Women and Work in Mexico's Maquiladoras
Women and Work in Mexico's Maquiladoras

Author: Altha J. Cravey

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 1998

Total Pages: 194

ISBN-13: 9780847688869

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The emergence of global assembly plants is closely linked to the creation of a global female industrial labor force. Women and Work in Mexico's Maquiladoras examines this larger process in Mexico, where--despite a century of industrialization and a tradition of well-paid, highly organized, male workers--the maquiladora factories have turned to predominantly female labor. Exploring this dramatic shift, this book convincingly demonstrates how gender restructuring in workplaces and households has become a crucial element in the reorientation of Mexican development. The author compares Mexico's new industrial system with its historical antecedent and documents federal policy changes that have resulted in distinct patterns of gender, unionization, household form, and social welfare. Rich in ethnographic detail, the book uses the voices of workers themselves to provide an intimate look at how daily lives have been transformed--in ways that could not have been foreseen--by the national and international processes shaping the country's industrial transition.

Chihuahua's Missing Labor Movement
Chihuahua's Missing Labor Movement

Author: Alejandro Márquez Márquez

Publisher:

Published: 2013

Total Pages: 152

ISBN-13:

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The maquiladora industry was established in northern Mexico with the objective of providing employment opportunities to the growing population in the region. However, the terms of employment linked to the global economy limit the organizational capacity of workers to improve their working conditions. These terms shape an emotional habitus among maquiladora workers that prevents mobilization and reinforces a "hard-working" attitude predisposed to tolerate unsatisfactory labor relations concomitant with industrial deregulation. In my investigation, I analyze the emotional habitus of workers through cultural, productive, and political deregulation mechanisms employed in the sector. The cultural tool promotes a new labor philosophy focused on safeguarding employment sources in Mexico; production schemes individualize reward and punitive systems that are installed in constellations of local and international authoritative figures; and the political component prevents legitimate forms of organization through coopted labor unions. As a result, predispositions of workers to mobilize grievances in the maquiladora industry are unlikely. This report seeks to involve the social structures of emotions in discussions concerning political behavior and social movement literature.

The Maquiladora Reader
The Maquiladora Reader

Author: Rachael Kamel

Publisher:

Published: 1999

Total Pages: 148

ISBN-13:

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Contains 25 contributions which discuss living and working conditions in Mexican export processing zones; the emergence of union activism; and cross-border activities by trade unions to support the rights of workers in maquiladoras.

For We are Sold, I and My People
For We are Sold, I and My People

Author: Maria P. Fernandez-Kelly

Publisher: State University of New York Press

Published: 1984-06-30

Total Pages: 232

ISBN-13: 9781438402642

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On the basis of systematic research and personal experience, For We Are Sold, I and My People uncovers some of the social costs of modern production. Maria Patricia Fernandez-Kelly peels off the labels--"Made in Taiwan," "Assembled in Mexico"--and the trade names--RCA, Sony, General Motors, United Technologies, General Electric, Mattel, Chrysler, American Hospital Supply--to reveal the hidden human dimensions of present-day multinational manufacturing procedures. Focusing on Cuidad Juarez, located at the United States-Mexican border, Fernandez-Kelly examines the reality of maquiladoras, the hundreds of assembly plants that since the 1960s have been used by the Mexican government as part of its development strategy. Most maquiladoras function as subsidiaries of large U.S.-based corporations and a majority of the employees are women. Drawing from current knowledge in political economy and anthropology, this study focuses on one common denominator of the international division of labor--a growing proletariat of Third World women exploited by what some experts are calling "the global assembly line."

Mask of Democracy
Mask of Democracy

Author: Dan La Botz

Publisher:

Published: 1992

Total Pages: 244

ISBN-13:

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Based on field research carried out in 1990-1991 in urban areas, with particular reference to maquiladoras enterprises along the US- Mexican border. Comprises an introduction by former US Secretary of Labour Ray Marshall advocating trade-linked labour standards.

Desert Capitalism
Desert Capitalism

Author: Kathryn Kopinak

Publisher: University of Arizona Press

Published: 1996

Total Pages: 264

ISBN-13: 9780816515981

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Progress does not come easily to the maquiladoras. These foreign-owned assembly plants have moved southward from the border into Sonora and Chihuahua, giving rise to the concept of "desert capitalism." However, the plants have not necessarily brought about the improvements in the lives of workers that had been so hopefully expected. Sociologist Kathryn Kopinak here examines the maquiladora industry in Nogales, Sonora, and explores various questions concerning how it is changing with NAFTA and other attempts at regional integration. Focusing on the auto-parts industry, Kopinak observes that few maquiladoras have taken steps toward more sophisticated technology and innovative labor practices anticipated by the "second wave" hypothesis of modernization. She argues instead that the apparent advances have not benefitted the overwhelming majority of Mexican employees by increasing their wages or involving them in the workplace. Women workers in particular are segmented at the bottom of the job ladder. Kopinak provides information on facilities in both Nogales and the town of Imuris to offer a balanced perspective on border and inland maquiladoras. Desert Capitalism draws on interviews with workers about their daily lives in both their home and adopted communities and on interviews with Mexican and U.S. plant managers. Community surveys, newspaper advertisements, and government records are other important sources of data. It also reviews and synthesizes literature published only in Spanish and utilizes creative quantitative statistical techniques. The book thus marks a significant study of people's lives that seeks to contribute to the understanding of ongoing continental economic reorganization, and it holds important lessons for scholars of economics, anthropology, political science, history, sociology, women's studies, and regional planning.

Mexican Workers and the State
Mexican Workers and the State

Author: Norman Caulfield

Publisher:

Published: 1998

Total Pages: 200

ISBN-13:

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Almost eighty years before the implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), Ricardo Flores Magón--revolutionary, anarchist, labor organizer and expatriate nationalist--challenged the prevailing social order of both Mexico and the United States. Magón predicted that if Mexican workers failed to organize and shake off the yoke of capitalism, the nation would soon be dominated by foreign economic interests. And American workers, he warned, would find their firms and factories employing low-wage laborers in Mexico. Magón's message: "Mexico for Mexicans." Organized labor, however, would never gain a strong foothold in Mexico. Although the Constitution of 1917 guaranteed the right of workers to organize and strike, government restrictions, a historically unstable economy and meddling by the American interests (including the IWW and the AFL), combined to limit the effectiveness of Mexican unions. "Mexico for Mexicans," or working-class nationalism, was and is little more than rhetoric. In Mexican Workers and the State, historian Norman Caulfield traces the evolution of organized labor from its radical roots during the Mexican Revolution to its present status as a mere pawn in the game of Mexican politics. The implementation of NAFTA in 1993 has been beneficial to some (almost one million low-wage workers are employed in the maquila industries south of the border), but it has also aggravated the question of workers' rights. Outside industries continue to play an unsettling role in the vacillating Mexican economy. Ricardo Flores Magón's 1914 prediction was right. Mexico has become a haven for foreign interests. Material on which Mexican Workers and the State is based has won the Harvey Johnson Award from the Southwestern Council of Latin American Studies.