Article

Competition & Change

Changing labour power 2018, Vol. 22(1) 41–62
! The Author(s) 2018
on smallholder tea farms Reprints and permissions:
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in Kenya DOI: 10.1177/1024529417742302

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Lone Riisgaard
Roskilde University, Roskilde, Denmark

Obadia Okinda
Cooperative University of Kenya, Nairobi, Kenya

Abstract
Informal wage workers on smallholder tea farms make important contributions to world export of tea.
The literature on global production networks only recently began to pay more detailed attention to
conceptualizing the role that labour plays in such networks and has so far focused mainly on industrial
settings – not smallholder farming. Similarly, the literature on sustainability standards has focused on
wage-workers in large-scale workplaces such as factories or plantations. This article seeks to remedy
this lack of attention and make contributions to both literatures by arguing first, that labour agency in
export-oriented smallholder tea production in developing countries may not be advanced much by the
sustainability certifications demanded by Western buyers and second, that labour agency can never-
theless be present at ‘the margins’ of global production networks even though informal rural wage
workers are most often assumed to lack both ‘structural’ and ‘associational’ power. These arguments
are made on the basis of a case study of on-farm wage labour in smallholder tea production in Kenya.
The article finds labour’s bargaining power to be stronger in some locations compared to others and
that differences between locations can be fruitfully explored by looking not just at workers insertion
into the vertical structures of the global production network but by also including more ‘horizontal’
dimensions relating to the local context in which smallholder tea production and on-farm wage-work-
ers are embedded.

Keywords
Labour agency, smallholder tea, wage workers, Kenya, sustainability standards

Corresponding author:
Lone Riisgaard, Roskilde University, Universitetsvej 1, Postbox 260, 4000 Roskilde, Denmark.
Email: loner@ruc.dk
42 Competition & Change 22(1)

Introduction
The global production network (GPN) for tea is characterized by a high degree of concen-
tration in the downstream segments. This is related to the fact that tea is usually exported at
a relatively early stage in the supply chain and thus that the most profitable stages (blending,
packing and marketing) occur in consumer countries (Neilson and Prichard, 2009; Van der
Wal, 2008). Around 90 per cent of Western tea trade is controlled by seven multinationals
and at the global level, four companies (Unilever, Van Rees, James Finlay and Tata) domin-
ate the tea trade (Stathers and Gathuthi, 2013; Van der Wal, 2008). Thus when a global giant
like Lipton (the Lipton brand is owned by Unilever) pledged to source all its tea from
Rainforest Alliance (RA) certified farms by 2015, it had a huge impact in terms of racheting
up certification of tea producers who are mainly located in developing countries.
The production of tea is highly labour-intensive whether it takes place on tea estates or
smallholder farms. In Kenya, which is the world’s leading exporter of tea and the focus of
this paper, about 62% of production is carried out by over half a million smallholder tea
farmers (Banerjee, 2012; Buch-Hansen, 2012). However, it is unclear from existing litera-
ture whether labour agency in export-oriented smallholder tea production in developing
countries is advanced much by the sustainability certifications increasingly demanded by
Western buyers.
The literature on GPNs conceptualizes how goods and services are designed, manufac-
tured, marketed, distributed, consumed and recycled through global networks. However, it
has only recently begun to pay more detailed attention to the role that labour plays in
such networks and has so far focused mainly on industrial settings – not smallholder farming
(e.g. Lund-Thomsen and Coe, 2015 or Selwyn, 2009). A similar lack of attention is found in
the literature on sustainability standards where focus (for research as well as standards) has
been on wage-workers in large-scale workplaces such as factories or plantations (e.g.
Riisgaard and Hammer, 2011 or Barrientos et al., 2003).
This lack of attention to wage workers on smallholder farms is connected to a wider
limitation in the literature. On-farm workers most often go unnoticed in the literature on
smallholder farming where the farmer is taken as the unit of analysis and in popular dis-
courses portrayed as the object whose situation is sought improved via for example public
extension service programmes or donor-funded sustainability or market promotion projects.
On-farm workers are in most cases assumed to be family labour, however, recent studies
(including the one presented here) show that wage employment is more widespread than
previously thought particularly in areas producing export crops (see also Cramer et al.,
2014). On-farm wage labour whether casual, seasonal or regular often constitute a significant
contribution to smallholder production (and production costs) and most often on-farm wage
labourers find themselves in a comparatively disadvantaged economic position compared to
that of smallholder farmers.
It is also generally assumed that waged labour in rural areas has little bargaining power as
they mainly operate informally in conditions of widespread poverty with low levels of edu-
cation and a large excess supply of labour (Cramer, 2008; Pattenden, 2016). In this paper, we
wish to remedy the lack of attention and power attributed to smallholder wage workers and
contribute to conceptualizing their role in global tea production networks by investigating
potential sources of labour power.
GPN theory categorizes power as either corporate, institutional or collective. Thus in
GPN terminology, the power of labour is conceptualized mainly in terms of the collective
Riisgaard and Okinda 43

power resulting from workers organizations. When studying labour, the GPN approach has
often been complemented by the concept of labour agency (see e.g. Alford et al., 2017; Coe
and Jordhus-Lier, 2011; Cumbers et al., 2008, 2010; Lund-Thomsen and Coe, 2015). Labour
agency in broad terms describe labours’ ability to act and to (intentionally or unintention-
ally) produce and reshape economic geographies through their actions (Herod, 2001). The
concept of labour agency is particularly pertinent as it recognizes that labour is not merely
factors of production, but actors that co-constitute the landscape within which GPNs oper-
ate (Coe and Jordhus-Lier, 2011; Cumbers et al., 2008; Herod, 2001). Nevertheless, we find
that an analysis of the sources of labour power – or in other words, the sources from which
labours ability to act derive from – is in need of further conceptualization. We, therefore,
complement our analysis with Wright’s (2000) conceptualization of sources of labour power
as deriving from both structural power (derived from workers position in the economic
system) and associational power (derived from the formation of collective organizations
of workers). Furthermore, as will be elaborated on in the following section, we expand
Wright’s concept of associational power in order for it to be more applicable to a context
where formal worker organizations are uncommon.
The distinction between different sources of labour power facilitates an analysis of the
changing context within which workers operate whether relating to their position in the
GPN or to the local socio-economic environment. The intertwining of these latter dimen-
sions is captured in the GPN approach by its emphasis on the embedded nature of GPNs
and it has been further conceptualized via the distinction between ‘vertical’ and ‘horizontal’
dimensions (Neilson and Pritchard, 2009, 2010). As argued by Riisgaard and Hammer
(2011), labour agency within GPNs can only be understood in terms of the intersection of
these two dimensions. So while the governance of inter-firm linkages (the vertical dimension)
is crucial in structuring the terrain with which labour interacts, this is always mediated by
the specific social relations of local production (the horizontal dimension). While Wright’s
concept of associational power appears closely linked to the notion of collective power in the
GPN approach, the concept of structural power seems not directly translatable to
GPN terminology. Nevertheless and more importantly, structural power relates to both
horizontal and vertical GPN dimensions and thus we feel offer a fruitful concept with
which to operationalize the analysis of labour power.
In this article, we look at the labour power of on-farm wage labour in smallholder tea
production in Western and Central Kenya. Our study of 115 tea pickers and 122 smallholder
tea farmers in these areas reveal a perhaps surprising trend towards increasing labour power
in the Central region despite a lack of collective organizing. In this paper, we explore this
increase in labour power. The sample included data from farmers belonging to Fairtrade
(FT) certified and non-FT certified tea factories (one certified and one non-certified factory
in each region) and we were thus able to investigate whether certification to FT is linked to
the documented increase in labour power and wages.
The data revealed that none of the differences found in relation to the conditions of
on-farm wage labourers was related to certification status showing clearly that for FT, the
smallholder farmer is the object whose situation is sought improved – not the on-farm wage
labourers. We identify instead other main causes of increased labour power and earnings.
Earnings are found to be related to geography (and thus indirectly, labour power including
education level, labour scarcity and access to alternative labour markets) and the nature of
remuneration (workers are paid less on day wages, more on piece rates). Labour power, in
addition, relate to specific features of the smallholder tea product and production process.
44 Competition & Change 22(1)

Based on these findings we argue that differences in labour power between locations can
fruitfully be explored by looking not just at workers insertion into the vertical structures of
the GPN but by also including more horizontal dimensions relating to the local context in
which smallholder tea production and on-farm wage-workers are embedded.
This article makes several contributions to the literature on sustainability standards and
the literature on labour power in general and in relation to smallholder export agriculture in
particular. Theoretically, we show how Wright’s (2000) conceptualization of labour power
(if modified) can also be useful outside of its original context of formal workers in industrial
sectors and be applicable to contexts in which formal labour organizations are uncommon.
Furthermore, we argue that this conceptualization can help cast light on the relation to
labour power of both vertical (GPN-related) dimensions and more horizontal (local context)
aspects – both dimensions which need to be included to adequately explore labour power
amongst smallholder agricultural wage workers. Empirically, we show the importance of
hired labour in smallholder export production; we explore recent developments in the power
of wage labour in the Kenyan smallholder tea sector, and we investigate if these develop-
ments might be related to certification.
This article will proceed by developing the analytical framework employed to analyse the
research data followed by a brief discussion of the context of smallholder tea farming in
Kenya including its embeddedness in global GPNs focusing on the demand for sustainability
standards. The article then outlines the methodology of the study and subsequently analyses
the vertical and horizontal dimensions of labour agency along with the structural and asso-
ciational bargaining power of tea pickers in Central and Western Kenya. This is followed by
a discussion of labour power in small-holder tea farming in the context of sustainability
standards and finally, the conclusion highlights the main findings of our analysis and their
research and policy implications.

Analysing the labour power of informal wage workers on

smallholder tea farms
We employ Wright’s (2000) conceptualization of sources of labour power as deriving from
both structural power and associational power. This analytical framework was developed to
analyse the bargaining power of formal wage workers primarily in industrial sectors (see e.g.
Silver, 2003; Wright, 2000). In order to apply it to informal farm workers in smallholder
agriculture, we thus need to make certain adjustments.1
Examples of workers associational power in Wright’s terminology include unions, parties
and institutional representation (Wright, 2000). However, in the context of informal workers
in smallholder agriculture where formal worker organizations are uncommon, we need to
expand the concept to be able to adequately analyse the sources of power. We, therefore,
adopt an understanding of associational power as including all the different formal or infor-
mal types of collective efforts engaged in by workers to advance their own interests and
improve their conditions. This enables us to consider even very loose and ad hoc types of
organizing as a potential source of power and thus makes the concept of associational power
more applicable to analyse labour power in contexts where formal organizations are
uncommon.
Structural power according to Wright (2000), is derived from workers position in the
economic system. Silver (2003) elaborates on this with two distinct sub-categories: market-
place bargaining power and workplace bargaining power. Here workplace bargaining power
Riisgaard and Okinda 45

refers to the power that can be utilized from the strategic location of a certain group of
workers in a key sector, for example, the ability of workers to strategically disrupt the
production process (Silver, 2003). Marketplace bargaining power is a broader concept
which relates to the tightness of the labour market and includes (a) the possession of
scarce skills, which are in high demand by employers, (b) high employment levels and (c)
the existence of alternative employment and income activities (Silver, 2003). In the context of
informal farm workers, this understanding of structural power is relevant and shall be
applied in the following analysis.
Keeping in mind that structural and associational power are closely interrelated, we will
employ these concepts to analyse the bargaining power of tea pickers and their ability to
advance their interests and improve their conditions. An important question in this regard is
whether workers are able to translate structural power into associational power (Selwyn,
2012) – a question to which we shall return later in the paper.
Analysing the data from the study also revealed the importance of access to information
and information sharing amongst workers as a key component of workers bargaining power.
This was related to the proliferation of mobile phones and the organization of smallholder
tea production in which tea pickers meet regularly at the tea collection centres. In the
absence of any formal worker associations, access to – and information sharing had
important implications for the bargaining power of the tea pickers and shall, therefore, be
considered both in relation to associational and workplace power.
As mentioned, our analytical framework also draws on the GPN notion of embeddedness
and in particular the distinction between ‘vertical’ and ‘horizontal’ dimensions (Neilson and
Pritchard, 2009, 2010). The horizontal dimension refers to the local socio-economic contexts
in which export industries are embedded (Neilson and Pritchard, 2010). A range of aspects
might be considered here. Oseland et al. (2012) for example argue that labour agency in
export aquaculture in Chile is heavily conditioned by three local and national factors (the
organization of labour networks, the regulation of economic and employment affairs and the
sphere of public discourse about work and its regulation). Lund-Thomsen (2013) and
Carswell and De Neve (2013) in their studies of respectively the football manufacturing
industry and the garment industry in South-Asia, highlight how gender, age and caste are
all important shapers of labour agency, while authors such as Brammer et al. (2012),
Gond et al. (2011), Riisgaard and Gibbon (2014), Lund-Thomsen and Coe (2015) in turn
highlight how sustainability standards are translated into national contexts and that this
translation is embedded in and influenced by amongst others business associations, nongo-
vernmental organizations (NGOs) and workers organizations, institutional structures and
the national media coverage. The concern with the local embeddedness of workers as well as
our expanded understanding of associational power resonates with recent attempts in the
GPN literature to expand conceptualizations of labour agency beyond collective actions by
unions to incorporate more unorganized forms of labour agency (Carswell and De Neve,
2013; Coe and Hess, 2013; Lund-Thomsen and Coe, 2015). Thus, labour agency in GPNs
has recently also been understood more broadly for example in terms of workers opting in
and out of particular kinds of employment (Carswell and De Neve, 2013; Lund-Thomsen,
2013).
In our analysis, the vertical dimension refers mainly to the GPN-related demand for
sustainability standards as well as the possible capacity of workers to strategically disrupt
the production process or explore the brand sensitivity of Western companies (workplace
bargaining power). For the horizontal dimension, we focus on the national- and local-level
46 Competition & Change 22(1)

elements related to marketplace and associational power outlined above although we realize
that additional factors are also likely to play a role.

The smallholder tea sector in Kenya

Tea production is an important job provider in remote rural areas where millions directly or
indirectly depend on tea production and picking for their livelihoods. At independence in
1963, tea estates dominated tea output in Kenya, but current estimates show that over half a
million smallholder tea farmers, who sell their tea through Kenya Tea Development Agency
(KTDA) produce about 62% of Kenyan tea (Banerjee, 2012; Buch-Hansen, 2012). Tea is
Kenya’s major export product and after China and India, Kenya is the world’s third largest
producer of tea and the world’s leading exporter. There are currently 65 tea-processing
factories owned by the 54 KTDA smallholder owned tea companies and 39 privately
owned tea estate companies including multinationals, such as Unilever Tea, Finlays and
Williamson Tea (Stathers and Gathuthi, 2013).
The key outlet for KTDA tea is the Mombasa auction, but there are also some direct
sales. The auction system is public and prices determined by the market. Key factors affect-
ing prices are tea supply (weather and crops), demand from export markets, movements in
other world auction prices, currency fluctuations and the quality of the tea. The main buyers
of Kenyan tea are Pakistan, the United Kingdom, Egypt and Afganistan, together account-
ing for more than 70% of Kenyan Tea export (Stathers and Gathuthi, 2013). But out of the
major export markets currently, only buyers from the UK have a demand for sustainability
standards. At the moment, sustainability standards in the Kenyan tea sector include
the Ethical Tea Partnership, FT, RA and Utz with FT and RA having the widest spread.
In 2012, 57 KTDA factories were RA certified (Stathers and Gathuthi, 2013) but currently,
all KTDA factories are certified by RA, while 14 are certified by FT. The rise in RA
certification has been driven by Lipton’s pledge to source all the tea for its tea bags from
RA certified farms by 2015.
In terms of sustainability standards employed in agricultural GPNs however, either plan-
tation workers or smallholder farmers are the targeted objects and as mentioned in the
Introduction section, the literature on sustainability standards and smallholder production
has focused on the producer or producer cooperatives – not workers on smallholder farms
(International Initiative for Impact Evaluation, 2010). So far only a few studies have begun
to include this group of workers (Cramer et al., 2014; Stathers and Gathuthi, 2013; Waarts
et al., 2012). The findings of these studies, and how they compare with our analysis will be
discussed later in this paper.

Methodology
Fieldwork was carried out in 2015 and the sampling design involved several steps. Step one
was a purposive selection of four KTDA-owned tea factories. KTDA has categorized tea
growing areas in Kenya into two broad geographical areas, that is, East of the Rift Valley
(henceforth Central Kenya) and west of the Rift valley (henceforth Western Kenya), which
differ in a number of ways. Tea acreage in Western Kenya is typically twice that of
Central Kenya (Stathers and Gathuthi, 2013), while Central Kenya is much closer to the
capital Nairobi.2 Two factories from each of these broad tea growing areas were selected for
this study.
Riisgaard and Okinda 47

Another factor that was considered was their certification to sustainability standards.
For purposes of comparison, all the four selected factories were certified by RA, but only
two of them were certified both by RA and FT (henceforth FT factories are marked in blue
in all tables).3
Step 2 involved selection of Leaf Collection Centres (LCCs). LCC is where farmers deliver
their green leaf for weighing after which they are taken to tea-processing factories.
Each KTDA factory has several LCCs. For each of the four selected tea-processing factories,
two LCCs were randomly selected and from each LLC workers and farmers were inter-
viewed. The workers were identified randomly as they plucked tea or from those who had
taken tea to the LCCs. Smallholder tea farmers were identified randomly at their homesteads
(see Table 1). Both workers and farmers were interviewed using a structured questionnaire
although some questions were open-ended. Apart from profile information, the main themes
covered included the nature of employment relations and remuneration, working conditions
and efforts to improve these as well as farm management strategies. The survey data col-
lected were processed using SPSS software and the statistical analysis is descriptive focusing
on comparing the distribution of responses across groups. For reasons of transparency, we
have run tests of significance (see Appendix 2) where possible, however, our argumentation
builds solely on differences and patterns that could be clearly detected.4 In addition, quali-
tative interviews were conducted with managers of the four KTDA factories.

Labour power
Structural power – Marketplace bargaining power
In its broadest sense, marketplace bargaining power relates to the tightness of the labour
market and thus mainly concerns the horizontal context in which the GPN for tea touches
down in rural Kenya and in which tea pickers are embedded. But before we dive into the
marketplace bargaining power of informal tea pickers, we will briefly outline some key
characteristics of our worker sample.
The 115 tea pickers (also called workers) in our sample are composed of 76 female pickers
and 39 male pickers (66% females with a slight variation between regions).5 This reflects the

Table 1. Survey overview.

Tea factory and region Leaf Collection Centre Tea pluckers Tea farmers
Area A 1 14 13

Central Kenya 2 15 17
Area B 3 10 15

Central Kenya 4 16 16
Area C 5 14 9

Western Kenya 6 +7 16 22
Area D 8 24 25

Western Kenya 9 6 5

Total 9 115 122

48 Competition & Change 22(1)

Table 2. Years of schooling.

M N SD

Central Kenya 9.6 47 2.457

Western Kenya 6.4 60 3.010

Total 7.8 107 3.183

broader context in Kenya where the majority of tea pickers are female. The average age of the
workers was 38 years old and for the majority (70.8%) of the pickers interviewed, wages from
tea-plucking constituted their main source of income. Most pickers were landless, however,
(24%) owned a small tea farm themselves. In the survey, we categorize the employment rela-
tion as either Casual (plucks on many different farms), Regular (hired for all tea plucking on
one farm but also work on others) or Permanent (hired full time on one farm). In general, hired
labour was very common with 88% of the farmers interviewed hiring workers for their tea
garden (ranging between an average of 3.2 workers in peak seasons and 1 worker during the
low seasons). In this sense, our study firmly does away with the long-held misconception that
smallholder farmers depend almost solely on family labour.
Key indicators of marketplace bargaining power relate to whether workers possess scarce
skills that are in high demand by employers, the tightness of the labour market and the
existence of alternative employment and income activities. In this relation, relevant variables
from our study include the level of education, worker dependence on earnings from tea
picking and employer experience of labour scarcity.
For the majority (70.8%) of the workers interviewed, wages from tea-plucking constituted
their main source of income and thus the tea pickers (across the two regions) can be said to
have a relatively high degree of dependence on the smallholder tea farmers providing them
work. However, if we look at educational levels and labour scarcity, regional differences
start to appear in the marketplace bargaining power of the workers.
In our sample, the average educational level was 7.8 years of formal schooling, although
with a noticeable difference in educational level between the regions, with an average of
9.6 years in Central Kenya versus 6.4 years in the Western part (see Table 2).
In terms of recruitment problems experienced by farmers, the data points towards a
moderate general challenge with recruitment (indicating at least a degree of labour scarcity).
Depending on location, 40–62% of farmers report facing recruitment challenges (57.4%) for
Central Kenya compared to (45.3%) for Western Kenya. And although this difference is not
statistically significant,6 data from the 2009 Kenya Population and Housing Census
(KIPPRA) indirectly indicate higher labour scarcity in the central region compared to the
western one. Thus, a higher percentage of individuals from the central region reported
having been engaged in economic activities within the last week (above the national average)
compared to Western Kenya (KIPPRA, 2013).7 Similarly both underemployment (the ratio
of underemployed to total employment) and unemployment were higher in the western
regions of our study compared to the central region (KIPPRA, 2013).8 Also relevant for
marketplace bargaining power is the access to alternative employment and here workers in
the two areas included in Central Kenya have an advantage over those in Western Kenya in
the form of stronger links to non-agricultural labour markets not least due to their proximity
to the capital.
Riisgaard and Okinda 49

Workplace bargaining power

The other subcategory of structural power–workplace bargaining power refers to the power
that can be derived from the strategic location of a certain group of workers in a certain
sector (Silver, 2003). In relation to smallholder tea, it is therefore relevant to look at (a) if
wage workers are able to use their insertion into a GPN and take advantage of the link to
brand sensitive Western companies and Western consumers and (b) to explore what happens
in case workers are able to withdraw their labour. Both issues relate to the vertical dimension
of the GPN while also being highly influenced by the horizontal local context.
In terms of being targeted by the social responsibility strategies of branded companies or
ethical consumer labels, informal rural tea workers working for tea smallholders are largely
invisible. The fact that their labour is fragmented across time and location adds to this
invisibility (see also Pattenden, 2016) and makes it unlikely that casually employed unorgan-
ized tea workers will be able to leverage consumer awareness to challenge existing working
conditions. In fact, informal rural smallholder wage workers have mainly gone under the
radar for NGOs promoting labour rights and/or sustainability standards as is evident in the
following statement from FT:
In Fairtrade we have until now focused on how to improve conditions for smallholder farmers –
80% of the men and women in Fairtrade - and on workers on plantations. Now the challenge is
to unpeel the next layer of the onion and further address poverty in trade: to consider the
conditions of the casual, temporary workers on smallholder farms who help out, for example,
at harvest. (Lamb, 2014)
In relation to possible consequences of workers withdrawing their labour, as relayed here by
a factory unit manager, lack of or even just delayed plucking can have serious economic
consequences for the smallholder farmers:
The timing of the plucking is key. If it is delayed on account that you never got pluckers, you
lose. If you pluck that shoot within a period of seven to nine days, your yields will increase
threefold but if you now delay because you never got your pluckers and going to do so after
fifteen or twenty days, your yields reduce by more than half. (9 September 2015, Area C Tea
Factory Unit Manager)
Concerning the nature of employment, in general, the majority of workers from the sample
were in casual employment relationships (88.8% based on answers from the farmer sample,
69.3% based on the worker sample). This means that the obligation of workers to pluck tea
on a particular smallholder farm, in general, is not very strong and together with the risk of
reducing or even losing the tea yields if workers withdraw their labour even for a few days at
a strategic time means that the tea pickers can be said to hold some level of workplace
bargaining power. However, it must also be noted that the strategic use of labour withdrawal
would need to be highly organized in order to make an impact in the GPN beyond the
smallholder farmer and this is probably unlikely in the context of informal casually
employed wage workers on smallholder farms.
Related to this structural feature of the tea crop is the way that plucking and collection of
green leaf are organized. Analysing observations and interview data revealed the importance
of access to information and information sharing amongst workers as a key component of
workers bargaining power. This was related not to formal collective organizations but to the
organization of smallholder tea production in which tea pickers meet daily at the LLCs.
After plucking, each worker carries the tea leaves plucked to the nearest LLC at an
50 Competition & Change 22(1)

appointed time. Upon weighing and registering of the tea leaves, the worker receives a
receipt for the volume delivered which the worker then brings to the farmer for payment
according to the agreed upon kilogram price. In the absence of any large-scale workplace or
formal worker associations, this structural feature of how smallholder tea production is
organized has important implications for the bargaining power of the tea pickers by
making possible the access to – and sharing of information. Thus, where on-farm workers
in smallholder agriculture, in general, are quite isolated, the organization of production in
the tea sector where tea pickers meet daily at the LLCs provides the tea pickers with regular
access to other tea pickers and access to information about tea prices and working condi-
tions between otherwise dispersed workers. Access to and information sharing are also
relevant in relation to associational power and shall, therefore, be considered further below.

Associational power
Associational power in the context of smallholder tea has so far not been leveraged by
pressure from Western companies, NGOs, consumers or sustainability standards as has
been the case in some plantation settings (see e.g. Riisgaard and Gibbon, 2014; Selwyn,
2007). This can mainly be explained by the invisibility of rural wage workers on smallholder
farms mentioned earlier and associational power in this context thus relates to the horizontal
– not the vertical context. As mentioned, we adopt an understanding of associational power
that enables us to consider even very loose and ad hoc types of organizing as a potential
source of power. Therefore, access to information and information sharing amongst the tea
pickers as they meet daily at the LLCs can be considered as potentially yielding an (albeit
softer) form of associational power because it enable workers to use that information as
leverage in negotiations with farmers and potentially to coordinate demands and actions.
When workers were asked ‘in which forums do you discuss tea issues with other tea pickers’
53.6% responded that they discuss tea issues at the LLC. At the LLCs, the workers are able
to share information on the different smallholder farms regarding e.g. per kilogram price
paid; on-farm conditions such as treatment by farmer, access to drinking water, tea or food.
In the absence of any formal worker associations, access to – and information sharing
have important implications for the bargaining power of the tea pickers and this perception
is reinforced when looking at how tea workers negotiate for better terms and conditions of
employment. However again a difference between geographical regions becomes clear.
As seen in Table 3, when asked ‘How do you negotiate for better terms of work?’ in
Central Kenya, many workers (56.6%) responded that they discuss with other workers at the
LCC and inform tea owners of the expected improvements (compared to only 6.8% in
Western Kenya). This indicates a higher degree of associational power compared to
Western Kenya. Furthermore, in Central Kenya, 34% of workers use withdrawal of
labour (either individually 21% or collectively 13%) as a way to negotiate for better
terms, while this was not perceived to be an option for workers in Western Kenya where
a clear majority (88.1%) responded that they negotiated individually with the farm owner.
As seen in Table 3, the patterns mentioned here are quite consistent within the two geo-
graphical regions. Thus in sum, in terms of both associational and structural power, workers
in Central Kenya possess a higher degree of bargaining power compared to Western Kenya.
As discussed earlier, there was a clear difference in marketplace power (stronger links to non-
agricultural labour markets, higher educational level and labour scarcity) in Central Kenya
compared to Western Kenya. As some sources of labour power were consistent across
Riisgaard and Okinda 51

Table 3. Ways of negotiation.

N¼112
*In Area D all workers are paid pr. day

regions (workplace bargaining power and access to information and information sharing) it
thus seems reasonable to infer that it is the stronger marketplace power which is turned into
relatively higher associational power in Central Kenya – albeit not in the form of formal
workers organizations. This is also manifested in the higher kilogram prices paid to workers
in Central Kenya, which we will explore in the following along with the possibility that the
higher degree of bargaining power might be related to FT certification.

Exploring and explaining earnings

Worker earnings varied with the daily amount plucked and the kilogram prices paid but also
with the payment form (whether workers were paid per kilogram or per day) as will be
specified in the following tables. The general growing conditions (altitude, soil, rainfall,
time of the year etc.) and maintenance (variety, pruning, weeding, fertiliser use etc.) affects
the quality of the tea and the amount that pickers can pluck while the abilities of the individual
workers also play a role. As shown in Table 4, in area C, the amount plucked by workers was
significantly higher than the other areas. This can be explained by a combination of several
factors: more male workers, the possibility of selling to private factories which results in less
dependence on the LCC (and its fixed pick up times) as well as the relatively larger size of the
tea gardens (in our data from Central Kenya, the mean number of tea bushes was 1792, while
in Western Kenya, it was 2749).
The way that workers were paid also varied between the majority being paid per kilo
(72.8%) and only 27.2% being paid a day rate (see Table 5). This difference was the result of
all workers in the area delivering to factory D relying entirely on day rates of 150 Ksh (this
was not confined to tea but covered all manual farm work in the area) and again we see how
labour management at the level of production take on specific forms dependent on the local
setting they are embedded in.
52 Competition & Change 22(1)

Table 4. Quantity of tea plucked per worker, kilos in high versus low season.

Highest Lowest

M N SD M N SD

Central Kenya
Area A 35.10 29 9.290 14.10 29 4.776
Area B 29.54 13 10.827 13.38 13 4.770
Western Kenya
Area C 50.10 30 16.411 21.30 30 10.655
Area D 28.80 30 11.457 14.27 30 5.854
Total 36.95 102 15.233 16.18 102 7.911

N ¼ 102 out of 115 (all 13 cases missing are from area B. The cases are missing because these questions were not included
until the second day of interviews in Area B).

Table 5. Way of paying workers.

Per day Per kilo

Central Kenya
0 28
Factory A 0.0% 100.0%

1 25
Factory B 3.8% 96.2%

Western Kenya
0 30
Factory C 0.0% 100.0%

30 0
Factory D 100.0% 0.0%

Total 31 83
27.2% 72.8%

N¼114

Pay levels as measured by the per kilogram price paid to workers varied in the sample
between 6 and 12 Ksh. with significantly higher prices in Central Kenya compared to
Western Kenya (a similar difference is reported by Stathers and Gathuthi, 2013). As seen
in Table 6, in Central Kenya, kilogram prices were never below 10 Ksh. while in Western
Kenya, the majority (66.7%) were paid only 6 Ksh.per kg. This difference is most likely
related to the higher labour power found and thus indirectly to labour scarcity, access to
alternative labour markets and educational level.
Apart from labour power, another factor that might help explain the regional differences
in kilogram prices paid to workers are differences in farmer income. While we do not have
data on farmer profit, data from the four research areas for the years 2005 to 2014 show that
Riisgaard and Okinda 53

although the kilogram price paid to farmers is the same for all KTDA factories (14 Ksh. at
the time of fieldwork), the bonus that farmers receive (also known as the second payment)
tend to be a bit higher for the factories in Central Kenya particularly during the last five
years (see Figure 1) although the difference between the regions is only statistically signifi-
cant for the years 2011, 2012 and 2013.9
Thus, differences in farmer income between regions might help explain some of the
regional differences in kilogram prices paid to workers; however, it should be noted that
the bonus is calculated on the basis of overall factory profits not farmers profit and that these
might be quite different. An additional factor that might also influence the regional

Table 6. Worker pay per kilo.

Mean N Std. Deviation

Central Kenya
Area A 10.60 28 0.832
Area B 10.00 25 0.000
Western Kenya
Area C 6.37 30 0.556
Area D* - -
Total 8.89 83 2.012

N¼83 (the 30 cases from area D are not counted here)

*In Area D all workers are paid pr. day

45.00

40.00

35.00

30.00

25.00

20.00

15.00

10.00

5.00

0.00
2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014
A B C D

Figure 1. Bonus paid to farmers in the four factories over time (Ksh.).
54 Competition & Change 22(1)

differences in kilogram prices paid to workers are living costs. However, although differences
in living costs might have some relevance, based on available data from 2009, this was found
not to offer an important explanatory variable.10
Below, we see the amount picked in low and high season converted into average highest
and lowest pay per day (Table 7). Calculated in this way, the data could be seen to show a
slight positive correlation between earnings per day in high season and FT certification
(higher daily earnings in area A and C compared in particular to area D). However, looking
closer at the data, this difference is accounted for not by certification, but by the way that
workers are paid (per kilogram or per day). Thus in the high season workers paid per
kilogram (area A, B and C), earn significantly higher daily earnings than workers paid
per day (area D). In the low season, the difference is not significant.11
In addition, in the areas where workers are paid per kilogram, the relatively higher daily
earnings are dependant primarily on the higher amount plucked (in area C) and the higher
kilogram price paid in areas A and B (see Tables 4 and 6). We thus find no indication that
differences in earnings are related to FT certification. This supports our argument that
earnings are related not to the vertical insertion into a standard demanding GPN but to
the horizontal dimensions of geography (and thus indirectly labour power including educa-
tion level, labour scarcity and links to alternative labour markets), the nature of remuner-
ation and amount picked.
If we look at who determines the amounts paid to workers (see Table 8), the survey results
show a similar pattern. In Central Kenya, more worker respondents (27.3%) attribute deter-
mination of wages to workers (in area B this is 50%) or negotiation between workers and
farm owners (52.2% in area A), while in Western Kenya, respondents place determination
more frequently with employers (farm owners and KTDA; 71.7%).12 This indicates a higher
degree of overall labour power in Central Kenya compared to the Western part and that
earnings are related to this.
As outlined in the section on associational power above, this perception is reinforced
when looking at how tea workers negotiate for better terms and conditions of employment.
As amply illustrated throughout history, however, when labours bargaining power
increases, it is always responded to by the employer side (see e.g. Silver, 2003) and the
Kenyan smallholder tea sector is no exception. From the employer side, several strategies

Table 7. Pay per day (highest pick  pay per day/lowest pick  pay per day).

High Low

M N SD M N SD

Central Kenya
Area A 374.9 28 123.429 149.8 28 54.709
Area B 293.1 13 111.309 137.7 13 46.754
Western Kenya
Area C 319.4 30 110.754 135.6 30 65.694
Area Da 150.0 30 0.000 150.0 30 0.000
Total 280.6 101 131.866 143.3 101 48.862
a
In area D workers rely on fixed day rates, therefore the highest and lowest rates are equal.
Riisgaard and Okinda 55

Table 8. Who determines amount paid – workers’ answers.

N¼115

have been attempted to counter the rising labour power and related increase in labour costs
(the most significant cost of production for smallholder tea growers). However, employers
have so far failed to curb the increasing labour costs and increasing labour bargaining power
in Central Kenya.
One strategy that has been attempted by factories in the central region has been to release
a circular stipulating the per kilogram worker plucking rate to the farmers. Many farmers,
however, felt the need to pay above the stipulated rate to ensure that their tea was picked in
time and thus the circular had limited effect (Interview 24 April 2015, Area A Factory Unit
Manager).
Another strategy – also common in labour-intensive production around the world – is the
use of so-called third-party labour contractors where the responsibility for dealing and
negotiating with workers is outsourced from the individual employer to a third party.
Thus, KTDA has come up with what they call farm management services. The service
consists in factories having a pool of pickers with a manager taking care of training and
setting a fixed wage rate. This group then moves to farms who pay the KTDA factory for the
service of having their farm plucked (Interview 9 April 2015, Area C Factory Unit Manager).
It is unclear how widespread this practice is but it was not encountered amongst any of the
respondents in our survey.
KTDA is also attempting another common employer strategy – namely to automatize
labour-intensive production functions by piloting machine plucking on smallholder farms.
The automatization strategy has already been implemented on some of KTDAs large-scale
plantations causing quite an uproar amongst plantation pickers and their trade union
(Kenya Plantation and Agricultural Workers Union). However, it remains to be seen
whether machine plucking is profitable on smallholder farms due to issues of scale and
quality (Interview 24 April 2015, Area A Factory Unit Manager; Interview 9 April 2015,
Area C Factory Unit Manager).
56 Competition & Change 22(1)

Finally, uprooting or simply not maintaining the tea bushes has been known as a strategy
of last resort for small farmers who deem that they cannot make their tea gardens yield profit
or who choose to plant new and more profitable crops on their plots. Examples of this were
encountered in the areas of investigation, but it is unclear how widespread the practice is.

Sustainability standards and wage workers in smallholder

export farms
This study included data from farmers belonging to FT-certified and non-FT-certified tea
factories and we were thus able to investigate whether certification to FT is linked to the
increase in labour power and wages found in Central Kenya. The data revealed that none of
the differences found in relation to the conditions of on-farm wage labourers was signifi-
cantly related to certification status. This includes the issues presented in tables so far, but
the survey also included a range of questions on labour conditions related to in-kind pay-
ments, credit and bonuses; accommodation and meals; personal protective equipment as well
as the main challenges faced by workers. These results suggest, that for FT, the smallholder
farmer is the object whose situation is sought improved – not the on-farm wage labourers.13
A specific assumption has commonly been used by social sustainability standards to argue
why the farmer (not the on-farm workers) is the object whose situation is sought improved
via the standard initiatives, namely the long-held understanding that smallholder farmers
depend almost solely on family labour and that smallholder farmers are thus not structurally
dependent on wage labour (see e.g. The Better Cotton Initiative14). Our study firmly does
away with this assumption by showing that wage employment for export crops is much more
widespread than previously thought and is thus in line with other recent studies (Cramer
et al., 2014; Van der Wal, 2008).
As mentioned in the Introduction section, so far only a few studies have begun to look at
wage labour on certified smallholder farms (Cramer et al., 2014; Stathers and Gathuthi,
2013; Waarts et al., 2012). Stathers and Gathuthi (2013) investigated the poverty impact of
RA and FT certification among small tea producers15 in Kenya however, the study findings
are sparse in terms of impacts related to labour. In relation to per kilogram prices and daily
payments to workers, interestingly, the results of the study differ considerably between
producer organizations, however the report is not able to conclude on a possible relation
to certification status nor to other possible explanatory variables apart from noting a general
tendency towards higher per kilogram payment in Central Kenya (Ksh. 8–10/kg GL) com-
pared to Western Kenya (Ksh. 6/kg) (Stathers and Gathuthi, 2013), a finding which is
consistent with the results of our study.16
A study by Waarts et al. (2012) looks at the impacts of RA and Farmer Field School
(FFS) training in Kenya smallholder tea.17 It finds that wages paid to workers differ
(although this is not found to be related to certification or participation in FFS). The reasons
given by farmers are related to the scarcity of labour (Waarts et al., 2012). This is similar to
the findings of our research but again, the mentioned study does not explore the reasons for
the differences beyond noting the availability of labour.
Finally, a study by Cramer et al. (2014) looked at wage labour and FT certification in
smallholder and large-scale tea farms in Uganda and coffee farms in Ethiopia. Comparing
across smallholder and large-scale farms, they found no evidence that FT had made a
positive difference to wages and working conditions.18 On the contrary, descriptive values
and regression analysis indicated that those who worked in non-FT certified sites earned
Riisgaard and Okinda 57

higher wages (even when controlling for size).19 The study concludes that in the areas where
the research was conducted, FT certification had failed to benefit poor wage workers.
The explanation offered is that FT has overlooked their existence and that it does not
rigorously monitor the wages and conditions of those working in smallholder production.
Finally, certification is thought to be relatively ineffective compared to other factors that are
more likely to influence both productive efficiency and working conditions. However, while
the Cramer study looks at factors such as size of farm, gender and education, they do not as
such explore the structural and associational dimension of labour power which we find to be
such an important explanatory factor (Cramer et al., 2014).

Conclusion
Apart from showing the insignificance of FT certification to the specific conditions of work-
ers explored in this article, our study illuminates other sources of the differences in labour
power found. Employing an expanded version of Wright’s (2000) conceptualization of
labour power, we have argued that labour power should not only be seen in terms of the
vertical dimensions of GPN structures (such as e.g. the possible impact of ethical consumers
and social standards), but also in terms of the horizontal dimension of embeddedness in local
places. Employing this framework, we are able to provide important explanatory factors for
the differences in earnings noted not just by our study but also by the two studies discussed
above.
This article has shown how workers in Central Kenya (at least according to education
level, alternative labour markets and labour scarcity) have a higher level of marketplace
bargaining power compared to pickers in Western Kenya. In terms of workplace bargaining
power, the prominence of casual employment relationships together with the farmer’s risk of
reducing or even losing the tea yields if workers withdraw their labour even for a few days at
a strategic time means that the tea pickers, in general, can be said to hold some level of
workplace bargaining power. Intensifying this workplace, bargaining power is a structural
feature of how smallholder tea production is organized where tea pickers meet daily at the
LCCs and thus have regular access to other tea pickers and access to information about tea
prices and working conditions between otherwise dispersed workers.
Adopting an understanding of associational power as including even very loose and ad
hoc types of organising as a potential source of power, we are also able to understand access
to – and information sharing as having potential implications for the associational bargain-
ing power of the tea pickers. Looking more closely at this form of power (examining how
better terms of work are negotiated for) however again reveals the same difference between
geographical regions as were found in relation to marketplace power.
Thus in terms of both associational and structural power, workers in Central Kenya
possess a higher degree of bargaining power compared to Western Kenya. As some sources
of labour power were consistent across regions (workplace bargaining power and access to
information and information sharing), it seems that it is the stronger marketplace power
which is turned into relatively higher associational power in Central Kenya.
The associational power found in the context of informal tea workers on smallholder
farms did not (at least not yet) take the form of formal workers organizations. Nevertheless,
with our expanded conceptualization, we were able to consider even very loose and ad hoc
types of collective efforts as a potential source of power and in the process make the concept
58 Competition & Change 22(1)

of associational power more applicable to analyse labour power in contexts where formal
organizations are uncommon.
The fact that we found a higher degree of overall labour power in Central Kenya com-
pared to the Western part also illustrates the need to frame labour power within local and
national contexts as well as within the global structures of GPNs. Thus, while the insertion
into a global GPN along with some general structural features of rural labour markets and
smallholder tea production might explain labour’s position in broad terms, it does not
account for the variations in labour power in different locations. Differences in horizontally
conditioned structural and associational power are critical for explaining these variations,
and for developing pro-labour strategies that are sensitive to the specificities of the local
context while not excluding the possible leverage created by linking up to broader
movements.

Acknowledgements
We would like to thank the various workers, farmers and tea factories for their openness and colla-
boration during data gathering in Kenya. Valuable feedback on earlier versions of this paper was
received from Peter Lund-Thomsen as well as from anonymous reviewers.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or
publication of this article.

Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or
publication of this article: The authors received funding from The Consultative Committee for
Development Research (FFU) 10-107DIIS.

Notes
1. For other applications of Wrights concepts to informal wage workers (although not on smallholder
farms), see Selwyn (2009) and Rizzo (2013).
2. The central region is commonly held to have relatively more favourable growing conditions; how-
ever, no scientific data could be found to corroborate this claim which in addition is highly
politicized.
3. See Appendix 1 for a short description of FT and RA.
4. It should be noted that N for the worker’s sample differs slightly across variables. This is mainly due
to the fact that some questions on amounts of tea picked were not included until the second day of
interviews in Area B and thus we are confident that this does not distort the results presented in this
paper.
5. In area C, 57% were male.
6. Pearson chi-square: P ¼ 0.210.
7. In the county, 71.2% where factory A and B are located while the percentages for the counties of
factory C and D were 54.0% and 56.8%, respectively.
8. Underemployment was 6.9% in the county where factory A and B are located while the county of
factory C and D were 12.3% and 14.1%, respectively. The county of factories A, B and D had a
lower unemployment rate (about 5%), compared to that of factory C (over 10%) above the national
rate.
Riisgaard and Okinda 59

9. A t-test (two-sample t-test of unequal variance) was conducted to compare the mean difference
between the bonus that farmers in Central and Western Kenya earn for each of the years between
2005 and 2014. Findings show that the difference was only statistically significant in 2011, 2012
and 2013 using a 0.05 threshold (see Appendix 2 for test results).
10. Data from 2009 indicate that living costs are in general somewhat higher in the central region
compared to the Western part but also that the difference is actually larger between the two
counties in the western region (thus in 2013 prices, the mean per person monthly expenditure
was reported to be 7.431 Ksh in the county of factory A and B. For the county of factory D, the
figure was only a bit lower  6,890 Ksh, while for the county of factory C, it was down to 5.443
Ksh) (Wiesmann et al., 2016).
11. Day wages can be argued to be more stable as earnings are evened out between low and high
season and the workers do not bear the risk of low yields.
12. Farmers were asked the same question and their answers corroborate the ones given by workers.
13. A companion paper analyses the farmer survey data and investigates whether any of the differ-
ences found in relation to farmers are significantly related to certification status – see Okinda and
Riisgaard forthcoming.
14. http://bettercotton.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Better-Cotton-Categorisation-of-farmers_
final_eng_ext.pdf accessed 14 May 2016.
15. The study includes seven KTDA producer organizations and one outgrower organization between
2009 and 2012.
16. The study does report anecdotal evidence (based on what the smallholder farmers say) indicating
that: ‘certification has led to them treating their hired labourers better, by providing them with
food and decent housing if they live with the host farmer, paying them regularly and helping them
in emergencies’ (Stathers and Gathuthi, 2013: xii).
17. Using control groups and two-year time lack including some 300 households.
18. Apart from large estates, the study included one site with FT certified tea smallholder cooperatives
and one without.
19. Their regression analysis controlled for scale of production, gender, education, time in job,
socioeconomic status of respondents and other job characteristics (free meals, housing, payment
delays, etc.). The factors most significantly correlated with wages were large-scale (+), male
(+), primary school completed (+), household size (+) and Fairtrade certification () (Cramer
et al., 2014).
20. Workers are waged employees, whether they are permanent or temporary, migrant or local, sub-
contracted or directly employed.
21. The FT Standard for Tea for Small Producer Organizations and traders version: 01.05.2011 has no
additional requirements for workers.

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Appendix 1. Fairtrade and Rainforest Alliance

There are currently 240,800 tea farmers and 123,400 tea workers participating in FT. The FT
standards for smallholders are meant primarily ‘to support members of smallholder orga-
nisations in gaining more control within the tea supply chains and increase their incomes’.
(http://www.fairtrade.org.uk/en/farmers-and-workers/tea/about-tea)
FT producer organizations receive a minimum price and a premium (currently of $0.50/kg
of made tea), paid to the producer organizations for economic investment and community
development such as for example clean water or support to schools and clinics. Thus indir-
ectly workers might benefit via premium financed community projects.
FT also works with tea plantations and the FT standard for plantations is much
more elaborate on provisions for workers than the one covering smallholders. The latter
does include a section on good working conditions for workers20 based on core conventions
from the International Labour Organization. The provisions include Freedom from discri-
mination; Freedom from forced or compulsory labour; Prohibition of Child labour and child
protection; Freedom of association and collective bargaining; Conditions of employment
and finally occupational health and safety provisions. The latter two sections (related to
remuneration, worker benefits and health and safety) however are only applicable if a sig-
nificant number of workers is employed. What constitutes a significant number is defined by
the certification body and may vary according to region, requirement and identified risk
(Fairtrade Standard for Small Producer Organizations Current version: 01.05.2011_v1.3).21
According to the Rainforest Alliance webpage, the purpose of RA is to ‘use methods that
protect the health of farmers, their livelihoods, their land and the surrounding waterways.
Through our training and certification programs, we are promoting farming techniques
designed to protect the land for future generations’. (http://www.rainforest-alliance.org/
work/agriculture/tea)
62 Competition & Change 22(1)

The RA standard also includes criterions related to ‘Fair treatment and good working
conditions for workers’ and ‘Occupational health and safety’. The certification bodies evalu-
ate the applicability of each criterion according to amongst other things the size
and complexity of the operation however some of the provisions from these principles have
to be applied on all farms (e.g. access to clean drinking water, training on health and safety).
(http://www.san.ag/biblioteca/docs/SAN-S-1-4_Sustainable_Agriculture_Standard.pdf)

Appendix 2. Tests
Table 2: One-way ANOVA test, P ¼ 0.000.

Year p value t value

2005 0.245 2.467

2006 0.055 4.096
2007 0.794 0.298
2008 0.097 2.967
2009 0.212 2.884
2010 0.230 2.644
2011 0.042 15.293
2012 0.028 22.450
2013 0.005 14.142
2014 0.102 6.214

Table 3: Fisher’s exact test P ¼ 0.000 (for both geographical regions and factories) Fisher
exact test is used because for this cross-tabulation more than 20% of cells have expected
count less than 5.
Table 4: One-way ANOVA test on lowest pick, P ¼ 0.000 on highest pick, P ¼ 0.000.
Table 5: Fisher’s exact test, P ¼ 0.000.
Table 6: One-way ANOVA test, P ¼ 0.000.
Table 7: One-way ANOVA test on high season, P ¼ 0.000.
One-Way ANOVA test on low season, P ¼ 0.585.
Table 8: Pearson chi-square, P ¼ 0.000 (for both geographical regions and factories).
Figure 1. Results of t-test comparing the mean difference between the bonus of farmers in
Central and Western Kenya.