Chapter 4, a ‘market-based’ or ‘transaction cost’ approach relates to the commercial sphere on the left-hand side of Figure 4.1. A political institutional perspective opens up space to examine both the commercial and the societal spheres. However, as argued in the next section, it is important to differentiate social governance from private and public governance. Differentiating them facilitates more nuanced analysis of both tensions and synergies between social governance, which is more closely associated with social reproduction, and private governance rooted in the sphere of commercial production. Public governance has links to both the commercial sphere (regulation of firms and markets) and the reproductive sphere (social provision and protection). A key analytical challenge is to unpack governance implications of tensions between a commercial logic of financialization and profit versus a societal logic of care and well-being. How is this reflected in interlayered private, social and public governance? What role can contestation play across different value chains, sectors and social and institutional contexts? A gender lens can be applied to an interlayered analysis of the governance of work, given the different categories of fragmented work examined in Chapter 3. Public governance largely relates to those in formal employment, where men are traditionally concentrated, often overlooking informal, contributing family or own account work, where women are concentrated. Private governance is focused primarily on formal work and only beginning to extend to other categories (largely in response to civil society pressure). Both therefore relate to paid workers in the commercial sphere of production analysed in Chapter 4. Social governance broadly comprises a range of actors, including trade unions and NGOs. Trade Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Stockholm University Library, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:43:53, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.010



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unions focus mainly on paid formal workers in factories and farms; NGOS more often focus on workers in the informal economy, households and communities. Therefore, social governance reflects the nexus between the commercial sphere of production and societal sphere of reproduction in relation to fragmented work. A gender perspective on the interlayering of governance also helps in exploring asymmetries of power in a more nuanced way. As analysed in Chapters 3 and 4, the concept of power highlights the ability of one individual or group to be able to exert control or have ‘power over’ another in some way. It also involves the ‘power to’ engage in different forms of resistance in relation to those with power over them (Nelson and Wright 1995; Rowlands 1998). GPN analysis also provides insights into different dimensions of power. This differentiates governance as lead firm ‘power over’ suppliers, and power as a networked and relational concept facilitating ‘power to’ mobilize diverse actors and pursue contested outcomes (Hess 2008). Within value chains, companies have commercial power at their disposal resulting from their control of economic, financial and technical resources. In contrast, workers have minimal individual power, as their only asset is their ability to labour—but they can acquire more power collectively. Trade unions face challenges operating in a globalized labour market where labour relations are increasingly influenced by global buyers operating outside the national sphere of labour regulation and collective bargaining (Waterman and Wills 2001; Munck 2002; Cumbers et al. 2008). Asymmetries of power are gendered in social contexts where, relative to male workers, women are more likely to be in insecure paid work with fewer rights and less protection, to carry additional unpaid household and care responsibilities and to face greater constraints on their access to resources generated through markets (Beneria 2007). Gendered power asymmetries are reflected within each dimension of governance. Private governance involves decision-making by leading corporate actors responsible for safeguarding the financial interests of companies, where senior executive positions are predominantly occupied by men (Fagan, Gonzalez Menendez and Gomez Anson 2012). Public governance has long been characterized by a gender division between the public and household domains, in which men have dominated governments and associated decision-making positions (Goetz 1997). Even where women are involved, institutional norms and systems privilege the interests of powerful actors controlling resources within the commercial sphere of production (primarily male). Gender bias is systemic in government and corporate headquarters in relation to the interests of actors in the sphere of social reproduction (primarily female). While control of resources is a necessary dimension of power, it is not always sufficient in a context where power can be contested through other means (Dicken Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Stockholm University Library, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:43:53, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.010

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et al. 2001; Newell 2006; Coe et al. 2008). Global value chains that enhance connections between commercial firms and related actors within and across countries also open up channels for contestation. New forms of global networking and social media allow CSOs to challenge the commercial power of firms through advocacy and campaigns across developed and developing countries (Levy 2008). This increases the risk of adverse publicity for corporations keen to defend their reputation in order to maintain market position and shareholder value. Social governance, involving individual, collective and collaborative contestation, has come to play an important role in challenging power asymmetries, and the gender norms and conventions that underpin them (Barrientos 2013a). Hence, global retail value chains that transcend the boundaries between commercial production and social reproduction also provide an opening, in a Polanyian sense, for rebounding against the exigencies of the commercial power (Mayer and Pickles 2010, 2014).

Forms of Governance in Global Value Chains Analysis of the gendered interlayering of governance provides a framework for unpacking the complexities associated with different forms of governance and how they play out for different groups of workers. This section draws on empirical examples from case studies in previous chapters to examine the diverse ways in which governance is applied across sectors and locations, shaped in part by interconnections between the commercial and societal spheres of production, and driven by varying levels and forms of contestation. This also helps illustrate the challenges as well as opportunities for promoting more gender-equitable benefits for workers in a value chain context.

Private Governance: The Limits of Social Compliance Private governance has expanded rapidly with the rise of global value chains. It involves different forms of control and coordination that lead firms adopt to organize and structure their supply base without formal ownership of production. It reflects the asymmetrical power of lead firms, enabling them to govern suppliers across a range of sourcing locations and countries (Gibbon and Ponte 2005; Nadvi 2008). Private governance is also a mechanism of risk aversion by lead firms, to reduce the likelihood of reputational damage given the traceability of linkages to their suppliers. It has evolved through a range of standards, including product standards covering the specific technical specifications of goods produced and process standards covering the way goods are produced. The latter include environmental and social

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standards (both codes of labour practice and fair trade) (Nadvi 2008; Henson and Humphrey 2010; Pickles et al. 2016; Raj-Reichert 2013). From a gender perspective, I will argue that private governance limited to the commercial sphere has been largely ineffective. It is unable to address the underlying issues rooted in the societal sphere of reproduction, which affect workers (particularly women) entering the commercial sphere. Social compliance and social auditing of codes of labour practice in particular have failed to identify or address gender discrimination. Despite the expenditure of enormous resources, companies are beginning to recognize the limits of social auditing and are looking for initiatives that extend ‘beyond compliance’, some through gender-focused initiatives (Barrientos 2016a). Codes of labour practices and social compliance arose originally in response to social contestation involving adversarial campaigns by trade unions and NGOs. Some campaigns, particularly around emotive issues such as child labour in the production of apparel or agri-food for retailers and brands, were able to generate a significant amount of media publicity. These galvanized support from a section of northern consumers. Such campaigns played a role in all the case studies examined in previous chapters, including cocoa, fresh fruit, flowers and garments. As a result of actual or potential adverse publicity, many individual companies introduced their own codes or joined MSIs to do this collectively (Pearson and Seyfang 2001; Jenkins, Pearson, and Seyfang 2002; Locke 2013; Raj-Reichert 2013). Many companies use auditing bodies to verify compliance with their codes of labour practice. Social compliance is now an enormous industry, estimated to be valued somewhere between US$15 and $80 billion annually, involving large international auditing firms and independent not-for-profit organizations (Terwindt and Armstrong 2018). A social audit assesses a supplier against the benchmark of a specified code of labour practice, according to a methodology provided by the relevant auditing body. Audit bodies use different methodologies, for example, the Sedex Members Ethical Trade Audit (SMETA), the Business Social Compliance Initiative (BSCI) and Social Accountability International (SAI). The audit checks for compliance against each code’s key criteria. Where there is non-compliance, the supplier is required to implement a corrective action plan within an agreed timeframe or risk failing the audit (BSR 2018). This type of auditing is now commonplace in factories and farms across the global value chains of all major global retailers. However, as discussed later, questions remain as to whether a social compliance approach is really able to uncover labour abuse when issues are endemic and insecure workers are often afraid to disclose information in short annual visits (CCC 2005).

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The most comprehensive codes are based on Core ILO Conventions (such as the ETI Base Code). These have been divided into measurable standards, which are easily verified through visible inspection of documentation or premises, and enabling rights relating to non-discrimination and freedom of association, which are less easily verified visibly (Elliott and Freeman 2003; Barrientos and Smith 2007a). Evidence across all the case studies examined in previous chapters indicates that audits have been more effective in identifying measurable standards, reflected in a high number of non-compliances on issues such as health and safety. However, they have failed to identify or address enabling rights, most notably the principle of ‘no discrimination’, which is rarely identified as an issue. This was illustrated in the ETI impact assessment carried out in 2007 that included South African fruit and Indian garment sectors, which found that noncompliance on health and safety was the main issue highlighted by audits (Barrientos and Smith 2007a). More recently, a similar finding emerged in an examination of audits carried out in 2,447 garment factories across 21 countries in Asia between 2009 and 2012 (including Bangladesh, India and Indonesia, examined in Chapters 7 and 8). The majority of audits found some level of noncompliance on health and safety, with only 27 per cent fully compliant (Distelhorst and Locke 2018). As discussed later, social audits did not cover building safety. Wages are also a measurable standard easily checked through documents and often identified as a non-compliance issue. For example, the Asian garment study found a mean of only 55 per cent compliance on wages (Distelhorst and Locke 2018). However, social audits mainly use the legal minimum wage as a benchmark and have generally failed to ensure that a living wage is paid, even where this is stipulated as a requirement in the code (FLA 2016). Promoting a living wage is discussed further below. Social compliance is at best able to check documented wages against legislative minimums but not to identify distributional issues relating to value capture by workers. In relation to enabling rights, a number of studies examined in previous chapters have found that auditors have largely overlooked gender issues and freedom of association (Barrientos and Smith 2007a; BSR 2018). The study of social audits in the Asian garment sector by Distelhorst and Locke (2018) found a mean of 99 per cent compliance with no discrimination. This was even higher than for freedom of association (95 per cent). Yet many of the audits were undertaken in countries where gender discrimination is deeply entrenched, such as Bangladesh, India and Indonesia—countries that rank very low on international gender equality indices. Other studies, using different methodologies, in Bangladesh, India and Indonesia have found high levels of gender discrimination as well as sexual harassment and verbal abuse (particularly of female workers by male supervisors) (ILO/IFC 2016; Fair Wear 2018). Identifying a problem is key to addressing it. The Kenya flower Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Stockholm University Library, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:43:53, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.010



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case examined in Chapter 8 provides an example of NGO campaigns against the prevalence of sexual harassment leading to significant changes in leading flower farms and improvements in the procedures available to women workers, including more gender-sensitive participatory auditing and women’s committees (SaidAllsopp and Tallontire 2015). There are a number of reasons why social auditing is failing to pick up gender issues, discussed briefly in Chapter 7. Discrimination is deeply embedded, and social auditors and those commissioning social audits often view it as an ‘accepted norm’. Many audit teams lack gender diversity, training, experience or awareness. Insecure workers may be wary of giving poor feedback for the risk of losing their job, and may be preselected and/or coached by suppliers in advance of audits (Toffel and Hugill 2016; BSR 2017, 2018). Auditors often fail to gain the confidence of women workers who are constrained by cultural norms (such as a sense of shame) to voice concerns over sensitive issues (Auret and Barrientos 2005; BSR 2018). Suppliers normally pay for audits and may have a close relation with auditors, potentially compromising their independence. The standard audit methodology also mitigates against reporting personally sensitive issues. To qualify as non-compliance, an issue has to be triangulated through corroboration by three sources (for example, worker report, manager interview, written record or auditor observation). Therefore, even if a worker raises an issue such as sexual harassment, it is difficult to verify this through other evidence in the company (BSR 2018). Social audits also fail to reach the most precarious workers, where women are concentrated. Workers reached by social audits mainly cover formal workers at upper value chain tiers, overlooking those in lower tiers who are more likely to be casual, contract labour, home-based workers, or contributing family labour. We found this in the ETI impact assessment and across the case studies examined in this book. For example, in the South African and Ghanaian fruit sectors, the scope of company codes reached processing and packhouse workers and permanent farm workers. However, casual workers and those deployed through labour contractors have largely been overlooked. In the Delhi NCR garment sector, codes have reached permanent male workers but not the large temporary and contract workforce that is often moved between factories to avoid labour regulation. Codes have abjectly failed to reach informal workers, as in the Delhi garment sector, or smallholders, as found in the Ghanaian pineapple and cocoa sectors. Hence, codes barely touch systemically embedded forms of gender discrimination. There is also a question as to the extent to which the effectiveness of social compliance varies depending on whether workers are at the high-road or low-road end of the labour standards continuum examined in Chapter 3. Among the case studies in this book, workers in high-end factories and production sites enjoy Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Stockholm University Library, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:43:53, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.010

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relatively better conditions, such as those in African fruit and flower processing and packhouses, as well as garment workers in Nike’s supply chain. In part, this reflects economic upgrading and suppliers needing to attract and retain more skilled labour by offering better terms and conditions above those prevailing in local labour markets. However, in all of the cases I have examined, most workers are members of independent trade unions that negotiate conditions and provide a complaint channel. Therefore, codes and audits are not the main driver of labour standards. At the low-road end of the continuum, codes appear to play a role in relation to setting minimum measurable standards. The ETI impact assessment found that they can also play a role in enforcing legislation (Barrientos and Smith 2007a). This was the case in the South African fruit and Indian garment sectors. Indeed, in India, some factory managers said codes helped reduce the bribes they needed to pay labour inspectors, as they were now closer to compliance with labour laws (Barrientos et al. 2010). The worst failure of social compliance has occurred in the Bangladesh garment sector, examined in Chapter 7. Here, worker health and safety has remained a significant risk as a result of poor building safety. At best, this has been only superficially covered by most codes and audits. This has been demonstrated in a number of factory disasters, the worst being the collapse of Rana Plaza in 2013, which killed 1,134 workers and injured many more (Miller 2012; Anner et al. 2013; Reinecke and Donaghey 2015). Two social audits were carried out in Rana Plaza garment factories before the collapse but failed to identify potential risks to workers (Terwindt and Armstrong 2018). Following the appearance of cracks in the building, insecure female garment workers were pressured to return to work or lose their jobs, whereas workers in other companies in the complex stayed away. Had the garment workers been independently organized, they would have been in a better position to resist re-entry. A number of leading brands and retailers were found to be sourcing from Rana Plaza and bore significant reputational damage despite all the resources devoted to auditing. This tragedy bought the limits of social compliance home to commercial buyers. Returning to the analytical perspective of global (re)production networks examined in Chapter 4, the initial driver for the introduction of social compliance was contestation over poor working conditions for an increasingly fragmented workforce. Yet social compliance fails to reach the lower categories of fragmented work, where women are concentrated. This is where the ‘reputational risk’ to companies of exposure over poor working conditions is greatest. However, the fragmentation of work and interconnectedness in global retail value chains between the commercial and the societal spheres have meant companies are unable to remain aloof from gendered societal relations in which production is embedded. Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Stockholm University Library, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:43:53, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.010



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The types of issues that arise, including job insecurity, low pay, discrimination and sexual harassment, emanate from underlying gender relations that have long discriminated against women and subordinated them in the societal sphere. A gender-biased social compliance approach, limited to the commercial sphere, is unable to identify, let alone counter, embedded discrimination. So long as these issues persist, the ‘reputational risk’ to companies remains. Some companies are beginning to recognize the limitations of social compliance and are pursuing gender-focused initiatives to reach more insecure female workers. Although they retain social compliance, this is complemented by strategies to promote the well-being, rights and livelihoods of workers and smallholders in their global value chains. Examples in previous chapters include Mondelez (Cocoa Life) in cocoa production, Nike in garment production and Finlays in the Kenyan flower sector. Walmart is one of the earliest examples of a value retailer that has a longestablished social compliance programme but has also gone further by promoting women’s economic empowerment (WEE). Walmart recognized that women were the majority of its customers and played a crucial role in its business and its supply chains worldwide. Walmart’s WEE initiative has three key goals: (a) to source US$20 billion from women-owned business in its US operations, (b) to support training of 1 million women in farms, factories and retail in emerging economies, and low-income women in the USA and (c) to ask major suppliers (with over US$1 billion sales to Walmart) to report on the diversity of their key account teams that service Walmart and Sam’s Club.2 Other company initiatives, including Gap P.A.C.E. and Marks & Spencer Plan A, are also proactively addressing gender in their value chains (Chan 2010; ICRW and BSR 2016; Scott 2017).3 For example, Marks & Spencer Plan A has made a public commitment that women should occupy 25 per cent of management positions in its first-tier manufacturing suppliers by 2022. Various reasons account for this: recognition that women constitute a significant proportion of their consumers, employees and workers in their supply base; evidence that promoting gender equality can enhance commercial success; and wider civil society pressure on companies to promote gender equality (IFC 2013; Oxfam 2013; McKinsey 2015). These initiatives are still at an early stage, and available evidence on their success is mixed. However, they do reflect recognition by some retailers and brands that socially sustainable sourcing needs to reach beyond compliance to more complex gender issues in the sphere of social reproduction. Examples are provided  See https://corporate.walmart.com/womensempowerment/about (accessed June 2018). See also (Scott 2017). 3  See https://corporate.marksandspencer.com/plan-a (accessed June 2018). 2

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in the fourth section later and involve multiple actors. Private governance via social compliance has failed to address gender discrimination, but there are signs of companies moving beyond a narrow compliance approach, driven in part by recognition of the role played by women in their global value chains.

Social Governance Social governance is often conflated with private governance in GVC analysis, but others highlight it as playing a distinct role (Mayer and Posthuma 2012). I treat it separately as part of the governance of global value chains for four reasons. First, social governance can provide a separate driver of private or public governance, through individual, collective or collaborative contestation (discussed later). Second, there are often tensions between civil society, commercial and public actors, reflecting asymmetries of power and conflicting interests of firms, workers and governments that need to be identified. Third, social governance often challenges established gender norms prevailing within commercial and state institutions, whereas private and public governance often perpetuate the gendered status quo. Fourth, identifying social governance as a distinct dimension also brings the multi-scalar nature of governance into relief, facilitating analysis of potential leverage points at different levels (local, national and global) across value chains linking workers, suppliers, retailers and consumers. The concept of social governance has been less well defined than private governance from a GVC perspective. In separate literatures, the increasing role of global civil society in the wake of globalization has received much attention (Edwards and Hume 1995; Edwards and Gaventa 2001; Waterman and Wills 2001; Howell and Pearce 2002; Munck 2002). This has explored changing roles of global CSOs (NGOs, trade unions, faith organizations) in a global context where nation states are constrained through the growing power of transnational corporations whose operations transcend their national boundaries. GVC analysis of social governance has been informed by a Polanyian double movement perspective of a social backlash in reaction to a governance vacuum. This has arisen in a global context where nation states are unwilling or ill-equipped to counter the negative effects generated by footloose global companies based outside their borders (Gereffi 2005; Mayer and Pickles 2010). A Polyanian approach has also informed feminist analysis of how a double movement involves gendered responses against the negative effects of global commercialization, which have been particularly harsh for many women workers (Beneria 2007). From the perspective of G(r)PN analysis, examined in Chapter 4, I argue that social governance links paid work in the sphere of commercial production and unpaid work in the social sphere of reproduction. In the sphere of commercial Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Stockholm University Library, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:43:53, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.010



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production, trade unions are largely based within factory and farm settings and represent the interests of workers employed within those sites through industrial relations and collective bargaining. However, traditional trade unions are less able to represent precarious and informal workers that move between paid and unpaid work. In the sphere of social reproduction, NGOs are largely based within the wider communities in which workers and their households live and where some sourcing occurs at lower value chain tiers. Social governance thus straddles the spheres of commercial production and social reproduction, involving diverse sets of actors, linked to fragmented workers, examined in Chapter 3. It also involves diverse strategies to counter uneven adverse effects of corporate sourcing from a fragmented workforce. Some organizations (NGOs and trade unions) adopt a more adversarial approach and others a more cooperative approach to their engagement with companies. As analysed in Chapter 4, I unpack this through three dimensions of contestation, involving collective, collaborative and individual strategies. Here, I examine each drawing on examples from the case studies in previous chapters. First, individual contestation relates to not only a worker’s own agency and strategies of adaptation but also the exit options open to workers that can enhance their individual bargaining position with employers or labour intermediaries. An important example of individual contestation provided in Chapter 5 is the exit of youth from cocoa farming following decades of low prices, poverty incomes and few prospects. This contributed to a crisis in the chocolate industry when the cocoa trading company Armajaro predicted a 1-million-tonne shortage of cocoa by 2020 based on prevailing trends. However, in all other sectors examined in this book, suppliers complain about problems of worker retention and high labour turnover. This is a particular problem in the apparel sector in relation to more skilled workers, as discussed in Chapters 7 and 8. Where leading suppliers economically upgrade, they often experience challenges retaining skilled workers, even with better pay and conditions. Second, collective contestation relates to strategies for labour organization involving organized industrial action spearheaded by trade unions and/or collective worker action. Traditional trade unions can more easily represent workers in regular employment in established suppliers, especially those that economically upgrade, such as in South African fruit packhouses and Nike’s Indonesian pilot factory. Here, mature systems of industrial relations are more likely to prevail. Trade unions are less able to organize casual/seasonal workers who regularly move between production sites, such as African farm workers. The fragmentation of work and incorporation of homeworkers and smallholders in global sourcing have led to engagement by other grassroots organizations. An example in this book is the role of Women on Farms Project (WFP) in the South African fruit sector. As part of its Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Stockholm University Library, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:43:53, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.010

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strategy, WFP set up an independent trade union, Sikhula Sonke, to promote the representation of women farm workers. New forms of collective organization have evolved as a result of constraints on workplace organization, particularly at the lowroad end of the labour standards continuum. These often involve organizing off site, where employers challenge workplace unions. Unofficial collective contestation has involved widespread labour unrest, particularly in the Bangladeshi garments and South African fruit sectors, often using social media (CCC and SOMO 2013; Pratap and Bose 2015). Third, collaborative contestation relates to the ability to form coalitions of NGOs and/or trade union organizations to counter corporate power at local, national and global scales. Where alliances are formed between the two groups, they can transcend boundaries between the economic and societal spheres by linking trade unions that represent workers within commercial workplaces and NGOs that support household- and community-based activities. Together they can combine trade union skills in collective bargaining and NGO skills in advocacy and campaigning. Some alliances are more stable and others more fluid; some coalesce around broad goals and others around specific issues. Collaborative contestation can take different forms, ranging from cooperative to adversarial forms of engagement with companies. Collaborative contestation involving a more cooperative approach is found among NGOs focused on supporting informal workers in developing countries. These include Homenet organizations working with home-based workers (established in the UK, South Asia and South East Asia); Streetnet organizations in countries throughout Asia, Africa and Latin America; and SEWA in India. Over 30 organizations supporting informal workers are part of Women in the Informal Economy Globalizing and Organizing (WIEGO).4 This includes the International Union of Foodworkers, reflecting more innovative alliances between NGOs and a global union federation. WIEGO’s goals are to promote equal economic opportunities and rights for all workers and improve the status of the working poor, especially women, in the informal economy. Its main activities are organization and representation, statistics and research, and advocacy and campaigning for more inclusive policy processes (covering equitable trade, labour, urban and social protection). WIEGO has long focused on supporting informal workers engaged in global retail value chains (Carr et al. 2000; Schmitz and McCormick 2001; Chan 2013). Fair trade provides another example of a more cooperative approach to collaborative contestation, focused mainly on smallholders but also wage-workers  For more information, see http://wiego.org.

4

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on larger plantations. It is defined as ‘a trading partnership, based on dialogue, transparency and respect, which seeks greater equity in international trade’.5 The fair trade movement traditionally sought to achieve its goals through facilitating the involvement of small-scale producers in international trade. The expansion of fair trade was significantly boosted by access to the value chains of mainstream supermarkets. This included some supermarket own labels carrying Fairtrade certification, initiated in the UK in 2003 (Barrientos and Smith 2007b). Fair trade is an important example of a civil society initiative that links actors in the commercial sphere with actors in the societal sphere (including smallholders, workers and their communities). However, fair trade also comes up against embedded tensions shaped by societal norms shaping gendered articulations. As discussed in the cocoa example in Chapter 5, membership of cooperatives that sign up to fair trade is normally restricted to the recognized farmer. In most producing countries, women face significant barriers accessing land or being the recognized farmer (Fairtrade 2015; S. Smith 2015). Fair trade has also faced criticism for failing to address labour issues in smallholder farming (Cramer et al. 2014). It was unable to protect smallholders hit by the pineapple crisis in Ghana when multinationals introduced a new variety, discussed in Chapter 6. Therefore, some of the limitations of private standards are also found in social standards promoted by civil society. Joining MSIs, such as the ETI discussed earlier, represent a more cooperative approach to collaboration by NGOs and trade unions. However, strategies vary between organizations. A more adversarial approach is illustrated by some NGOs choosing to remain outside the ETI (such as War on Want and ActionAid) to actively campaign against companies in order to hold them to account. For example, in case studies examined in this book, ActionAid collaborated with WFP in South Africa to actively campaign against poor conditions for casual women fruit workers in the Tesco supply chain (ActionAid 2005, 2007). In apparel, Clean Clothes Campaign (CCC) in Europe and the Worker Rights Consortium (WRC) in the USA formed a coalition to campaign against lack of rights and poor conditions for apparel workers, including the case study countries examined in this book (Ascoly and Zeldenrust 2002; Bair and Palpacuer 2012).  Here I use Fairtrade (capital letter and one word) to denote FLO-certified products and fair trade (lower case and separate words) to denote all goods purporting to be fairly traded (including FLO) with differing labels. This definition of fair trade was agreed by the four main networks of fair-trade-related organizations: Fair Trade Labelling Organizations International (FLO); the International Federation for Alternative Trade (IFAT); the Network of European World Shops (NEWS!); and the European Fair Trade Association (EFTA). The full definition of fair trade can be accessed at http://www.bafts.org.uk/fairtrade/fine.htm (accessed June 2018).

5

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Some NGOs and trade unions adopt a more mixed collaborative/adversarial approach. An example is Oxfam, which is a member of the UK ETI and many other alliances and has also actively campaigned against named companies at different points in time. Many of these campaigns have a strong gender focus. Examples covered in this book include Oxfam (2004) Trading Away Our Rights campaign, focused on women working in food and garment value chains, including the South African fruit sector, examined in Chapter 6, and Oxfam (2013) Behind the Brands campaign, discussed in Chapter 5, which targeted food and confectionary companies. Oxfam (2018) subsequently promoted a Behind the Barcode campaign, specifically targeting the purchasing practices of named supermarkets driving inequality and poverty for workers and smallholder farmers. Over a number of years, Oxfam has targeted the World Economic Forum gatherings of the world’s richest and most powerful, held annually at Davos. Of the 62 billionaires in 2015 it named as holding the same wealth as half the rest of the world, 20 were involved in retail, food or apparel (Oxfam 2016). Applying this to the analysis of global (re)production networks developed in Chapter 4, it can be argued that social governance is driven within the societal sphere by a logic of rights and well-being both within and beyond factory or farm sites. Trade unions focus mainly on workplace organization relating to paid work, while NGO activity often transcends the boundaries between commercial production and social reproduction, providing links to the wider familial and community networks through which global retailers source. A G(r)PN approach allows us to unpack social governance as encompassing different forms of trade union and ‘grassroots’ contestation, distinct from disembodied codes of labour practice applied from above by corporate buyers. Social governance involves dynamic articulations through bargaining and contestation between the commercial and societal spheres, challenging prevailing gender norms and practices within and across borders (Barrientos 2013a).

Public Governance Public governance, involving nation states, international agreements and multilateral organizations, can frame policies, rules and regulations that also play an important role in shaping governance in a GVC context. However, until recently, this has received less attention in GVC analysis (Neilson and Pritchard 2009; A. Smith 2015; Alford 2016; Phillips et al. 2017). Multilateral governance by the IMF and World Bank facilitated early expansion of global retail value chains in the 1980s through structural adjustment programmes imposed on debtladen developing countries (under the ‘Washington Consensus’). Governments were pressured to adopt low labour cost strategies to enhance competitiveness in export markets, fuelling a downward spiral in labour standards (Sengenberger Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Stockholm University Library, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:43:53, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.010



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2002). In this context, it is argued, private and social governance arose to fill the ‘regulatory void’ as corporates responded to civil society pressure over poor labour standards in their global value chains (Utting et al. 2012). Another perspective is that states facilitated the ‘outsourcing’ of governance as a means to achieve regressive distributional outcomes, which are more difficult to attain through direct political accountability (Mayer and Phillips 2017). Not all states were driven to export-led growth strategies by debt. The East Asian NICs were early adopters of export-led growth. Some states adopted policies to support value chain entry and upgrading, while promoting strategic coupling with global production networks (Gereffi and Memedovic 2003; Coe and Yeung 2015). These offered further opportunities for buyers to source labour-intensive and increasingly more capital-intensive production from Asia. In a post–Washington Consensus world, global value chain integration has become more complex. This includes the economic rise of some sourcing countries, such as China and India, in which state policies play an active role (Gore 2000; Gereffi 2014). This has contributed to the growth of regional value chains and South–South trade, challenging the previous dominance of North America and European retailers and brands (Kaplinsky and Farooki 2011; Horner and Nadvi 2018). Four interrelated dimensions of state-level strategy can have either positive or negative outcomes for workers. First, whether countries sign up to and participate in international conventions, agreements and institutions that protect workers’ rights supporting a high-road trajectory—or conversely pursue policies that reduce labour rights in order to increase national competitiveness based on low labour costs, the low-road trajectory (Sengenberger 2002; Applebaum et al. 2005; Gereffi 2005; Rodgers et al. 2009; Mayer and Pickles 2010). Second, the role of states in mediating capital–labour relations and conflicts, either positively through regulation and institutions that enhance labour rights or negatively through deregulation that undermines them (Smith et al. 2002; Mayer and Pickles 2010; Selwyn 2012). Third, the protective role of states in providing legal and social protection for the broader well-being of workers and their dependants or, conversely, failing to provide or removing social protection. Depending on design and scope, this may reach formal workers but not necessarily those in informal and precarious work (Lund 2001; Barrientos and Ware Barrientos 2003). Fourth, whether states pursue a low-road strategy of labour-intensive production based on low wages or a high-road strategy of economic upgrading that requires higher skilled labour (with better education and training) based on higher productivity with better pay and conditions. Public governance could play a greater role in promoting transparency and accountability. A challenge in value chains is that global sourcing and subDownloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Stockholm University Library, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:43:53, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.010

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contracting mean that the retailer or supplier driving labour conditions has little or no attachment to the workers affected. The concepts of ‘joint and several’ accountability or liability have been explored in relation to value chain governance of decent work in some situations. This involves the principle that more than one actor is liable for workers’ conditions (Theron et al. 2005) within a national jurisdiction or can be held to account by civil society or international organizations, where they operate beyond national borders. In a national context, this principle plays a role in the UK Gangmasters (Licensing) Act (Pollard 2006). This requires all UK labour contractors to register and be monitored by the Gangmasters Licensing Authority. Producers are liable if they use unregistered labour contractors, although coverage has been limited to agriculture. The UK Modern Slavery Act (2015) provides another example of the role public governance can play in enhancing transparency and accountability.6 Under the Act, companies with a turnover of £36 million or more that carry out business or part of their business in the UK are legally required to make an annual transparency statement setting out the steps they have taken to ensure that modern slavery and human trafficking are not taking place in their own business or anywhere in their global value chains (LeBaron and Ruhmkorf 2017).7 Analysis of a sample of 150 statements found most were wanting, but large multinational corporations that are consumer-facing provided the most informative statements (Ergon 2017). Very few company statements reference gender. This is despite the ILO estimate that women account for 59 per cent of the 16 million people globally who are estimated to be victims of forced labour exploitation in the private sector (not including sexual exploitation) (ILO 2017a). However, simply requesting modern slavery statements has driven many companies to examine the lower tiers of their value chains for issues they have long avoided, increasing awareness of their ‘reputational risks’. Public governance of labour standards is also influenced by intergovernmental agreements and policies of multilateral organizations. Labour market outcomes are also affected by the sourcing strategies and standards applied by global buyers, which have been pressured through social contestation. Hence, public governance also involves interaction with private and social actors. The outcome for workers depends on how these interactions play out through the interlayering of private, social and public governance at global, national and local levels.

 Similar laws have been adopted in other countries, for example, France in 2017 and Australia in 2018. 7  See http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2015/30/contents/enacted (accessed June 2018). 6

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Interlayering of Private, Social and Public Governance Multi-scalar and political institutional perspectives, discussed earlier, facilitate analysis of how private standards are interlayered with differing forms of national and customary regulation at global, national and local levels (Bartley 2011; Alford 2016; Amengual and Chirot 2016). At a global level, they inform analysis of transscalar institutional arrangements involving official, market, civil society and hybrid arrangements that operate through a mix of national, regional and global jurisdictions (Scholte 2004; Mittleman 2013). At a local level, they provide insights into how conflict and bargaining between companies, CSOs and states lead to negotiated outcomes that establish private social standards and certification systems (Bartley 2007). From a GVC/GPN perspective, this enables exploration of how contestation can play out across multi-scalar levels involving global buyers, national and local governments, as well as employers and labour intermediaries (Alford et al. 2017). Here, I examine examples of interlayering that involve different combinations of private, social and public governance. The interlayering of private and social governance is found in MSIs that involve companies, NGOs and trade unions. MSIs provide an example of the interlayering of private and social governance (involving a cooperative approach to collaborative contestation). They provide a ‘safe environment’ in which more cooperative forms of social contestation can play out, leading to the formulation of agreed outcomes to avoid and resolve conflicts. Many MSIs have their own codes of labour practice based on core ILO Conventions, which member companies adopt. Companies join MSIs both to reduce reputational risks and out of the realization of the limits to which they can individually address embedded social issues in their value chains. MSIs vary across countries and sectors. Examples include the Joint ETIs in UK, Denmark and Norway ( JETIs), Fairwear in the Netherlands and the Fair Labour Association (FLA) and SAI in the USA ( Jenkins et al. 2002; Barrientos and Smith 2007a; Bair and Palpacuer 2012). Some MSIs take a more compliancefocused approach, providing third-party monitoring and auditing (such as FLA and SAI); others take a learning approach, with no formal auditing or certification (such as the JETIs). MSIs played an important role in a number of case studies examined in previous chapters. The ETI responded to civil society campaigns in the Kenyan flower sector in the early 2000s. The FLA has worked closely with Nike, addressing labour conditions in its garment and footwear factories in response to civil society exposures. The UK ETI impact assessment covering the South African fresh fruit and Indian apparel sectors informed my understanding of the limitations of social compliance discussed earlier.

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The interlayering of private and social governance can also span regional value chains. Some question whether quality standards (particularly on social and environmental issues) are likely to prevail in emerging economies (Kaplinsky and Farooki 2011). Others have found a more complex picture, with some retailers selling to middle- and higher-income consumers requiring that their suppliers comply with ethical standards and have engaged with MSIs (Guarin and Knorringa 2014; Pickles et al. 2016; Langford 2017; Krishnan 2018). Case studies examined in Chapter 6 reflect the multi-scalar interlayering of private and social governance at global and local levels. Many South African retailers are members of the nationally based MSIs WIETA (wine) and SIZA (fresh fruit). Both also provide ethical trade assurance to supermarkets operating in Africa, Europe and beyond. The South African retailer Mr Price (with outlets in 14 countries, mainly in Africa) is a member of the UK ETI. The interlayering of private and public governance is found in the ILO/ IFC Better Work programme in the garments sector. This involves employers and trade unions at factory and national levels, as well as governments, in country programmes. These are linked to a global governance structure involving multilateral organizations, donors, corporate buyers and the International Trade Union Confederation. Better Work combines assessment with factory-level technical support and capacity-building to address issues, thus moving beyond a narrow approach to social compliance.8 The independent impact assessment by Tufts University indicates Better Work has been more effective than standard social auditing at identifying gender issues. Participation in Better Work has also helped reduce reported instances of harassment and the gender pay gap, as well as improving productivity in garment factories (ILO/IFC 2016). The combined interlayering of private, social and public governance is found in campaigns for legal minimum wages to be set at levels sufficient for a living wage or income (Bhattacharjee et al. 2009; Luce 2009). A key driver of global sourcing has been the search by retailers for cheaper sources of supply. At the heart has been a low-road model of low wages and poor conditions. Women have often been employed because of entrenched social norms relating to their perceived ‘low worth’, ‘docility’ and ‘acceptance’ of poor wages and conditions. Many governments have facilitated this through deregulation of labour markets and setting legal minimum wages at low levels. Private governance has failed to ensure a living wage. Even where this is specified in codes of labour practice, social auditing fails to enforce it. Some studies indicate that, on average, real wages have fallen in the apparel sector despite extensive social compliance (Applebaum 2013). Determining a living wage is  See https://betterwork.org/about-us/the-programme/ (accessed June 2018).

8

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complex and needs to be done at the national and local levels for different countries. It involves calculation of necessary nutrition levels, local food preferences, food prices, costs of housing and utilities, other necessary costs and a margin for unforeseen expenses (Anker 2011; Anker and Anker 2017). A number of studies examined in this book have shown wages are well below a level sufficient to cover the cost of living. These include in the South African fruit, Kenyan flower, Bangladesh apparel and Indian apparel sectors (Barrientos and Smith 2007a; Anker and Anker 2013; Anker and Anker 2014; FLA 2016). Economic upgrading and productivity increases have contributed to rising nominal wages in some cases, but these are rarely sufficient for a living wage, as found in the Kenyan flower and Indonesian apparel cases. Undervaluation of work undertaken by women is endemic in global value chains. There is evidence that within any category of work, women receive unequal remuneration relative to men. For example, a survey of over 2,000 workers in the Bangladeshi garment sector carried out in 2017 found a 3 per cent gender wage gap overall. This was mainly accounted for by women being paid less in lower-skilled jobs (Grades III–V), where they are concentrated. Although there are fewer women in the upper grades (IV–VII), on average they earn more than men (Moazzem 2018). This has implications for gendered differences in men’s and women’s access to a living wage. A study of 12 agricultural value chains found that workers achieved more than 70 per cent of the living wage in product sectors where men prevailed in the workforce (including cocoa, coffee and grapes), whereas they barely earned more than 50 per cent of the living wage in sectors where women prevailed (including tea and green beans) (Oxfam 2018). Grassroots social contestation is increasingly challenging governments on a living wage through labour unrest across many countries and sectors. This has been occurring in waves, with increasing repetition in many Asian countries at the centre of garment export production since the mid-2000s. Countries that have experienced such unrest include Bangladesh, Indonesia and South Africa, examined in previous chapters, and others not examined in this book (Pratap and Bose 2015; Alford et al. 2017). These are sectors with high levels of female employment, and women workers have often been actively involved in protests. In many cases, workers facing overt repression and threats from employers and police have deployed innovative strategies and alliances to pursue their demands. The labour crisis in the South African fruit sector provides an example, where largely non-unionized casual workers organized through social media against the low agricultural minimum wage. An important feature of this campaign was the targeting of the value chain by blocking the arterial routes to Cape Town port at the beginning of the fruit export season (Alford et al. 2017). Research has shown that where a high minimum wage prevails, the incomes of workers are more likely to be closer to a living wage or vice versa (Oxfam 2018). Likewise, in agriculture, Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Stockholm University Library, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:43:53, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.010

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where governments intervene to support prices paid to farmers, incomes are higher than where minimum intervention occurs (ibid.). A common issue across strikes and countries has been the targeting of demands at respective governments for an increase in the legal minimum wage to provide a living wage. In many cases, escalating waves of labour unrest have resulted in partial success, even though workers’ full demands have rarely been met. Significant real increases occurred between 2003 and 2013 in the legal minimum wage in Bangladesh, which nearly doubled in real terms, but it is still well below a living wage (Grimshaw and Muñoz de Bustillo 2016; FLA 2018). A study in Indonesia found that, while real wages in apparel increased by 38 per cent between 2001 and 2011, mainly as a result of government legislation, they were nevertheless 29 per cent below a living wage according to an in-country market-based living wage study drawing on the Anker methodology (Applebaum 2013). In the South African fruit sector, labour unrest led to an increase in the agricultural minimum wage from R69 to R105, lower than the demand for R150 but still a partial victory (Alford et al. 2017). Yet this remained well below a living wage (Anker and Anker 2013). The procedures to determine whether a minimum wage constitutes an equitable living wage are complex (Grimshaw and Muñoz de Bustillo 2016). First, agreement on measurement and technical calculation of the basket of goods and household size needed to calculate a living wage (Anker 2011). Second, institutional wage-setting systems that ensure independent worker representation in deciding the relevant living wage index and flexible methods for ongoing monitoring and adjustment ( JETIs 2015). Third, the voice of precarious workers and women, who are often non-unionized, needs to be heard to ensure a living wage meets household needs. Determining an equitable living wage that benefits all workers (including women in more informal work) requires an interlayering of public and social governance, involving actors from both the commercial and the societal spheres, to facilitate the process. Processes of interlayering private, public and social governance can also be complex. They reflect power struggles between global, national and local actors and vary significantly according to institutional setting and local context (Amengual and Chirot 2016; Bair 2017; Bartley 2018). The ability of social contestation to challenge the power of prevailing commercial interests depends on levels of collective and collaborative organizations within and across borders. States comprise competing interests, often involving internal tensions between those advocating greater or lower levels of labour regulation. Even where legislation is enacted, much depends on the strength of state institutions to enforce it. Different approaches to the implementation of industrial relations prevail across countries, with some following a Latin and others an Anglo-American model (Piore and Schrank 2008). While there is increasing focus on the need for more effective government labour inspection, there can be tensions between this and Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Stockholm University Library, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:43:53, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.010



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private social auditing. In some circumstances, private and public governance reinforce each other; elsewhere, private governance can act as a weak substitute for poor public governance (Seidman 2007; Amengual and Chirot 2016). There are significant differences in approach between global retailers and brands. MSIs often compete in the methodologies they offer global buyers. Suppliers face a multitude of codes and initiatives or ‘code overload’ (Barrientos and Smith 2007a). How private governance interlayers with public governance can therefore vary significantly. To achieve sustained improvements for workers, a lesson I have drawn from my research is that all dimensions of governance—private, social and public—need to play a role. Social contestation can be a trigger but it alone is not sufficient. It can lead to temporary gains, but these need to be encapsulated in legislation to become entrenched. Once enacted, this provides the benchmark against which private codes of labour practice are audited. However, there is currently a lack of coherence between strategies at national and global levels. The ILO, which brings together governments, employers and trade unions, discussed global supply chains at its 2016 International Labour Conference chains (ILO 2016b). However, it needs to play a more proactive role taking this forward. Campaigns for governments to set a living wage are significant in that they challenge the underlying commercial model of reliance on cheap labour and the ‘race to the bottom’ on labour standards as the sole trajectory for low-income countries engaged in global value chains. Social contestation also challenges assumptions regarding the timidity and subservience of a largely female and casual workforce to accept these conditions. This counter movement has largely originated at the grassroots, given the difficulties of union organization of precarious workers and low union density in many of the countries concerned. It reflects a Polanyian counter-movement against the constant downward pressure on real wages owing to the ‘footloose’ nature of global sourcing. It challenges governments that often keep minimum wage levels low in order to compete as part of a low-road strategy. Social contestation has also put a living wage on the agenda of global buyers, unions and NGOs, and into the wider realm of private governance. Retailers and brands have little choice but to factor the higher wage costs into their sourcing arrangements (even if reluctantly), particularly where wage increases occur in key sourcing countries. Where minimum wages rise across multiple countries, the alternative sourcing options are limited. In response to increasing pressure for a living wage, some retailers and brands have joined ACT (Action, Collaboration, Transformation). This is a coalition of over 19 brands and retailers working with the global union federation IndustriALL. It aims to promote a living wage for workers through industry-wide collective bargaining linked to purchasing practices.9  See https://actonlivingwages.com (accessed June 2018).

9

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Campaigns for a living wage illustrate that social governance and contestation can play an important role in influencing public and private governance. The Bangladesh Accord provides another example of interlayered private and social governance, involving a form of joint and several liability discussed earlier. Following the Rana Plaza disaster, three initiatives were established: the Bangladesh Building and Safety Accord, the Alliance for Bangladesh Worker Safety and the National Tripartite Plan of Action (involving the Bangladesh government) (ILO 2017b). The Accord is the largest, with over 200 company signatories, 2 global union federations, 8 nationally based unions and 4 NGO witness signatories.10 It carries out independent inspections of factories, which are required to undertake corrective action plans to address any issues. It also aims to improve worker engagement through training and a complaints mechanism, with factories required to establish Worker Participation Committees and Occupational Health and Safety Committees. Companies signing the Accord commit to a legally binding agreement to ensure a safer working environment. This reflects a form of joint and several liability, whereby it is not only the factory that is responsible (as required under social compliance based on codes of labour practice) but also the buyer who has obligations (Anner et al. 2013). Some companies joined the Alliance in part because of concerns over this level of obligation in the Accord. However, there are questions as to the extent to which buyers implement their obligations in practice, and there are signs of resistance within the Bangladesh garment industry and government to the Accord and Alliance dominated by global buyers (Mathews 2018). At a global level, the interlayering between public and private governance underpins the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGP). The UNGP incorporates three pillars: governments’ duty to protect and businesses’ duty to respect human rights, as well as remedy for workers where human rights violations occur (Ruggie 2013). A number of global companies and MSIs are promoting the UNGP as part of their human rights strategies.11 Until recently, gender has not been prioritized in the UNGP, despite the significant percentage of women working in global value chains. However, there are signs of change. In late 2017, the UNGP Working Group on Business and Human Rights convened a multi-stakeholder consultation on a gender lens to the UNGP and launched a new thematic project to pay greater attention to gender in developing guidance for states and businesses (UN 2017).12 At an international level, however, the interlayering of public and private governance of global value chains lags  See http://bangladeshaccord.org (accessed June 2018).  See the ETI statement, for example, available at https://www.ethicaltrade.org/issues/duediligence/etis-work-human-rights-due-diligence (accessed June 2018). 12  At the time of writing, this consultation process had not been completed. 10 11

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behind social governance in terms of incorporating gender issues relevant to the societal sphere of reproduction.

Concluding Reflections The interlayering of private, social and public governance reflects a core argument of this book: that global value chains extend beyond the narrow sphere of commercial production into the sphere of social reproduction, with increased blurring of boundaries between them. This results from a combination of factors, including the connections established between consumers, retailers, producers, workers and communities across geographical scales, and also commercialization of the production of many goods previously produced within households (such as RMGs and processed food). The fragmentation and feminization of work in global value chains has blurred the divide between paid and unpaid work, disrupting established gender norms in many countries, where women’s work was primarily confined within households. Governance of value chains can no longer be separated according to distinct commercial and societal spheres, but is interlayered across them. The interlayering of private, social and public governance is a process that has evolved over time. The first phase of global outsourcing and fragmentation and work was facilitated by a ‘delayering’ of national-level governance within nation states through labour market deregulation, opening up space for the rise of new governance actors (private and social). The second phase of risk management and social compliance saw the rise to dominance of private codes of labour practice across retail value chains to deflect risks of adverse publicity. Here, interlayering of private and social governance became more prevalent, including through MSIs. We are now moving into a third phase of ‘beyond social compliance’, with pressure for greater public governance. This has been marked by the recognition that social compliance has failed to address wider societal issues (particularly gender discrimination and harassment), wider alliances are needed and public governance (national and international) has an important role to play. However, gender is only slowly being recognized in private and public governance. An important driver in all cases has been social governance and contestation involving global and national trade unions and NGO campaigns, often with a gender focus, and increasingly grassroots unrest involving women workers. Capturing more gender-equitable gains for workers in global value chains requires all dimensions of governance—private, social and public—to play a more coherent role. However, as the next chapter analyses, some argue a more systemic change is needed in the operation of global retail value chains.

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10 Concluding Reflections Future of Work

Introduction This book draws on research undertaken over 20 years, a journey I outlined in the preface. It aims to unpack some of the complexities of changing gender patterns of work associated with global value chains. My experience, talking with workers in many sectors and countries over the years, is that both benefits and challenges come from working in global production. It is often preferable to alternative livelihood options. However, it can also involve significant problems, especially for the most precarious workers. For women, paid work can provide a route to greater economic independence, despite being low paid and despite combining it with multiple household and care responsibilities. As a Chilean temporary fruit worker told me in 1998, ‘We have always worked hard, now we are being paid for it.’ In my research, I have always tried to analyse both the commercial and the social dimensions of global value chains. I soon realized it is not possible to understand how one sphere operates without understanding how it interacts with the other. Analysing this interaction underpinned the development of the global (re)production framework examined in Chapter 4. An important dimension has been the commercial retail of many goods previously produced by women unpaid within households is now based on paid work in production largely in middleand low-income countries. Global value chains, coordinated by buyers, now reach beyond a narrow market focus, into the households of consumers, operations of suppliers and lives of workers and smallholder farmers. The G(r)PN framework has also helped unpack tensions within global value chains between the financial drivers of cost and efficiency and the societal drivers of quality and caring. This enables differentiation between a low road, based on downgrading trajectories of low wages, poor conditions and few rights, and a high road, based on upgrading trajectories of higher productivity with better rights, terms and conditions. Analysing the commercial dimension helps us understand how financial drivers and buyer purchasing practices can exert constant pressure on suppliers to reduce unit labour costs (via low wages or rising productivity) Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Nottingham Trent University, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:45:17, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.011



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while delivering on quality. Analyzing the social dimension helps understand how fragmented work sustains the commercial dynamic of global value chains. There is a dichotomy in the gender patterns of work associated with global value chains. On the one hand, the paid work generated for women in particular has helped disrupt gender norms in many low-income countries, where labour market access has traditionally been difficult for women. On the other hand, gender discrimination is systemic across global value chains. Women workers play a significant role in the creation and enhancement of value, yet they fail to capture the gains relative to other value chain actors. This is reinforced in the low-road trajectory but is also prevalent in the high-road trajectory. However, women workers are not simply passive recipients of their conditions of work. Global value chains have opened up opportunities for contestation, which can help leverage change and more gender-equitable improvements for all workers. Global retail value chains are currently undergoing a process of rapid change. The rise of regional value chains coordinated by retailers within Africa, Asia and Latin America is disrupting the dominance of North American and European retailers. At the consumer end, brick and mortar retailers are being challenged by the rise of e-commerce and changing shopping habits, as consumers are better informed and undertake ever more purchases online. At the producer end, automation is likely to revolutionize production processes over the next few decades, and risks displacing many workers in consumer-goods producing sectors. These changes have not been the main focus of research underpinning this book, which was mainly undertaken during a period of dominance by brick and mortar retail and global sourcing of labour-intensive production. They will clearly have significant gendered effects, which research covered in this book will hopefully inform and help drive future research agendas. In this chapter, I draw together concluding reflections on the overarching question addressed in this book: How are global retail value chains shaping gender patterns of work, and what are the gendered outcomes for workers? I focus on the implications of downgrading and upgrading trajectories, for changing gender patterns of work, in a value chain world that is rapidly changing. I briefly consider the gender implications in the face of rapid changes in retail and production through e-commerce and automation. Finally, I reflect on challenges and opportunities for leveraging more gender-equitable global value chains.

Downgrading and Upgrading in Global Value Chains Interactions between the economic and societal spheres encompassing commercial production and social reproduction are complex. From the G(r)PN perspective examined in Chapter 4, interconnections between firms and producers that extend Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Nottingham Trent University, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:45:17, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.011

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along global value chains mean companies in the commercial sphere find it difficult to remain aloof from gendered societal relations in which retail and sourcing are embedded. This is reflected, for example, in retailers’ responses to increasing consumer concern for quality standards that cover not only physical aspects but also environmental and social dimensions of production. It is also reflected by some retailers and brands pursuing gender initiatives as part of broader ‘beyond compliance’ strategies. As discussed in Chapter 9, some incorporate a gender focus. Yet there are tensions between a commercial logic driven by profit maximization and financial markets, and a social logic driven by well-being, caring and nurturing of future generations. This underpins a dichotomy between downgrading and upgrading pressures.

Downgrading Trajectories On the commercial side, downgrading is driven by short termism in financial markets. Pressure for publicly listed retailers to outperform on business forecasts and deliver high shareholder value means there is a constant search for short-term commercial gain through cost minimization (Gibbon 2002; Milberg 2008; Palpacuer 2008). This has repercussions for retailer strategies to drive down cost, and the pursuit of adverse purchasing practices relayed to suppliers. Global retailers are able to exploit their power in relation to a fragmented supply base to reduce producer prices, shorten delivery times and offload costs. Suppliers are then under pressure to cut labour costs and/or raise productivity to remain competitive, with repercussions for the fragmentation of work (Weil 2014). In cases examined in this book, this came up as an issue across all sectors and countries, and it has been well documented in other studies (Oxfam 2004; Traidcraft 2006; Oxfam 2018; ILO 2017b).1 Downgrading trajectories within global retail value chains reverberate further along value chains as suppliers offset costs and risks onto precarious workers, who are often female. Gendered articulations between commercial drivers and societal norms shape outcomes in ways that often disadvantage women more than men. 2 As analysed in Chapters 3 and 4, the social undervaluation of work undertaken by women relative to men is replicated in global value chains. This contributes to  T he ILO (2017b) survey of 1,454 suppliers in global value chains found that buyer relations most likely to affect wages and working conditions included contract clauses, technical specifications, lead times, prices and market power and social standards. 2  T he prevalence of gender discrimination in retail value chains is illustrated at the consumer end by the revelation that retailers charge women on average 37 per cent more than men for equivalent products (Cocozza 2016). 1

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value capture by suppliers and retailers along value chains, further offsetting cost pressures onto those least able to resist. This is illustrated by case studies examined in Chapters 5–7 in the Ghanaian pineapple, South African fruit, Bangladesh apparel and Indian apparel sectors. Men are more likely to be in permanent betterpaid jobs or recognized as smallholder farmers. Women are concentrated in more insecure paid work as casual workers, as home-based workers and as contributing family labour smallholder production at the bottom of the gender pyramid. The downgrading trajectory in global value chains, however, has also led to resistance from civil society actors (trade unions and NGOs) that straddle the commercial sphere of paid work and the societal sphere of reproductive work. As analysed in Chapter 9, social governance has contributed to new forms of contestation—individual, collective and collaborative. Contested outcomes take different forms across locations and sectors shaped by national institutional context (Pratap and Bose 2015; Alford et al. 2017). Women often play a key role in different forms of contestation—as leaders in NGO campaigns and as workers fuelling labour unrest. This is illustrated by case studies in previous chapters, including on the role played by women-led campaigns for the rights of South African fruit workers and labour unrest over a living wage in the South African fruit and Asian garment sectors (Barrientos 2013a). Private governance arose largely as a response by risk-averse retailers and brands to social contestation. Social compliance, involving social auditing of codes of labour practices, is now a multi-billion-dollar industry. Yet it has largely failed to identify or address gender discrimination or sexual harassment on production sites. I argued in Chapter 9 that this partly reflects limitation in the audit process, but it also reflects a system that is narrowly confined to labour conditions within the commercial sphere, failing to take account of how paid work is embedded within wider societal and gender norms. These underpin not only more overt forms of abuse but also discriminatory practices that subordinate women within more precarious jobs, and their additional responsibilities for unpaid household and care work (Pearson and Seyfang 2001). Multi-scalar social governance plays an important role in challenging downgrading trajectories through global, national and local campaigns by unions and NGOs. Often these have a gender focus, as highlighted in various reports associated with case studies in this book, including Christian Aid (1996), Oxfam (2004, 2018) and ActionAid (2005, 2007). These highlight the adverse effect of supermarket purchasing practices on female workers in the horticulture and apparel sectors cited in previous chapters. They often involve collaboration between international and national NGOs in the relevant countries. An example is WFP in South Africa partnering with ActionAid to buy a share in Tesco for a woman farm worker. This enabled her to attend a Tesco shareholders’ meeting and Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Nottingham Trent University, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:45:17, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.011

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raise issues over poor pay and conditions, with repercussions for Tesco’s ethical trade strategy in South Africa and beyond (Barrientos 2013a). At a higher scale, social governance has involved campaigns that target the corporate power and commercial model underpinning large retailers, brands and manufacturers. Again, these often have a gender focus. For example, Oxfam’s focus on global inequality highlights the widening gap between the pay of workers in global value chains and the pay of senior executives and CEOs (Oxfam 2016). This reflects systemic asymmetries of power between footloose global capital and fragmented workers who are relatively limited in their ability to organize (Weil 2014). A number of civil society organizations argue that a small reduction in the resources brands and retailers devote to endorsements and marketing, or a minimal rise in consumer price, would be sufficient to ensure a living wage for workers or living income for workers and smallholders in their value chains (Cocoabarometer 2015; Basic 2016; Oxfam 2018).

Upgrading Trajectories Despite the mentioned pressures, economic and social upgrading trajectories are also discernible in global retail value chains. This reflects embedded tensions between cost minimization and requirements for suppliers to raise productivity and meet increasing quality standards. At a minimum, these relate not only to product but also to social and environmental standards. As argued in Chapter 4, these reflect increasing interlinkages between the commercial and social spheres spanned by global retail value chains, where quality also involves adherence to social morals and conventions. Upgrading trajectories also reflect the intertwining of embedded tensions with gendered articulations and contested outcomes that vary across retail value chains and locations. Quality pressures are most often found in the medium- and higher-price ends of consumer markets, such as the Kenyan flower and Nike apparel cases. Nevertheless, as examined in the previous chapter, social governance played an important early role in driving the social upgrading that accompanied economic upgrading. In both cases, contestation reflected gendered articulations, highlighting the adverse implications of sourcing for a largely insecure and low-paid female workforce. Once economic and social upgrading occurred, private governance kicked in as a means of promoting better labour standards. In both cases, supporting women workers has had repercussions for gender equality, especially in the Kenyan flower sector, through the promotion of women to supervisor and managerial positions. Economic and social upgrading is also interlinked, as innovation requires more skilled labour. To attract and retain skilled workers, suppliers need to offer better labour standards and rights. Public governance also Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Nottingham Trent University, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:45:17, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.011



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played a role in securing improvements for workers, through rising legal minimum wages and protection of workers’ rights. Economic upgrading in value chains is often underpinned by innovation and more capital-intensive production. This can affect gender patterns of work, leading in some countries to an increase in the ratio of men to women in export production (Tejani and Milberg 2016). There is a risk, therefore, that continued upgrading in retail value chains could reverse some of the economic gains made by women through employment in labour-intensive export production. However, this is an uneven process across countries and needs further exploration. For example, as examined in Chapter 7, Bangladesh garments innovation in woven and expansion of more capital-intensive knitted production has contributed to a decline in the female share of overall employment from approximately 80 per cent in the early 2000s to approximately 60 per cent by 2016–17.3 Yet export expansion has meant total female employment has continued to rise despite a decline in the gender ratio.4 Also, economic upgrading can generate other jobs, particularly in the services industries that support global value chains. This is reflected in the significant increase in services as a percentage of total trade. Although women are a minority in logistics, they represent well over half of workers across global services more broadly (Drake-Brokman 2018). Economic and social upgrading can also occur to some extent at the middleprice ends of global value chains. Many companies now recognize the limits of social compliance and are looking ‘beyond compliance’ for more effective strategies to ensure the future resilience of their value chains. The cocoa case study in Chapter 5 provides a good example of where individual contestation (younger cocoa farmers leaving), combined with rising demand for chocolate in emerging economies, is leading to increasing fears among companies over the future resilience of their supply chains. This has spurred a range of company initiatives to improve yields and support more vibrant communities that are able to attract and retain cocoa farmers (Barrientos 2016). An important dimension has been the inclusion of women’s economic empowerment as a theme that cuts across some initiatives. This has been driven in part by social governance through contestation led by NGOs, including Oxfam’s Behind the Brands campaign (Barrientos 2014). Company initiatives have also involved alliances with national government bodies, including Cocoabod in Ghana. This provides another example of the interlayering of social, private and public governance incorporating a gender dimension.  Staritz (2011). The ILO/IFC Better Work programme in Bangladesh has found that 55 per cent of workers in the factories engaged in its programme are women (personal communication January 2016). 4  See http://www.bgmea.com.bd/home/pages/tradeinformation (accessed July 2018). 3

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However, outcomes vary at local levels, with resistance by men wary of women’s empowerment documented in one of the villages examined in Chapter 5. Some economic and social upgrading can also occur at the low-price end of retail value chains. Discounters are risk-averse and keen to avoid adverse publicity around issues such as child or slave labour. Smartphones enable instant product comparisons, driving low prices, but they also provide easy access to information about the origin of goods. As one market research report stated in relation to fashion, ‘Consumers want to know where the merchandise comes from, where it was made and what’s the story behind the garment’ (eMarketer 2017). Some companies are also promoting gender-focused strategies. Walmart is an example, discussed in Chapter 9. An anomaly of Walmart’s strategy is illustrated by the Oxfam (2018) Behind the Barcode campaign. On the one hand, Walmart is cited as an example of the immense power of supermarkets, generating nearly US$22 billion and returning $15 billion to shareholders in 2016 rather than investing in suppliers. On the other hand, when Oxfam scored supermarkets on promoting gender equality, although none scored well, Walmart was ranked the highest among them (Oxfam 2018). This provides an example of the intertwining of embedded tensions and gender articulations playing out in diverse ways in terms of gendered processes of downgrading and upgrading, analysed in Chapter 4. Company-led initiatives to promote economic and social upgrading are often limited in the extent to which they address the low value capture of a largely female workforce at the base of global value chains. Many combine productivity and quality increases with improved worker or farmer well-being, and achieving these can be an important motivation for companies. However, where a rise in productivity is greater than a rise in worker wages or farmer incomes, net unit labour cost declines. Where women remain concentrated in lower-paid work, gender inequalities persist. In other words, the distributional inequality within global value chains highlighted by Oxfam’s campaigns is perpetuated. Civil society contestation continues to exert pressure on companies over purchasing practices and a lack of living wages. Some companies have responded despite the commercial pressures driven by financialization. An example is ACT, an alliance of companies and the global union federation IndustriAll, discussed in Chapter 9. This initiative does not focus specifically on distributional issues but on developing industry-wide collective bargaining in the apparel sector as a means of achieving a living wage. The ACT initiative was still in development at the time of writing. Focusing on a living wage as a ‘pre-competitive’ and ‘non-negotiable’ issue when retailers and brands set terms and conditions with suppliers has potentially more short-term chance of success (despite challenges) than broader campaigns against distributional inequalities. Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Nottingham Trent University, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:45:17, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.011



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In sum, engagement in global retail value chains is disrupting traditional gender norms across many levels, but it also replicates gender inequalities unless these are challenged. Starting at one end of the continuum, the low road of downgrading, we have seen that women’s concentration in the least secure work with the lowest recognition of rights is not a coincidence. It reflects deeply embedded gender norms where women’s work and worth societally are undervalued, shaping gender patterns of work in global value chains. However, embedded tensions between cost and quality intertwined with gendered articulations also open up opportunities for social contestation. Economic and social upgrading are not automatic, but striving for a high road with greater gender equality and well-being has often come about through contestation.

E-Commerce and Automation Significant shifts are taking place within the spheres of consumer marketing, retail and production that could affect future downgrading and upgrading trajectories. A rapid move is underway from shopping in brick and mortar stores towards online purchases using personal computers, tablets and smartphones. This is changing the way customers shop, facilitating immediate access to information on prices and offers across companies and greatly increasing competition between retailers. Consumers can undertake instant price comparisons and shop online from any location. In the UK, the online retail market as a whole grew by 21 per cent in 2016, reaching £1.5 billion. The online share of total retailing then stood at 15 per cent, nearly a quarter of which is accounted for by Amazon (Mintel 2017), and this is predicted to continue growing. The younger generation of millennial shoppers, who represent future growth, have less disposable income and higher personal debt (including from student loans) but increasing access to IT-enabled internet shopping (eMarketer 2017). They are savvy shoppers who also seek the most competitive prices online. These trends, combined with the cost advantages e-commerce companies accrue through tax avoidance (Sweeney 2017), are putting brick and mortar retailers under further pressure to reduce costs. Global retailers use their commercial power to exert ever-greater price pressures on suppliers to remain ahead of the competitive game and continue to satisfy the thirst for shareholder returns in financial markets. E-commerce also represents a move towards more transactional relationships between platforms, suppliers and final consumers that shave prices (Howcroft and Bergvall-Kareborn 2014). The future advance of automation and robotics presents another challenge that could affect gender patterns of work. Disruptive technologies include 3D printing, Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Nottingham Trent University, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:45:17, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.011

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body scanning technology, computer-aided design (CAD), wearable technology, nanotechnology, environmentally friendly manufacturing techniques and robotics. These are all pointing towards a reduced need for workers and skilled talent in the mass production of goods (Fernandez-Stark et al. 2012; ILO 2016a). The impact could be very substantial, and robotic automation poses a significant threat of job displacement in labour-intensive sectors. The textiles, clothing and footwear sector is at high risk of automation compared with other sectors. Automation is likely to disproportionately affect female workers, who currently serve as the backbone of labour-intensive industries. However, there are countervailing tendencies. Automation requires very high levels of investment, which is more likely to occur in high labour-cost countries, and where production can run round the clock to recoup costs. This could form part of the ‘reshoring’ of production to countries such as the USA although without significant job creation given high levels of automation. However, it is likely to be more uneven in the sourcing of lower labour-cost goods within regional value chains, which are expanding fast. Automation could also open up opportunities for small-scale enterprises in the informal economy to engage in local and regional value chains. Women entrepreneurs have been found to be inventive and innovative despite the many challenges they face in applying new ideas to entrepreneurial activities (Scott 2017). Automation does not require physical labour, belying the myth that women are employable only in jobs involving ‘light work’. However, it requires skills, which I argued in Chapter 4 are gendered. Societal norms play an important part in shaping differential skills acquisition by women and men, which can vary by country. Where it occurs, much will depend on whether strategies to up-skill workers incorporate a gender focus, the extent to which these promote women’s training and education and how many women have the opportunity to transition into higher-skilled jobs. Skills development is crucial to pursuing a high road in value chains, and will require close attention to addressing gender inequalities as automation advances (Ramirez and Rainbird 2010; Fernandez-Stark et al. 2012; BSR 2017). Social governance will be important in pressuring governments and firms, and private governance in ensuring women are provided with equal access to training and promotion opportunities. Public governance will be essential for anchoring up-skilling through education and training provision, creating a pipeline of women and men who are able to participate more equitably in work associated with automation.

Concluding Reflections Globalization and neoliberalism helped spawn the expansion of global value chains. However, in many ways, these are the antithesis of the conventional Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Nottingham Trent University, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:45:17, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.011



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economic model underpinning neoliberalism. Global value chains do not represent a textbook model of ‘free markets’ and ‘free trade’. Global retailers and brands play a dominant role, wielding immense commercial power over suppliers. They coordinate their value chains across multiple borders so that trade is no longer predominantly between countries but between firms. Global sourcing, combined with structural adjustment policies, has herded many developing countries into the global economic fold. The expansion of export production has contributed to rapid growth often based on exploitation of cheap labour, helping ratchet down labour standards. Global value chains have also helped fuel inequality through CEOs and executives benefiting disproportionately compared with lower-level managers and workers. Financialization rewards companies that are able to drive profitability and shareholder value. In consumer-facing retailers, this is achieved by outsourcing costs and risks to suppliers at lower value chain tiers. Inequality is further magnified by the concentration of women in the lowest-paid jobs, exploiting embedded gender norms and subordination prevailing in most sourcing countries. But—and it is an important ‘but’—the expansion of global value chains has also had unintended consequences. It has fuelled industrial expansion (including in agribusiness) in many low-income countries across Africa, Asia and Latin America. The creation of jobs (albeit low-paid) has contributed to a reduction in poverty in many households and communities (including through wage remittances of members who have migrated). The rise of consumer incomes within these countries has facilitated the expansion of regional value chains. Significant economic growth in some sourcing countries (particularly China and India) has placed them in a position to challenge the dominance of North American and European capital. The other unintended consequence has been the disruption of traditional gender norms. Opportunities for paid work have been created in many countries for women who have traditionally had limited labour market access. Low-wage work has been facilitated by gender norms that have long subordinated women, but it has allowed women to make choices, enjoy greater economic independence, and many to escape households or communities where traditional repressive norms continue to prevail. This is not an easy process, with many tensions and challenges, particularly in combining work with other, unpaid, caring and household roles. Importantly, another unintended outcome is that global retail value chains have opened up space for new forms of social contestation, in which women workers often play a key role. Women workers are not simply ‘passive victims’ in global value chains; they also have agency and can agitate for more equitable outcomes. Whether and how this occurs vary greatly across sectors and locations, as illustrated in this book. It depends not only on contestation but also on systems Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Nottingham Trent University, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:45:17, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.011

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of governance that can help to leverage more gender-equitable change. Global value chains have opened up space for new forms of interlayered governance involving diverse alliances of companies, NGOs, trade unions, governments and international organizations. Neither private nor public governance has proved capable of addressing systemic gender inequalities that underpin global value chains. However, social governance, with closer roots in the social sphere occupied by fragmented workers, households and communities, can provide leverage for more equitable change. Nevertheless, advances also need to be anchored in private and public governance if they are to be sustained. A major challenge is that an unchecked short-term model of global financialization and e-commerce underpinning the commercial dynamics of global value chains will mitigate positive changes. This is helping drive adverse purchasing practices by global retailers and brands, relentlessly pushing down costs and increasingly fragmenting work. However, there are countervailing forces. Longerterm commercial sustainability also requires retailers and brands to pay attention to social and environmental factors. Women workers generate incomes needed to maintain buoyant consumer markets. Emerging economies in Africa, Asia and Latin America are opening up more diverse end markets, providing suppliers with greater negotiating power. Workers are more connected through social media, enabling them to locate the choke points needed to target contestation and leverage change. Some global retailers recognize that diversity and gender equality could benefit not only women but also the future resilience of their value chains. Civil society campaigns, such as that of Oxfam (2018), advocate an alternative economic model involving private, public and social governance that puts gender equality and the well-being of workers and smallholders, rather than profit and shareholder returns, at the centre of commercial strategies. To date, none of their proposals has been adopted, but, as argued earlier, persistent contestation could have an influence. A key message of this book is that gender discrimination is systemic in global retail value chains, but such chains also open up opportunities to agitate for more equitable change. They help disrupt gender norms and provide women workers with access to greater economic independence. Gains for workers will never be automatic, given the commercial model driven by profit and market share but social contestation can drive improvements, and more effective private, social and public governance is needed to anchor change. However, the social dynamic needs to take precedence over the commercial dynamic if workers are to capture more gender-equitable gains. In the long run, addressing systemic gender discrimination will require a shift in the underlying commercial model away from short-term financial gains for a few, with greater priority on the longer-term well-being of the many. Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Nottingham Trent University, on 29 Oct 2019 at 16:45:17, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108679459.011

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Index Action, Collaboration, Transformation (ACT), 247 Adidas, 221 African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), 41 African National Congress (ANC), 162 Agricultural Sectoral Training and Education Authority (AgriSETA), 157 agri-food, 3 value chain, 38–40, 66–69, 73 Alibaba, 33 Alliance for Bangladesh Worker Safety, 248 Amazon, 31–32, 32n5, 60 anti-sweatshop campaigns, in North America and Europe, 185 apparel (or garments or clothing) industry, 3, 3n2, 7 FDI, 167 footloose labour-intensive industry, 167 supplier strategy, types of, 168 value chain, 40–44 women role in production of, 167 workers participation in production, 64–66 apparel value chain industry (India) in Delhi NCR, 171–173 downgrading and upgrading trajectories, 173–174 gender articulations, 174–177 sourcing strategies, 192

subcontracting and child labour, 187–189 traditional employment patterns, 193 social compliance, limitations of, 184–187 top exporters of clothing, 170–171 World War II, rise in exports after, 170 articulations, 3, 10–11, 18–19, 72, 80–81, 92, 95–99, 102–103, 105–106, 110, 117, 125, 133–134, 136–137, 140–141, 143, 148, 159, 162–164, 166, 168–169, 174, 182, 192, 200, 208, 239–240, 252, 254, 256–257 Asia Floor Wage Alliance, 221 automation affect e-commerce employment, 60, 257–258 impact on female workers, 258 reduces the need of physical labour, 220 revolutionize production processes, 251 Banana Link (UK NGO), 143, 143n3 Bangladesh Building and Safety Accord, 15, 248 Bangladesh Garments Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA), 179, 179n7, 190, 192 Bangladesh Knitwear Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BKMEA), 179, 192 Basic Conditions of Employment Act (BCEA), 152, 152n8 BBC Panorama programme, 122n11

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298 Index body scanning technology, 258 Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) crisis in UK beef, 45 brand(s), 16, 23, 69, 81, 167, 173–174, 186, 193, 196–197, 205–206, 221–222, 226, 231, 234, 247, 252–254 code of labour practice, 175 concerned about social resilience, 15 dealing with reputational risk of labour abuse, 187 drivers of offshoring and global sourcing, 83 fragmented work exposes, 57 marketers, 10, 29–30 -name firms or companies, 13, 112 offshore production, 84 own, 38 retailers, 5, 25, 29 branding, 45, 84, 97 Brazil, Russian, India and China (BRIC) bloc, 62 BRC Global Standard, 39 Business Social Compliance Initiative (BSCI), 231 buyer-led retail, 23 Cadbury, 106n1, 121 Cadbury Cocoa Partnership (CCP), 123 Capturing the Gains research programme, 44 Carrefour, 84 chocolate confectionery sales, 109n2 civil society organizations (CSOs), 47, 60, 89, 102, 123, 222–223, 230 Clean Clothes Campaign (CCC), Europe, 185, 239 close employment, 52–53 cocoa-chocolate value chain, 105 changes since 1970s, 133 contested outcomes collaborative contestation, 121–122 collective contestation, 119–121 individual contestation, 118–119

promotion of gender equality, 122–124 economic and social downgrading trajectories, 107–110 gender dimensions of, 110–111, 134 gender value chain linkages in Ghanaian cocoa, 112–115 role of women in production, 115–117 Cocoa Life (CL), 123 COCOBOD, cocoa marketing board, 107–108, 110, 126–127 collaborative contestation, 11, 101, 121–122, 165 collective bargaining agreements (CBAs), 146, 157, 165 collective contestation, 11, 101, 119–121 commercial retailers, 4 community action plans (CAPs), 130–131 computer-aided design (CAD), 258 consumer-facing retailers, 259 contested outcomes, 11, 18–19, 80, 92, 99–103, 165 conventional economics, 9 corporate power, 100 cut-make-trim (CMT), 43, 167 3D printing, 257 disarticulations, 11, 92, 95–96, 163 disruptive technologies, 257–258 distribution centres (DCs), 35, 38, 46 dodging auditors, 185n14 do-it-yourself (DIY) equipment, 34 dop system, 152 downgrading trajectories in value chains, 3, 5, 10, 13, 16–18, 20–21, 48, 69–75, 106, 251–254 e-commerce, 257–258 retailers, 26–27, 30–31 economic downgrading, 2, 12–13, 18–19, 43–44, 47, 49–51, 57, 69

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Index economic upgrading, concept of, 12–13, 70–75, 167 electronic data interchange (EDI), 35, 60 electronic point of sales (EPOS) technology, 34–35, 45, 48, 60 embedded tensions, 10, 13, 80, 92–95, 102, 163–164 employment, 6 definition of, 51 female, 7, 20, 24–27, 37 feminization of flexible, 53, 79 logistics, 7, 61 paid, 65 permanent, 77, 149 regular, 77 relationships, 56, 73 retail, 58–60 seasonal, 149 temporary, 149 Ethical Trading Initiative (ETI) Base Code, 44, 146, 170, 174–175, 232, 239 European Fair Trade Association (EFTA), 239n5 European Union (EU), 47 export processing zones (EPZs), 41, 178, 182, 185 Extension of Security of Tenure Act (ESTA), 152 Fair Labor Association (FLA), 185, 197, 243 fair trade, 38, 93, 98, 227, 231 certification, 12 civil society initiative, 239 cooperative approach to collaborative contestation, 238–239 Fair Trade Labelling Organizations International (FLO), 239n5 Fair Wear Foundation, 185 female labour force participation, expansion in emerging economies, 26

299

female/women workers buying decisions, 25 concentration in in lower-paid and insecure jobs, 26 entry into paid work after World War II, 24 generation of income to maintain buoyant consumer markets, 260 and global value chains, 259–260 labour force, 54n3 role in creation and enhancement of value, 251 roles as unpaid family labour and wage labour on smallholder farms, 105 socially acquired skills, 13, 50 and societal norms, 52, 75, 77, 95, 97n3, 106, 258 unpaid work, 52 feminization of flexible employment, 53, 79 feminist political economy, 2, 5, 9, 56, 83, 90, 94, 96, 98, 225 feminization of labour, 95, 102 Finlays Horticulture, 212–215 fissured workforce, 54 workplace, 53–54 flexible work, 11, 18, 23, 53, 55, 61, 217 worker, 56–57 focus group discussions (FGDs), 117, 125–128, 131–132 Fordist model, 27 foreign direct investment (FDI), 32, 36 fragmentation of labour, 101 fragmenting work, concept of, 53 fragmenting workforce, 75 free market, 82–83, 110, 259 free trade economic perspective, 82 fresh fruit and vegetable (FFV) value chain, 39–40, 63 Fresh Produce Exporters Association, 153

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300 Index fruit sector of South Africa challenges in future, 161–163 changes after apartheid end and transition to democracy, 148 commercial tensions, 149–152 employment rate, 154 gendered employment relations, 152–155 gender profile of work, 155–159 labour conditions in, 159–161 research study, 148–149 upgrading and downgrading trajectories, 163–165 Women on Farms Project (WFP), 237–238 full-time equivalent (FTE), 162, 162n15 Gap Inc., 84, 187–188 gender/gendered allocation of tasks, 97n3 articulations, 10–11, 19, 80, 92, 95–99, 102, 164 bias, 229 discrimination, 4, 251, 260 -equitable outcomes, 4 -equitable value chains, 21 -focused civil society campaigns, 21 inequalities, 50 interlayering of governance, 20 patterns of land tenure, 105 power asymmetries, 229 trajectories, 12 gender glass ceiling (or sticky floor), 26 gender mapping of global retail value chains agri-food value chain, 66–69 in apparel production, 64–66 in global production, 62–63 in horticulture production, 63–64 retail employment, 58–60 services and logistics, 61–62 gender patterns of work, approaches to, 51–52

gender profile/profiling of work, 1, 3–5, 7–8 Generalised System of Preferences (GSP) of EU, 177 Ghanaian cocoa-chocolate value chain, 108, 135 Cocoa Life (CL) programme, promotion of community pillar, 130–133 enhancement of productivity and yields, 128–130 farming pillar, 126–128 gender value chain linkages in, 112–115 research study in 2004-5, 106n1 upgrading and downgrading trajectories, 163–165 women role in production, 115–117 global commodity chains (GCCs), 83 global covering good agricultural practice in production (GlobalGAP), 39 GlobalGAP, 140, 144, 146, 150–151, 156 globalization, 8, 258 through liberalization of trade and financial markets, 28 and work, 52–54 Global North, 3, 33, 45, 48, 88, 135 global production network (GPN) framework, 2n1, 3, 5, 9, 80–81, 226–228 analysis of embeddedness of commercial activities, 89 dimensions of, 10–11 explores sources of value, 86 focus area of, 2 market-based or transaction cost approach, 228 network embeddedness, 85 non-corporate actors role in, 88–89 Polanyian perspective, 86 unpack tensions within global value chains, 250 global (re)production networks (G[r]PN), 15, 20, 112, 118, 125

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Index advantages of, 90 analysis of shifting gender boundaries, 101 dimensions of contested outcomes, 99–102 embedded tensions, 92–95 gender articulations, 95–99 emphasis on embeddedness of commercial value chains, 10, 18 gender embeddedness of global production, 3 facilitation of examination of global retail value chains, 10 gender, 91 and global retail value chains, 3 global retail, 77 drives parallel gender patterns of work, 23 expansion of, 24, 32–33, 35, 48 gendered economic analysis, 81–83 rise of, 1–5 transformation of, 79 global retailers, 22, 28–32, 45, 259 customer focused, 23 need suppliers to meet quality standards, 55 occupy position of commercial power over suppliers, 7 prefer to source from larger suppliers, 47–48 reach of, 33–36 role of, 1 global retail sourcing, 194 global retail value chains, 223, 251 evolution of, 27–28 gender mapping of, 58–69 generation of fresh and processed horticultural produce, 135 and global retailers, 28–32 regional expansion within Africa, Asia and Latin America, 32–33 rise of, 49, 104

301

Global Social Compliance Programme (GSCP), 214n11 global sourcing of food, 37 global sourcing of production, 6–7, 17–18, 22, 79, 224 and agri-food value chain, 38–40 and apparel value chain, 40–44 cost reduction as main driver, 44–45 delivery of speed, 46–47 expansion of, 100 from low-wage countries, benefits, 48 promotion of new waves of industrialization, 84 quality standards, importance of, 45–46 reason for, 54 rise of, 36–38, 74 Global South, 3, 33, 48, 88 global value chains (GVCs), 2n1, 3, 5, 9, 12, 16, 80–81, 95, 224, 227, 250 definition of, 1 fragmented work in, 54–58 fuel inequality through CEOs and executives, 259 gendered patterns of work in, 4 generation of jobs through, 2 governance focus on top down approach, 20 governance of, 88–89 opened space for interlayered governance, 260 open up channels for contestation, 230 and production networks, 83–88 provision for channel for innovative forms of contestation, 14 transformation since 1990s, 22 women involvement in, 1 and world trade, 2 governance (global) embeddedness of institutions, 225 in global retail value chains analysis of, 226–230 forms of, 230–242 and international relations, 224

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302 Index governance (global) (Contd.) outsourcing of, 241 private (see private governance) public (see public governance) role in influencing downgrading and upgrading trajectories, 13–16 social (see social governance) home-based, 55, 71, 78 informal work, 53 production, 65, 172 women dominance in, 66 work, 19–20, 56, 75–76, 167–168 workers, 3, 18, 43, 55–56, 66, 74, 169, 171, 173–174, 176–177, 192–193, 233, 238, 253 Homenet organizations, 238 Horticulture Ethical Business Initiative (HEBI), 210 human resource management (HRM), 195 Human Rights Watch, 160 hybrid forms of governance, 14 inclusionary bias, 96 individual contestation, 11, 100, 118–119 Indonesia apparel sector equitable manufacturing (EM) initiative by Nike, 17, 20, 193–194, 196–199 gendered articulations, 200–202 industrial capitalism, 51 IndustriALL (global union federation), 185, 185n14, 247–248 industrial upgrading of firms, 70 information and communication technology (ICT), 34 International Cocoa Initiative (ICI), 122 International Federation for Alternative Trade (IFAT), 239n5 International Finance Corporation (IFC) Better Work programme, 212, 244 in Bangladesh, 180n8

in Indonesia, 201 International Labour Organization (ILO), 47, 51, 61–62, 180n8 International Monetary Fund (IMF), 36, 104, 240 International Union of Foodworkers, 238 joint and several liability, concept of, 15 Joint Ethical Trading Initiatives, 62 just-in-time (JIT) delivery, 22–23, 35–36, 43, 46, 49–50, 54–56, 61, 66, 75, 79, 198 Kenya Flower Council (KFC) standard, 209–210, 214, 214n11 Kenya Human Rights Commission (KHRC), 210 Kenyan flowers sector, 17, 20, 193–194, 223, 232–233 female employment in, 208–209 gendered approach to social compliance, 206–208 gender implications, 215–220 job insecurity among workers, 210–211 living wages challenge of, 220–222 study of, 211–212 nominal wages, challenge of, 211 participatory learning philosophy, 210 rise in number of female supervisors, 211 setting up of gender committees, 210 trade union and NGO campaigns for introduction of codes of labour, 209–210 Kenyan Women Workers Organization (KEWWO), 210 Keynesian economic paradigm, 82 key performance indicators (KPIs), 59 Kuapa Kokoo, 119n9, 120–121 labour control, 18, 73–75 Labour Relations Act, 152

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Index leadership mindset and worker engagement (WE), 195 in Indonesia, 202–205 licensed buying companies (LBCs), 107, 116, 119, 125 low-income developing countries, 2 male breadwinner model, 9 Maquilla Solidarity Campaign, North America, 185 market economies, 51 Marks & Spencer Plan A, 150 mass retailers, 29–30 #MeToo movement (2017), 206 Milieu Project Sierteelt (MPS), 210 Ministry of Rural Affairs, India, 188 Ministry of Women and Child Development (MWCD), India, 188 modern-day slavery, 8 mom and pop stores, 6 Multi-Fibre Arrangement (MFA), 41, 168, 177 multilateral governance, 240 multipolar governance, 227 multi-stakeholder initiatives (MSIs), 14, 225, 239, 243, 247 nanotechnology, 258 National Tripartite Plan of Action, 248 neoliberalism, 258 network embeddedness, 85 Network of European World Shops (NEWS!), 239n5 newly industrializing countries (NICs), 36–37, 40 Nike equitable manufacturing (EM) initiative, in Indonesia apparel sector, 17, 20, 37n11, 84, 193–194, 196–199, 202, 223 gender-equitable living wage, challenge of, 220–222 gender implications, 215–220 rolling out and scaling up, 205–206

303 workforce strategy, 199–200

off-shoring of production, 6, 54 one-stop shops selling, 25 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), 2 Trade in Value Added (TiVA) data, 61, 62n12 original design manufacturing (ODM), 43, 167 original equipment manufacturing (OEM), 43, 167 Oxfam, 240, 260 Behind the Brands campaign in 2013, 122–123, 240, 255 paid work/workers, 1, 4, 6, 8–11, 14, 18, 22–24, 35, 47–49, 57, 76, 78–79, 88, 90, 205, 219, 223, 228–229, 236, 240, 250–251, 253, 259 pineapples sector of Ghana case study of, 138 crisis in 2003 and its impact on smallholders, 139–140 demand, rise in, 139 fresh-cut pineapple export processor, 144–148 land tenure and migrant status in, 140–144 production of, 138 rise in exports, 138–139 traditional variety of production, 139 UK social entrepreneur links with, 144–148 private governance, 13–14, 243–249 definition of, 224, 224n1 focus on formal work, 228 incorporate role of institutional embeddedness of commercial actors, 227 involves decision-making by corporate actors, 229 social compliance, limitations of, 230–236

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304 Index private standards, 13–14 public governance, 15, 224, 240, 243–249 characteristics of, 229 interaction with private and social actors, 242 of labour standards, 242 links with commercial and reproductive sphere, 228 promotion of transparency and accountability, 241 relates to formal employment, 228 state-level strategy, dimensions of, 241 Puma, 221 Qualifying Industrial Zones (QIZS), 41 Rana Plaza garment factory collapse, in Bangladesh, 15, 169, 181, 191–193 ready-made garment (RMG) sector in Bangladesh, 168, 249 Capturing the Gains (CtG) programme, 169–170 CMT production of woven garments, 178 downgrading and upgrading trajectories, 180–182 expansion based on trade quotas avoidance, 192 export growth of, 178 garment producers, tiers of, 179 gender articulations, 182–184 profile of, 179–180 growth linked with global trade regimes, 177 labour unrest and factory safety, 189–192 producers trade preferences and country quotas, 177–178 social compliance, limitations of, 184–187 women employment in, 179 recognized smallholder farmer, 105 regional value chains, 5, 241, 244, 251

regular workers, 4, 55–56, 78, 95, 160, 175, 187 reputational risk, 4, 46, 122, 187, 227, 234–235, 242–243 retail customers, trends in changing patterns of work in emerging economies, 25–26 in North America and Europe, 24–25 retail employment, 58–60 retail globalization process, 29 retail innovation, 25 retail value chains, 1 contestation, dimensions of, 11 engagement in, 4 gender patterns of work in, 5–8 gender profiling of, 8 linkage between consumers, buyers and producers, intensification of, 4 low and high road outcomes of, 7–8 need of new approach, 8–12 Safeway (supermarket in US), 28 Sedex members, 62n13 Sedex Members Ethical Trade Audit (SMETA), 231 segmented or dual labour markets, 52–53 self-employment jobs, 51 self-reporting internal market, 34 self-service retailers, 25 supermarkets, 27 sexual harassment, 210n8 skills, definition of, 181n9 smallholders in global value chains, challenges of incorporating, 104–105 small-scale agriculture, 75–76 Social Accountability International (SAI), 187, 231, 243 social audit/auditing, 14, 62–63, 68, 154, 160, 169, 185–186, 201, 204, 207, 210, 213, 217, 219, 231–234, 244, 247, 253

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Index social downgrading, 47, 49–51, 57. See also downgrading trajectories in value chains social governance, 224–225, 243–249, 260 collaborative contestation, 238–239 collective contestation, 237–238 features of, 236 GVC analysis if, 236 individual contestation, 237 links paid and unpaid work in commercial and social reproduction, 236–237 types of, 228–229 social reproduction theory, 9–10, 52, 83 social upgrading, concept of, 12–13, 18–21, 44, 48, 50, 57, 70–75, 103, 120–121, 124, 212. See also upgrading in global value chains, concept of Sourcing & Manufacturing Sustainability Index (SMSI), 198 South African Table Grape Industry, 151 speciality retailers, 29–30 standard audit methodology, 233 standard employment model, 52–53 Streetnet organizations, 238 structural adjustment programmes (SAPs), 36, 82, 104, 133 supermarkets, 26, 32n6, 33 customer-facing, 5 expansion in Africa, Asia and Latin America, 32–34 gender profile of, 59 growth of, 25 regional, 71 retailers, 31 sale and women, 25 self-service, 27 selling multiple product ranges, 10 Sustainability Initiative of South Africa (SIZA), 160, 160n13, 244 systemic downgrading, 19 territorial embeddedness, 85–86

305

Tesco, 84 supermarket in US, 34–35 Tesco Nature, 150 textile-apparel value chain, 42 transnational private governance, 227 UK Gangmasters (Licensing) Act, 242 UK Modern Slavery Act (2015), 15, 242 Unemployment Insurance Act, 152 United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Gender Inequality Index, 201 United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGP), 248 unpaid work, 1, 4, 8–9, 14, 17, 24, 50–52, 55–57, 66, 72, 75, 79, 83, 85, 95–96, 99–100, 103, 136, 223, 236–237, 249 UN Women’s Empowerment Principles, 123 upgrading in global value chains, concept of, 12–13, 70–75, 254–257 trade-offs and trajectories of, 76–77 value capture, 98 creation, 96, 98 enhancement, 86, 97–98 vertical governance, 227 wage ladder, 221 Waitrose Leaf, 150 Walmart, 6, 30, 33, 35, 84, 226 WEE initiative, 235 Washington Consensus, 240 waves of diffusion, 32 wearable technology, 258 Wine and Agricultural Ethical Trade Association, 160n13 Women in the Informal Economy Globalizing and Organizing (WIEGO), 238

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306 Index women’s economic empowerment (WEE), 235 Women Working Worldwide (WWW), 210 Workers Rights Consortium, 185, 239 work in a value chain, concept of, 50 World Bank, 104, 107, 240

World Cocoa Foundation’s CocoaAction Plan, 119n7, 123, 134 world systems approach, 84 World Trade Organization (WTO), 28 China’s entry into, 36 study on challenges to access global value chains, 44n12

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