Introduction
Workers in food systems are often among the most marginalized and food insecure. Everyone’s RtFN cannot be achieved if others need to be marginalized and subjected to human rights violations. For this reason, ensuring workers’ human rights in food systems is part and parcel of realizing the RtFN, and of building a society founded on respect for human rights.
Who are the workers in food systems?
Workers in food systems are engaged in producing and processing food, and in food service. They include, among others, agricultural and plantation workers, fish workers, workers in the food processing sector, and food service workers. Workers can either be self-employed or waged workers, and often comprise women, migrant, young, LGBTQI+, and irregular (undocumented) workers, who face multiple and intersectional challenges at work that affect the realization of their RtFN, and related human rights.
Basic facts about food system workers
- According to the International Labour Organisation (ILO), 40% of 1.1. billion people work in agriculture as waged agricultural labour.
- On farms, plantations, and in other areas of agriculture, workers come from the most oppressed social groups. They are discriminated against on the basis of gender, sexual orientation, race, religion, or caste. Women farm workers are the most affected as they are subjected to sexual harassment and other forms of gender-based violence.
- According to the ILO, 70% of children in child labour work in agriculture (108 million girls and boys), mainly in subsistence and commercial farming and livestock herding[40].
- Around 660 to 880 million people, or 10% to 12% of the world’s population depend directly or indirectly on fisheries. From these, about 120 million people directly depend on fishery-related activities for their livelihoods, 60 million are directly employed, either full-time, part-time, or informally as fishers or fish farmers.
States’ obligations
What are the states’ obligations under RtFN for workers?
First and foremost, states should ensure that all workers in food systems – agricultural workers, including migrant and seasonal workers[41] and other labourers – are not excluded from legislative protections as is often the case in many countries. Legislated exclusions leave these workers “unable to exercise their fundamental rights to associate or assemble, and without access to remedies when their rights are violated”.[42] All workers should benefit from legislative protections, including protections to organize collectively and form unions.[43] This includes workers in the formal and informal sectors[44].
Second, states should eradicate and prevent forced labour[45] and child labour.[46]
Third, states should set minimum wages at a living wage standard,[47] to address the downward trend towards precarious employment, and to ensure women’s rights to equal pay for equal value.[48]
Fourth, states should ensure decent and safe working conditions in all sectors by legislating in the area of occupational health and safety, including regulations of pesticide use.[49]
Fifth, states should address laws, policies, and practices that limit women’s access to workplaces.[50] They “should review relevant laws, regulations, and policies which limit rural women’s access to decent employment and eliminate practices which discriminate against women in rural labour markets, such as not hiring women for certain jobs.”[51] They should also address other working conditions for women, such as paid maternity leave, prevention of sexual harassment and exploitation in the workplace, access to child care and so on.[52]
Finally, states should ensure that mechanisms are in place for inspecting workplace conditions, including for migrant workers, and that labour and employment laws are enforced.[53]
Main instruments
- Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Articles 4, 23 and 24).
- International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (Articles 6, 7, 10).
- International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of their Families.
- ILO’s eight fundamental conventions: Convention 87 on freedom of association and protection of the right to organise (1948), Convention 98 on the right to organise and collective bargaining (1949), Convention 29 on forced labour (1930) and its 2014 Protocol 29, Convention 105 on abolition of forced labour (1957), Convention 138 on minimum age (1973), Convention 182 on worst forms of child labour (1999), Convention 100 on equal remuneration (1951), Convention 111 on discrimination (Employment and Occupation) (1958).
- Other ILO Conventions: Convention 11 on the right of association (agriculture) and Convention 129 on labour inspection (agriculture), Convention 99 on minimum wage fixing machinery (agriculture), Convention 97 on migration for employment (revised) and Convention 143 on protection of the labour rights of migrant workers, Convention 189 on decent conditions of work for domestic workers, Convention 110 on protection of rights of plantation workers, Convention 184 on safety and health in agriculture, and all related ILO recommendations.
- ILO Convention 190 concerning the elimination of violence and harassment in the world of work and Recommendation 206 on Violence and Harassment (2019).
- ILO Work in Fishing Convention 188 (2007).
“ILO’s ‘core’ conventions cover all workers, no matter who and where they are. They apply equally to migrant workers, regardless of their status. Migrant workers, whether they are regular or irregular “without distinction whatsoever”, have the right to join and establish a union. They have the right to hold office in trade unions. They have the right to be protected against any form of discrimination.” For more information, please see: WORKERS AND UNIONS ON THE MOVE. Organising and defending migrant workers in agriculture and allied sectors. IUF (2008).
