Cutting cane in Brazil in 2004. John McQuaid/Flickr. Creative Commons.
The legal trade in human chattel may have ended but the egregious exploitation of sugar labourers has not. The industry continues to draw on management techniques developed in slave times – including the use of disempowered migrant, bonded and child labour – to keep costs down and profits up. It’s working: the global sugar market is worth US$68 billion and is making some plantation owners very rich indeed.
One way in which surplus value continues to be squeezed out of the labour force has been through intensifying the working day. This has been the case in Brazil, the world’s leading producer of sugarcane. As my recent field research confirmed, rather than being paid a day rate or salary, field workers are paid a piece-rate according to how much cane they cut. Alongside this economic inducement, cultural norms are deployed that associate large harvests with masculine notions of strength and fortitude. These incentives to (over)work are supported by techniques to prevent under-work. The initial hiring process involves a long trial period in which those who cut less cane are not retained. For those who are kept on, transport to and from the fields at set times and the threat of unpaid suspension or not being rehired next season keeps workers from easing off. This calculated increase in worker productivity has resulted in a regime of bio-psychological exhaustion. According to a lawyer with the São Paulo district attorney, at least 18 cane-cutters died in the state from dehydration, heart attacks or other ailments between 2004 and 2008.
