You Deserve to be Paid for Your Labor
When “Work Parties” become exploitative
The screenshot above is from a Facebook group of which I’m a member. The post comes from a smallish “urban farm” (large garden) in a Seattle neighborhood. Although I can’t speak to the intentions of the owners of said farm, it seems, to me, illustrative of disturbingly weird and exploitative arrangements often made in gardening/farming/Permaculture circles.
The arrangement works like this: a landholder/farmer/gardener puts out a call in some community advertising a “Work Party” or a “Learning Experience.” It might be an hour or two, or could even be a full-length 72-hour Permaculture Design Course (PDC). Participants are invited to come and work — often doing difficult manual labor like hardscaping or trench digging — in exchange for either “food” or “experience.”
Make no mistake about it: what the landowner/farmer/gardener is *really* getting out of the relationship is Free Labor.
Growing things can be difficult work. If you’re not receiving fair compensation for the work you’re doing, you’re being exploited. It may be inadvertent; the person hosting the Work Party really might think she is doing you a favor. Make no mistake, however: any amount of time spent in the garden or on a farm is worth more than a 4 oz. jar of pesto.
There are situations in which Work Parties can be mutually beneficial/can result in a fair exchange.
- You’re volunteering for a charitable cause and/or a well-established organization of some kind.
- You’re working with/for a good friend/family member.
- You have a mutual work agreement arranged beforehand (i.e. I will weed your garden this week, you will weed mine next).
- The value of the work accomplished is equal to the local fair market value. As an example, if you offer to work two hours in exchange for food, and your local fair market value for gardeners is $15/hr, you’d better receive $30 worth of food after the Work Party.
- You’re learning a new skill with proven value (in which case, you might consider taking actual classes from professional educators instead).
Even then, if you do decide to join in on one of these Work Parties, unless it’s with a friend or family member, be sure check in advance that whomever you’re working for has liability insurance in case of accident or injury. Even an hour of light gardening can kill your back.
Ultimately, what “fair compensation” means is up to you. Please, however, consider the kind of relationship you’re entering when you take advantage of one of these offers. Your time is valuable. The free labor you’re providing some landholder out of the goodness of your heart or because it gives you the feels is work that could go to a paid laborer who needs to do this kind of thing to feed her family.
Finally, if you’re a landholder or gardener who needs to hold “Work Parties” to keep afloat, or can’t afford to pay fair market value for the work done on your land, please consider getting into a new business. Expecting random people to do the work required to keep your garden or business afloat in exchange for pizza or a spoonful of pesto isn’t just illegal (unpaid internships are illegal if the intern will be doing work which would otherwise have been paid for by the employer), it’s unethical.
