<p>Despite decades of advocacy by immigrant rights and labour movements, governments have made little meaningful progress in systematically addressing the precarity faced by migrant agricultural workers in the United States. In the absence of sustained political will, alternative governance mechanisms have emerged. One such approach is multi-stakeholder governance, which seeks to regulate supply chains through collaboration between workers and capital to address complex issues such as labour rights, sustainability, and corporate accountability. While much of the existing research on multi-stakeholder governance has examined questions of legitimacy and value attainment for participating partners, far less attention has been paid to how these initiatives advance workers’ interests, particularly migrants. This article seeks to fill this gap by examining the Equitable Food Initiative (EFI) and presenting agricultural workers’ perspectives on their experiences at a certified farm. Drawing on interviews with EFI stakeholders, alongside fieldwork observations and interviews with migrant agricultural workers at an EFI-certified farm in California, the study highlights both the opportunities and limitations of EFI. In doing so, it raises broader questions about how multi-stakeholder governance can advance workers’ interests, and how those same processes may obscure them under the guise of corporate accountability, often carrying more deleterious consequences for precarious migrant workers.</p>

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Multi-stakeholder governance and precarious labour: Rethinking worker participation in the Equitable Food Initiative

  • Erika Borrelli

摘要

Despite decades of advocacy by immigrant rights and labour movements, governments have made little meaningful progress in systematically addressing the precarity faced by migrant agricultural workers in the United States. In the absence of sustained political will, alternative governance mechanisms have emerged. One such approach is multi-stakeholder governance, which seeks to regulate supply chains through collaboration between workers and capital to address complex issues such as labour rights, sustainability, and corporate accountability. While much of the existing research on multi-stakeholder governance has examined questions of legitimacy and value attainment for participating partners, far less attention has been paid to how these initiatives advance workers’ interests, particularly migrants. This article seeks to fill this gap by examining the Equitable Food Initiative (EFI) and presenting agricultural workers’ perspectives on their experiences at a certified farm. Drawing on interviews with EFI stakeholders, alongside fieldwork observations and interviews with migrant agricultural workers at an EFI-certified farm in California, the study highlights both the opportunities and limitations of EFI. In doing so, it raises broader questions about how multi-stakeholder governance can advance workers’ interests, and how those same processes may obscure them under the guise of corporate accountability, often carrying more deleterious consequences for precarious migrant workers.