Margareet Visser has been conducting research on working conditions in South Africa’s fruit and wine exporting sectors since 2007. From 2006 to 2013 she got an intimate glimpse of working conditions on farms as a part-time social auditor. In 2012 she participated in the Capturing the Gains research network that gauged whether producer and worker upgrading in global value chains (GVCs) happens in parallel or divergently. In 2013 Margareet researched how GVC governance impacted on a massive strike in the table grape industry of the Western Cape. In 2015 she was a lead author of the ILO country study Farm Workers’ Living and Working Conditions in South Africa: key trends, emergent issues, and underlying and structural problems.

More recently Margareet has researched how unions and civil society use private codes to promote workers’ rights. She is a PhD candidate in the University of Cape Town’s Economics Faculty. Her thesis investigates how the interplay between private and public regulation in South Africa’s apple and table grape industries impact on labour’s working and housing conditions. 

Publications

Visser M. 2019. “Preparing the Ground for Unrest: Private and Public Regulation of Labour in the Fresh-Fruit Global Value Chain”. In Value Chains in Sub-Saharan Africa Challenges of Integration into the Global Economy (pp: 167-183).  (Ed) Sören Scholvin S, Black A, Diez JR & Turok I. Springer.

Alford M, Barrientos S & Visser M.  2017. "Multi‐scalar Labour Agency in Global Production Networks: Contestation and Crisis in the South African Fruit Sector." Development and Change 48.4 (2017): 721-745.

Visser M & Godfrey S. 2017. “Are trade unions and NGOs leveraging social codes to improve working conditions? A study of two locally developed codes in the South African fruit and wine farming sectors.” Working Paper 29. Cape Town: Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS) and the DST-NRF Centre of Excellence in Food Security.

Barrientos S, Knorringa P, Evers B, Visser M & Opondo, M. 2016. Shifting regional dynamics of global value chains: Implications for economic and social upgrading in African horticulture. Environment and Planning A, 48(7), pp.1266-1283.

Visser M. 2016. Going nowhere fast? Changed working conditions on Western Cape fruit and wine farms: A state of knowledge review, Working Paper 41. Cape Town: Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS) and Centre of Excellence on Food Security.

Visser M & Ferrer S. 2015. Farm Workers' Living and Working Conditions in South Africa: Key Trends, Emergent Issues, and Underlying and Structural Problems. International Labour Organization.

Barrientos S & Visser M. 2012. South African horticulture: Opportunities and challenges for economic and social upgrading in value chains. Peer reviewed Working Paper 2012/12 published for Capturing the Gains network. Published online.

Visser, M, 2012. Sweeping changes? Organising and bargaining for the realisation of the rights of domestic workers. Seminar paper produced for Domestic Worker Research Project, University of the Western Cape. Available online.

Theron, J & Visser, M. 2012. Prospects for Decent Work in Agriculture. Working Paper for the Institute of Development and Labour Law.

Theron, J & Visser, M. 2012. Changing employment trends on farms in the Hex and Breede River valleys. Discussion document for the Cape Winelands District Municipality Roundtable Dialogue on trends in the rural economy.

Visser M. 2012. Farm Worker Equity Schemes in South Africa: Aspects of Land Reform in the Western Cape. Monograph 2/2010 for the Institute of Development and Labour Law, University of Cape Town.

Theron, J, Godfrey, S, with Visser, M. 2011. Keywords for a 21st Century Workplace. Monograph (November 2011) for the Institute of Development and Labour Law, University of Cape Town.

Theron, J & Visser, M. 2011. “Waste Management and the Workplace” in The Legal Empowerment Agenda: Poverty, Labour and the Informal Economy, (Ed) D. Banik, Ashgate: Surrey.

Theron, J & Visser, M. 2010:  Waste Management and the Workplace. Law, Democracy & Development: 14

Theron, J & Visser, M. 2010.  Part-time employment and the mall. Working Paper, Institute of Development and Labour Law, June 2010.

Visser, M. 2010. ‘Dial 0 for Complaints’: Taking a Closer Look at Call Centre. In “Work in South Africa in Society in Focus — Change, Challenge and Resistance, Reflections from South Africa and Beyond”. (Eds) L. Heinecken and H. Prozesky, Cambridge Scholars Publishing: Newcastle upon Tyne.

Visser, M & Theron, J. 2009. Waste not: Externalisation and the management of waste in Cape Town, Working Paper 12, PLAAS, Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies.

Theron, J & Visser, M. 2009. Remember me when your ship comes in: cooperatives and the need to shift from a wage culture. Monograph 1/2009. Institute for Development and Labour Law

Godfrey S, Theron J & Visser M. 2007. The State of Collective Bargaining in South Africa: An Empirical and Conceptual Study of Collective Bargaining. DPRU Working Paper 07/130

Theron J, Godfrey S & Visser M. 2007. Globalization, the impact of trade liberalization, and labour law: The case of South Africa. International Institute of Labour Studies. Available online.

Recent Conferences, Symposia and Workshops

Alford  M, Visser M & Barrientos S. 2019. Collaboration and contestation of standards in the global South: fruit and wine global production networks in South Africa. SASE Annual Conference, New York.

Visser M. 2018. How does the articulation between public and private regulation in GVC affect the working conditions of Western Cape fruit workers? SASE annual conference, Manchester, UK.

Visser M. 2017. Riding Codes: Worker Organisation’ knowledge of private codes and their ability to leverage them to improve labour conditions and workers’ bargaining power. Annual conference of SASE, Lyon, 2017.

Visser M.2016. Presentation to the South African Parliament on ILO report: Farm Workers’ Living and Working Conditions in South Africa: Key trends, emergent issues and underlying and structural problems.

Visser M. 2014: Farm Workers’ Living and Working Conditions in South Africa: Key trends, emergent issues and underlying and structural problems. Presentation. Land Tenure Summit hosted by the Department or Rural Development and Land Reform, 4 -6 September, Johannesburg.

Visser, M, 2013. Economic Restructuring of the Agricultural Sector.  Working Paper. Workshop on Farm Worker’s Living and Working Conditions, 19 September, School of Government, University of the Western Cape.