How to bridge the gap between migrant farmworkers and the agro-ecological movement in the Netherlands? This was the focus of an engaging coalition-building event organized by the recently initiated 'Migration and Wage Labour' working group of the Agroecology Network at the International Institute of Social Studies of Erasmus University Rotterdam (ISS) on 3 February 2025.
The Agroecology movement aims to transform food systems to be sustainable and equitable. The movement therefore fights against exploitation of both the planet and people.
During the event, labour rights advocates set the scene for the meeting by raising awareness about the precarious conditions that most migrants in Dutch agriculture experience.
Maciej Karwowski and Florina Fijn from the Dutch trade union federation FNV Agrarisch Groen, former agricultural workers from Poland and Romania, now reach out to farmworkers to inform them about workers’ legal rights. They organize the workers in the trade union to strengthen their bargaining power and to enable the union to negotiate better collective bargaining agreements.
There's a discrepancy between migrant workers’ low bargaining power their crucial role in the Dutch economy
Maciej and Florina highlighted that migrant workers’ low bargaining power contrasts with their crucial role in the Dutch economy - in agriculture, in particular. Workers’ room for manoeuvre is weakened by the commonly combined employment and housing contracts that they hold. These ‘package deals’ enable employers to demand ever higher speed and productivity from their workforce, and to threaten with homelessness alongside dismissal.
Political choices
This power imbalance is the result of political choices. Marijke Bijl from OKIA reminded the participants that the erosion of rights of undocumented workers in Dutch greenhouses in the late 1990s went hand in hand with the deregularization of employment agency work. This has led to a rise in workers’ ‘regulated precarity’, with migrant workers from Central and Eastern Europe holding few rights and entitlements, despite their regular immigration status.
US Campaign for Fair Food
The US migrant farmworker organization Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) served as an example of how a food system analysis can inform effective strategies for migrant and ecological justice in agriculture.
The CIW has managed to successfully struggle for better working conditions for the largely Latin American labour force in Florida’s tomato fields. Realizing that supermarkets and fast-food chains, as the main tomato buyers, are in fact the most powerful players in this agri-food chain, the CIW started targeting these corporations rather than workers’ direct employers with its 'Campaign for Fair Food'.
Sharing the CIW’s demand to position people and the planet over profits, organizations for environmental justice have been important allies for the CIW.
The possibilities around weaving similar networks between labour rights advocates and the agro-ecological movement in the Netherlands were discussed during lively group discussions.
Bringing together civil society, activists and scholars
ISS researchers from the Political Ecology and Civic Innovation research groups who bridge concerns for ecological and social justice in their academic work actively participated in the meeting.
Fatema Baheranwala, PhD researcher at ISS concluded: 'While it is impossible to solve these problems within one afternoon, it was a great start where different civil society actors and advocates came together with activists from the agroecology network, in the company of scholars and students from various institutes in the Netherlands.'
Photo credits: Floortje Gerber & Felix Landsman
Want to find out more?
Stijn Kluck
Migration and Wage Labour working group of the Agroecology Network
- Email address
- stijn.kluck@wur.nl
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