Human Dignity and Power: Worker Struggles against Precarity in U.S. Agribusiness

Abstract

While precarious employment expands, instances of workers improving employment standards motivate examination of the dynamics of advancing decent work. This article analyzes cases of workers shifting from precarious toward decent work in U.S. agribusiness. Building on bargaining-power theory from industrial relations and human development theory from sociological philosophy, it finds that workers build power resources sequentially and by demanding human dignity. The cases reveal a framework of power building by workers facing precarious work in which progress is catalyzed by the recognition of workers’ capacity to participate in the rules to which they are subjected. The framework suggests an explication for precarious employment’s growth and decline.