Seasonal migrant workers in agriculture: The cases of Ordu and Polatlı

Abstract

This thesis scrutinizes the working conditions and socio-economic status of seasonal migrant workers in agriculture. They are exposed to the inequalities in the labor market in terms of wages, accommodation and work conditions. To this extent, what are the exploitative relations, how the inequalities are constructed and what are the vulnerability levels of workers to the exploitation are the main questions of this study. In order to examine the relations in depth, the field surveys were conducted in Ordu and Polatlı. As much as broad sample of the study was chosen. The workers, labor intermediaries, land owners and representatives of the state enterprises and non-governmental organizations whom related to the issue were interviewed. The study under the lights of field research findings asserts that seasonal migrant workers are the poorest people who are exposed to the exploitation at the most in Turkey and the workers are experienced the exploitation with different vulnerability levels according to their ethnicity, age and gender.|Key words: seasonal migrant workers, waged agricultural labor, temporary agricultural workers, migrant workers