Labor processes within a commodity system: a comparative study of workers in apple packing houses

This study is a comparative analysis of how two forms of capitalist production intersect with gender to shape the labor process in apple packing houses of Virginia, United States and the VI Region, Chile. It illustrates how differences in growers' production systems, as well as traditional undervaluation of women's work, shape the organization of the apple-packing workplace.

A theoretical framework based on the notion of labor processes was developed to study growers' farming systems and their use and management of labor. Production is conceptualized as a system based upon the relation of labor process and value-creating process. The study focused on two interrelated dimensions: 1) production as difference between exchange and use value and 2) the intersection of gender inequality and capital and its effects on the organization of the workplace and on women's ability to increase control and autonomy.

Five apple farms were selected in each of two regions - one in Chile and the other in the United States. From these farms one hundred-twenty workers were chosen to be interviewed by stratified random sampling. In addition, the farm operator of each farm was interviewed.

Labor in both regions is gendered and tightly controlled. However, the manner in which sample growers approach gender relations and the nature of labor control mechanisms differ from one region to the other. Such differences are associated with the type of production systems, the degree of articulation of farming systems with the modern economy, the type of ownership, the relation the owner had with the workers, and traditional undervaluing of women’s’ work expressed in wage differential according to gender and job segmentation.

Explanations that propose an association between women’s income and autonomy are inadequate. First, women often worked because their family demanded that they do so, and, second, the type of work done by women in packing houses does not increase their economic power relative to men because a) the majority earn less than men, b) women’s packing-house work is commonly viewed as an extension of women’s housework, and c) women themselves think of their wage-work contribution as secondary and supplemental.

Although women’s work choices are prediucpoan treeasdon s other than personal satisfaction, the majority value the possibility of meeting other women at work. Understandiwnhgy women enter packing-house employment needs to go beyond questioning women whether they do or do not need to work for wages. Explanations of how the contradictions in women’s roles and attitudes affect how labor power is reproduced within the workplace are needed when addressing gender and work.