The limits of labor governance in global value chains: exclusions, ‘edge’ populations and civil society activism in unstable labor regimes

Civil society organizations (CSOs) have played a pivotal role in the governance of labor in global value chains (GVCs). Yet many initiatives developed by CSOs in the global North fail to account for patterns of instability inherent within global capitalism which can result in expulsions of workers from value chains. Arguably, such patterns of instability propagate the existence of ‘edge’ populations in the global South, whose experiences of labor are shaped by sporadic entry and exit into insecure waged work. This article explores the efforts of Southern CSOs to develop effective labor governance for ‘edge’ populations using the case of the Indian tea industry. It draws on the lens of GVCs and labor regimes to document the reality of work on the margins of capital accumulation and demonstrates the ways through which spatial and temporal shifts in geographies of production (resulting in inclusions and exclusions of workers and producers) shape, but also limit, the strategies of CSOs to improve labor and livelihoods. In doing so, this article reveals a more complex picture of the realities and possibilities of labor governance in globalized production chains.