This document provides a number of case studies of US corporations’ use of precarious and contract labor to weaken unions and cut costs. Also describes the effects of these practices on the working conditions and labor rights of women and migrants

International Labor Rights Forum

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Precarious Work: 
How temporary jobs and subcontracting undermine women, migrants and all 
workers’ rights to decent work worldwide 
 
Emelita, 49, started to work at a Dole Philippines pineapple processing facility in 1979. 
After 11 years, she was compelled to voluntarily “resign” from the plant. Regular 
workers were being replaced by “contractuals”. The company was busting the workers’ 
union. More than 3,000 workers resigned. Today, her husband, Romeo, still works at the 
processing plant and one of their five children labors as a harvester. Dole provided jobs, 
yes, but she asks, does the family have a future? 
 
What is Precarious Work? 
 
Employers around the world are creating precarious forms of work to destroy unions, cut 
labor costs and avoid being held responsible for their own employees.  Precarious work is 
created when permanent, regular jobs are replaced by subcontracted labor and temporary, 
short-term jobs. Workers around the world are uniting to bring back decent jobs. 
 
Jobs in all sectors around the world are being outsourced or subcontracted from 
employment agencies or labor “cooperatives” at a rapid rate. Many jobs have become 
temporary and workers have been wrongly classified as independent contractors. These 
workers are subject to job instability, lower wages and more dangerous working 
conditions as they are denied the rights and benefits of regular workers. Temporary and 
subcontracted workers rarely receive healthcare or retirement benefits and are denied the 
right to join a union. It is not uncommon for subcontracted workers to receive a fraction 
of the legal minimum wage for well over eight hours of work because subcontractors 
illegally swallow a large percentage of the wages paid to them by companies seeking 
labor. Even when workers are granted the right to unionize, they fear being fired when 
they know their jobs are impermanent. Unionized workers also suffer because with fewer 
members, they have less power to bargain for better conditions.  
 
ILO officials at the Global Unions forum, “Towards Social Justice: applying labour 
standards to precarious workers” stressed that the impact of precarious work is greatest 
on women, migrants, and young people.1 This document provides a number of case 
studies on how US corporations abuse contract labor and how women and migrants see 
the effects. Precarious work is forcing all workers deeper and deeper into poverty as they 
see good jobs and a path towards the middle class disappear. 
 
 
 
 
                                                 
1 http://www.global-unions.org/IMG/pdf/WelcomeAddressPrecariousWorkForum.pdf  
International Labor Rights Forum 
 
Corporate Connections 
 
Case Study: Coca-Cola in Colombia 
Coca-Cola in Colombia was once known for hiring paramilitaries to kill 
their union leaders. Now Coca-Cola is taking a different approach to 
destroying the union by indirectly contracting out the majority of its 
workforce. A July 2008 ILO mission to investigate labor relations and working 
conditions at several Coca-Cola bottling plants found a clear difference between the 
employers’ relationship and treatment of directly employed workers as compared to 
outsourced workers. In one Bogota plant, 70% of the operating staff and 85% of the 
distribution staff is now outsourced, contracted through labor “cooperatives,” 
employment agencies or considered independent contractors. A large number of these 
workers were formerly direct employees but the company forced them to change their 
status.  
 
These outsourced workers do not have the right to unionize and thus, the unions in the 
majority of bottling plants are slowly disappearing. The ILO recommends that Coca-Cola 
limit the number of contract workers and to assure that current contract workers are 
provided the same rights and benefits as regular workers. The union in one plant has dealt 
with the problem by limiting the number of contract workers allowed in their collective 
bargaining agreement.2 
 
Case Study: Lipton Tea Workers in Pakistan  
 
Lipton tea is amongst Unilever's top "billion dollar 
brands", the 2 dozen brand products that generate 75% 
of corporate revenue.  Unilever has begun a strategy of 
destroying unions across its workforce by replacing 
regular workers with temporary workers. The Lipton tea factory in Khanewal, Pakistan 
employs 22 permanent workers but another 723 workers are hired through six contract 
labour agencies. The majority of these workers have worked for more than 10 years at the 
Khanewal factory but since they're not formally employed by Unilever, they are barred 
from joining a union of Unilever workers and bargaining with Unilever as their employer. 
 
The small number of permanent workers receive a monthly base wage $226 a month. The 
basic wage for those providing disposable, "temporary" work is less than three dollars a 
day for most workers. Where permanent workers receive double for overtime/holiday 
work, agency workers simply receive the basic hourly wage. From one week to the next, 
they do not know their assignments or work schedules - or whether they will have work. 
                                                 
2 See Report from ILO Evaluation Mission: Coca Cola Bottling Plants in Colombia, October 8, 2008, 
International Labor Organization,  
http://www.laborrights.org/end-violence-against-trade-unions/colombia/resources/2217  
Most significantly, these workers are fighting for their right to join the union so that they 
can move out of a cycle of poverty.3 
 
Women and Precarious Work 
 
Numerous case studies have shown that women are in the most precarious positions at 
work. Subcontractors and recruiters (often hired by large companies) working for 
temporary employment agencies or labor “cooperatives” target women, assuming that 
they are less likely to stand up for their rights and have less formal work experience. 
Women are often newer to the workforce then men or have less education, so they are 
stuck in the lowest rung of the employment latter where jobs are precarious. Women 
agricultural workers are particularly exploited.  
 
Case Study: Women in Agriculture 
Take the story of Rosemary, a Peruvian temporary agricultural worker (harvesting 
asparagus, artichokes, and grapes for export to the US). She moves around from 
temporary job to temporary job, depending on seasonal needs. Rosemary was 
unemployed for a long period of time after the economic crisis because she had no stable 
job to rely on. 
 
“I am paid weekly, according to how much I produce. It’s $48 a 
week in high season, in low season I earned between $13 and $16 a 
week. There’s no fixed monthly salary, it’s only determined by 
how much we produce and how much we advance. We would be 
out working for 14 to 16 hours a day. I worked 9 months in the 
fields but not continually. I had to stop certain weeks and start 
again the next week. When there was a lot to produce, I worked all 
day, 112 hours a week, 448 hours a month more or less, without 
taking Sundays off, getting paid nothing for overtime because they 
pay is according to how much we produce. I was illegally fired also 
for being pregnant.”4 
 
Companies can get away with treating temporary women workers like Rosemary because 
without permanent contracts and worker representation (through unions or worker-owned 
cooperatives) workers fear losing their jobs. In the developing world where 
unemployment is high and small farmers are displaced, many workers will do anything to 
earn a modest income and companies, including US companies, take advantage of their 
impoverished situation. Rosemary was easily fired for being pregnant because she had no 
union contract to secure her job. In Peru, women are entitled to various maternity benefits 
but without job stability, employer accountability and union representation these laws 
often go unenforced. 
 
Women take action! 
                                                 
3 http://www.iuf.org/cgi-
bin/dbman/db.cgi?db=default&uid=default&ID=5622&view_records=1&ww=1&en=1  
4 Se, Rosemary’s Story, Interview Conducted by Associacion Aurora Vivar. 
Women workers who have organized have been able to avoid being replaced by 
subcontracted workers. Amanda Camacho, a Colombian cut-flower worker recently led a 
successful union organizing effort at her company, Papagayo Farms. The union is nearly 
90% women and Amanda is one of the many single mothers. Workers decided to 
organize when they saw their senior co-workers being replaced by workers from 
temporary agencies or labor “cooperatives,” a common union busting mechanism in 
Colombia.  A survey conducted in 2008 found that 35% of cut-flower workers in the 
main cut-flower growing region of Colombia had been subcontracted out through 
employment agencies or work cooperatives. Because Amanda and her co-workers 
successfully avoided being replaced, they have been able to negotiate for a modest raise, 
benefits and job stability. Single mothers particularly benefit from unions as they struggle 
to raise a family with one income. 
Migrants and Precarious Work 
Internal and international migrants occupy a significant number of workers subject to 
subcontracting schemes and precarious jobs. Migrants, like women, are subject to the 
most exploitation as they search for any work in unfamiliar terrain, permanent or not.  
Agricultural sectors tend to rely heavily on subcontractors who recruit migrants across 
borders.  Migrants are often picked up by recruiters and have little knowledge of who 
they are working for as they indirectly employed. Because many are undocumented, they 
are less likely to assert their rights for fear of being deported. Companies deny 
responsibility for labor rights violations endured by subcontracted workers, many of 
whom are migrants.  Migrant farmworkers or guest workers in the U.S. do not even have 
the same rights as regular U.S. workers. They do not have the same rights to unionize to 
bargain for a better wage and are exempted from many normal wage and hour laws. 
 
Case Study: Nicaraguans in the Costa Rican pineapple sector 
The majority of workers producing the fresh pineapple found in U.S. supermarkets under 
Dole, Del Monte or Chiquita brands are Nicaraguan migrants working on Costa Rican 
pineapple plantations.5 Companies will pay subcontractors to rent out and hire workers 
on pieces of unregulated land that is not under the parent companies’ jurisdiction but is 
instead under the subcontractors’ name.  Thus, workers have no direct connection to the 
company, and the company has no legal responsibility to 
them, though the subcontractors take orders from foremen 
who are directly hired by the company.6  One worker 
disclosed that in the year 2000, a subcontractor was paid the 
equivalent of $7.22 a hectare by the company to apply 
pesticides to the crops. The subcontractor than paid the 
worker $1.71 a hectare to perform the work, thus keeping 
75% of the income.7 
                                                 
5 See, “The Sour Taste of Pineapple: How a Growing Export Industry Undermines Workers and their 
Communites,” ILRF, October 2008 
6 Email coorespondence between ILRF and Didier Leiton, 2/29/08. 
7 Leiton, 2/29/ 08. 
 
The following is an excerpt from a letter from Nicaraguan migrant worker, 
 
 “The company [Pina Frut owned by one Costa Rica’s largest land owners, Grupo Acon], 
denies workers their job security, the right to belong to a trade union organization, decent 
treatment, a living wage and reasonable working hours..Others still work here in Piña 
Frut but for contractors who do not always pay them the legal minimum wage and have 
to work very long hours…We believe that it is time to inform the Nicaraguan government 
about Nicaraguan migrants who come to Costa Rica and are exploited and ripped off by 
unscrupulous businessmen who make legal deductions for healthcare cover from workers' 
wage packets and then pocket these themselves; by businessmen who use contractors to 
avoid paying holidays, the thirteenth month, healthcare contributions etc. To be clear 
Piña Frut does pay its healthcare contributions, holidays etc, but it also pays contractors 
to avoid these responsibilities.” 
 
What are labor “cooperatives”? 
 
Workers around the world, particularly in countries with notoriously anti-union 
governments such as Colombia and the Philippines, are being pushed into labor 
“cooperatives.” Labor cooperatives have become a common way for employers to put a 
positive sounding name over the ugly practice of subcontracting and outsourcing. Labor 
cooperatives are essentially employment agencies, owned by wealthy elites with business 
interests in mind over the interests of workers. They do not resemble worker-owned 
cooperatives, a way to empower small coffee or cocoa farmers, for example. Workers 
often join cooperatives because they have no choice and many do not understand the 
implications of joining.  
 
The Colombian Sugar Sector: Labor Cooperatives, Low Wages and Safety Concerns 
 
Colombia has a lucrative sugar industry which has 
increasingly benefited from tax break incentives as 
demand for sugar based biofuel increases. The 
majority of Colombia’ sugar cane cutters are Afro-
Colombian and are forced into an indirect 
relationship with their employers through labor 
cooperatives known as “associative cooperatives.”  
 
Laborers receive a wage that is 45% lower than 
those hired directly by the sugarcane firms because 
they are paid based on the quantity of cane they produce. Sugarcane workers in 
cooperatives must deduct funds for primary education, healthcare, and other social 
benefits from their salaries because they are not legally entitled to any of the regular 
benefits allocated to regular workers. The deductions applied to the workers’ gross 
salaries (allegedly for social security benefits and Associative Cooperatives’ maintenance 
costs) are actually transferred to sugarcane entrepreneurs, in terms of subsidies, and to 
board members and employees of the associative cooperatives. 
 
Sugarcane cutters are heavily exploited. They work up to 16 hours a day without a break. 
They suffer from serious health issues since their labor leads to physical debilitation and 
fatigue, permanent exposure to the harsh climate, permanent contact with chemicals 
utilized in the industrial processing of the crop, and exposure to high temperatures and 
ashes from the burning cane. Given their indirect employment status, they have cannot 
legally demand better conditions from their employers because they are not covered by 
regular labor laws.8 
 
Workers have tried to improve their conditions by organizing and mobilizing, regardless 
of the fact that they cannot officially unionize and bargaining collectively. 
In the fall of 2008, 10,000 Colombian Sugar Cane Cutters staged a 56 day strike in 
protest of horrendous working conditions. After striking, they won a better wage system 
and other benefits, but will still be denied the right to permanent employment and a direct 
contract with their employer. 
 
Precarious Work and the Global Economic Crisis 
 
In the midst of a global economic crisis, market instability will fall hard on those millions 
of workers with insecure jobs. Contract, temporary or casual workers without union 
representation have no bargaining power to negotiate for severance pay or other 
safeguards when layoffs occur and such workers are the first to become unemployed. 
There is a danger that companies will likely use the excuse of the international recession 
to further erode labor rights and reduce regular permanent jobs. Even after the recession 
ends, it is not unlikely that companies will continue to outsource their employees through 
contract agencies and short-term work arrangements.  The ILO decent work agenda is 
based on the notion that stable jobs are the key to building the middle class needed for a 
sustainable economy in the future. Workers trapped in temporary forms of employment 
are less likely to stimulate the economy through spending because they cannot count on a 
constant source of income. Employers must contribute to economic sustainability by 
hiring employees on direct, permanent basis. 
 
Union and Government Initiatives 
 
After long struggles, some unions have been able to include contract workers in 
collective bargaining arrangements while others have successfully demanded that 
employers’ reduce or eliminate the use of contract labor and other forms of precarious 
work. International unions in all sectors, particularly the IUF, have begun global 
campaigns to end precarious work and promote decent, permanent jobs. 
 
Various countries have passed legislation to eliminate the use of employment agencies or 
grant full rights to contract workers. China passed a new Labor Contract Law in 
December 2007 that mandated non-fixed-term contracts for long-time employees and 
                                                 
8 Mario Pérez Rincón, Paula Álvarez Roa “Social and environmental debt from the sugarcane business in 
Colombia.” Corporate Social Responsibility and implicit subsidies in the sugarcane industry,” 2009 
 
reinforced existing wage and hour laws, including overtime regulations. In October 2007, 
the Chinese Ministry of Labor and Social Security issued Regulations on Employment 
Services and Employment Management that sought, among other things, to rein in abuses 
by sub-contracted labor recruitment companies.  
 
Chile, Namibia, and Ecuador have moved legislation to this effect. Enforcement of these 
laws will be the biggest challenge. The Colombian government also reacted to public 
pressure surrounding the problems of subcontracting by passing a decree to curb the use 
of labor cooperatives. Groups on the ground have said the decree has done nothing in 
practice and subcontracting continues to be a major problem. 
 
Cambodia is considering moving legislation in a negative direction regarding temporary 
contracts. Cambodia has made modest progress in promoting worker rights over the last 
ten years. This is now being severely undermined by the garment industry’s wholesale 
shift to use of temporary work contracts – and, most recently, by a manufacturer-backed 
attempt to remove all limitations on such arrangements through amendment to the 
country’s labor code.  
 
The ILO convention on Private Employment Agencies, No. 181 says that governments 
should ensure that private employment agencies must be allowed to join trade unions and 
bargain collectively and entitle agency-hired workers to regular workers’ rights. This 
convention can be used as a tool to empower agency workers but most countries have not 
yet ratified it. 
 
Resources and Precarious Work Campaigns 
 
ILRF’s Freedom at Work, Contract Labor and Precarious Work webpage: 
http://www.laborrights.org/labor-rights/contract-labor-and-quot-precarious-work-quot  
 
"Outsourcing and Casualization in the Food and Beverage Industry: The Threat to 
Workers and Unions and Union Strategies for Fighting Back" published by IUF outlines 
the various strategies employed by multinational food companies to eliminate unions by 
contracting out their workforce.  
http://www.laborrights.org/files/IUFOutsourcingManual-e.pdf  
 
This webpage is dedicated to precarious work: 
http://www.precariouswork.eu/about/What-is-precarious-work  
 
The Global Unions campaign, Precarious Work Affects Us All can be found Here: 
http://www.global-unions.org/spip.php?rubrique69  
 
The IUF Casual-T Campaign to combat Unilever’s disposable jobs can be found here: 
http://www.iuf.org/casualtea/ 
 
 
 


Precarious Work: How Temporary Jobs and Subcontracting Undermine Women, Migrants, and All Workers’ Rights to Decent Work Worldwide

This document provides a number of case studies of US corporations’ use of precarious and contract labor to weaken unions and cut costs. Also describes the effects of these practices on the working conditions and labor rights of women and migrants.ILRF_PrecariousWork_2009.pdf: 384 downloads, before Oct. 1, 2020

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Precarious Work: How Temporary Jobs and Subcontracting Undermine Women, Migrants, and All Workers’ Rights to Decent Work Worldwide

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