Sarah Lyon

The Hidden Labor of Fair Trade

2015 Lyon, S. The Hidden Labor of Fair Trade. Labor: Working Class History of the Americas 12(1-2):159-176. Abstract: This article explores the impact of fair trade on agricultural laborers within Latin America. It situates fair trade within regional processes of agrarian change, exploring how the movement and certification practices intersect with broader socioeconomic and political forces, paying close attention to fair trades insertion into local, regional and national contexts. The data comes from three sources: the author’s own research among small coffee producers in Guatemala and southern Mexico, related studies on contract labor within small producer fair trade value chains, and an exploration of fair trade standards for plantation production. In its current form fair trade certification provides few identifiable advantages to waged agricultural laborers. It is critical that certifiers begin to explicitly acknowledge and strengthen the legal frameworks already in place to protect agricultural worker rights. Where these are inadequate fair trade can and should work with other stakeholders to change both norms and regulations.