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Accepted Paper:
It gets worse: the implications of disruptions in the global flour supply chain for bakers in Ghana
Akosua Darkwah
(University of Ghana)
Using the case of bakers, this paper demonstrates how Ghana’s subordinate incorporation into the global economy results in deepening precarity for workers when during disruptions in the global supply chain, employers seek to maintain their profits while ignoring workers’ welfare.
Paper long abstract:
This paper draws inspiration from the work of scholars such as Banki (2013), Munck (2013) Scully (2016), Barchiesi (2017) as well as Scully and Britwum (2019) who have argued that unlike the global North where precarious employment can be described as a novel phenomenon attributed to the retreat of the welfare state, in countries in the global South such as Ghana, precarious employment is the norm. Drawing on interviews with bakers in Ghana in 2022, this paper argues that Ghana’s subordinate incorporation into the global economy as largely a producer of raw materials has implications for not only those who work in the sectors where raw materials are produced but also those who work in sectors that rely on manufactured materials as raw materials. These workers’ long standing levels of precarity are worsened as employers attempt to safeguard their profits in the face of rising production costs brought on by disruptions in the global supply chain. We conclude that the precarity these workers experience is due to their location in the global South where the effects of decisions and actions taken by capitalists in the global North are deeply felt. Improving the circumstances of workers in the global South requires renewed attention to the ways in which practices in the global North reverberate deeply in the global South.