FINAL: 

Jahan Amrin

Professor Aisha Sidibe

FIQWS 10103

December 1, 2018

Gender Discrimination within the Maquiladoras

The Maquiladoras, controlled by a foreign company, predominantly employs Mexican workers who then export goods back to that same foreign company. In order to achieve economic prosperity, Mexico allows foreign investors into their nation. However, foreign investors favor cheap labor which can have a severe impact on Mexican workers. Mexican workers receive such low wages that they are kept at poverty level. In this case, women are the main target for cheap labor and inequality within labor forces. They are often discriminated during hiring processes solely based on their gender. Many people say that the Mexican government should not enforce labor laws in the Maquiladoras because this would cause the loss of foreign investment in Mexico’s economy and industry. This can also lead to the loss of many jobs that were created by the Maquiladoras, and how women should just look for jobs that are protected by the domestic laws in Mexico instead of working in the Maquiladoras. However, in reality Mexican government should enforce labor laws in the Maquiladoras because it is extremely hard for women to find jobs in Mexico, due to the unemployment status of millions of Mexicans after the war with Spain. The Maquiladoras itself was initially created to promote more job opportunities, and it was the main reason women decided to start working. Women should be protected against discrimination in the working field to prevent them from falling into poverty, unemployment, or a situation where they can’t afford the necessities to live.

During the 1970s, Maquiladoras was initially created to decrease the unemployment rate among men prior to the Bracero Program. The Bracero Program was established during the occurrence of World War 2, to fill in labor shortages by allowing Mexicans to work in the U.S. However, after the program was lifted, it resulted in many Mexicans being jobless and in poverty. As the establishment of the Maquiladoras arise, foreign investors wanted “cheap labor force, and they found it in one of Mexico’s untapped labor resources: women.” It was quite unbelievable on how Maquiladoras would allow women to work, because “before maquiladoras, women were expected to marry and raise a family while their husbands worked to support them.” In order for Maquiladoras ideas to come true, Maquiladoras had to fight against traditional views versus the Maquiladoras desire in cheap labor of women. Convincing came through with persuasive advertising promoting women in the labor forces. As a result, women gradually joined labor forces, in hopes of  expecting what the Maquiladoras advertised for.

Women who work within the Maquiladoras face gender discrimination such as inequality in employment and earnings all due to the inadequate international laws forced upon them. Women who fought for “their rights both domestically and internationally” were often denied in order for Mexico to preserve the foreign investors in the company. The idea of higher wage proposed on a women salary leads to an “increase in cost” of employment, which doesn’t reflect the idea of “cheap” labor. Despite the North Atlantic Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) which claims to protect women who work in the Maquiladoras lack the solutions to the issues that women are regarding to. The Mexican government allows discriminatory hiring processes that are used to ensure that the Maquiladoras are able to enforce the cheapest labor, especially on women. Regarding cheap labor and women, majority of working women within the Maquiladoras are kept at poverty level due to the extremely low minimum wage of $0.80 compared to their “U.S managers, who make six figures salaries and drive luxury cars.” However, these women cannot do anything about it because undoubtedly, these women would be seeking any job to take care of themselves and their family.

There has been times where women were conned out of their paychecks in other words  specifically called the marginalization of maquila women. For instance during the summer of 1984 in the company Booth Fisheries it allowed “four hundred and seventy women workers on a two-week vacation” After “the women returned from vacation they discovered that the plant had not only closed, but had also left Mexico without paying their mandated severance pay in violation of Mexico’s Federal Labor Law.” As a result, women tried filing lawsuits against these company and after one year they were only offered ten percent of their earnings only if they withdraw their claim, some of the women had to withdraw from the cases early because they were not financially stable enough to continue fighting. By the time a proper settlement was made for the working women in the Maquiladoras only fifteen women were left, who were still holding their lawsuit.

Mexico’s Federal Labor Law emphasizes the protection of mother’s and their children. This law requires gives women that “twelve weeks of maternity leave at full pay and an optional sixty more days at fifty percent pay.” To avoid paying maternity leave employers of the Maquiladoras created a policy of compelling pregnancy tests on female workers and randomly testing them every three months. In addition to pregnancy tests, they administers will ask personal questions regarding her menstruation, birth control use and her sexual activity level.  If they ever catch a women being pregnant, she will automatically be fired or forced to reassign by making her do difficult and incapable tasks often leading to miscarriages by the time she reassigns. The Mexican law “only require employers to pay maternity benefits to presently employed pregnant women. ” Although Mexican laws prohibits pregnancy discrimination it isn’t thoroughly applied in the Maquiladoras.

The reason for such discrimination towards women is the power that a male positions holds in Mexico. Since women are seen inferior to men “ it is difficult for women in Mexico to get laws changed or enforced.” In fact there is only about one law against sexual harassment other than that there is no law protecting women from harassment. This makes it extremely difficult for women to be stable in labor forces, with no protection for them. Though if you do compare the constitutional laws  of Mexico’s it is stronger than the laws of other countries. For instance, Mexico’s Constitution guaranteed “workers: the right to organize, a minimum wage that allows workers to have the normal necessities to live, and protection of women in the workforce.” This laws are only thoroughly applied with domestic companies that are in Mexico, and regulated by the Mexican government. If this laws were enforced in the Maquiladoras this would ensure the workers rights of both men and women.

As many claim that men are the head of the household, women are actually becoming the main providers for their families. However, they are still considered as a temporary worker and paid at that level. The stereotypical idea of women staying home while the husband works to provide for the family seems to be non-existent as time goes by because women are taking up most of the predominant male jobs. Protection is necessary among women due to the fact that the Mexican constitution ensures the right to a minimum wage which is supported by the Mexican Federal Labor Law. The Mexican Labor Law states that minimum wage has to be sufficient enough to “to satisfy normal material, social or cultural needs of the head of the family and to provide for the compulsory education of his children.” As it is clearly seen that women are gradually becoming the main providers of the family the Mexican Labor Law should enforce their laws upon the Maquiladoras for those satisfactory and necessities to be met.

Without proper legislation, women are not even allowed to join labor unions because U.S “companies pressures the government to inactively apply their  labor union laws.” That means, woman who do join labor unions are actively discouraged to withdraw from it. Women who do join labor unions are usually threatened of being fired from the job and later put into a list named as the black folder that holds the name of all the women who joined a labor union. A perfect example of a situation would be when a Mexican woman who was working for Clarostat, an American maquiladora, “attempted to organize a union among the workers and was fired from the plant. She found a new job at another American maquiladora, General Electric. Seven days after starting her new job, she was shown a list in a black folder, with her name on it, and told that since her name was on the list, they were going to have to fire her.” The problems with Mexico’s Labor Union is that the biggest Labor union that advocates for workers right is Mexican Workers Confederation but due to the fact that it has a relationship with Institutional Revolutionary Party, the “two organizations have led to government policies coming before workers’ interests.”

The reasons for the Mexican government to resist their appliance of their strong constitutional laws upon the Maquiladoras is because of Mexico’s economic status after the Spain war. Mexico needed a way to industrialize its economy and the only agreement it came down to was with foreign investors. However, the problem with foreign investors is that they will only invest if the government ensures their policy of cheap labor without any government interference. The Maquiladoras is the main introduction for new job opportunities, without the Maquiladoras millions of Mexicans would have been jobless. Although, it is true that Maquiladoras are “promoting” new jobs and “contributing” to the Mexican economy, there is so much evidence that rules out these ideas, such as women being paid low wages, women not having a secured job and being low paid doesn’t enhance the Mexican economy or promote prosperity within society. If majority of the legislation that the Mexican constitution proposes on its international company, this would result in less women living in poverty state.

Foreign investors isn’t the only way Mexico could have achieved economic prosperity, there were many other options Mexico could have chosen. A better substitute to the reliance of the foreign investors is to imply the Brettonwood agreement of 1945 which established a World Bank to aid damaged countries from the war, repair itself. The loans from the World Bank is a much better solution to the economic problems and the concern for industrialization in Mexico as long as Mexico follows the rules that are associated with the World Bank. Not only the World Bank can provide proper aid but the International Labor Organization that was also established after World War 1, can help “develop international standards and promote international labor rights.” The International Labor Organizations standards could’ve been enforced into the Maquiladoras to protect workers right and the protection of working women too.

 

Bibliography

 

• A. Maria Plumtree, Maquiladoras and Women Workers: The Marginalization of Women in Mexico as a Means to Economic Development, 6 Sw. J. L. & Trade Am. 177 (1999)
• Reka S. Koerner, Pregnancy Discrimination in Mexico: Has Mexico Complied with the North American Agreement on Labor Cooperation, 4 Tex. F. on C.L. & C.R. 235 (1999)
• Michelle Smith, Potential Solutions to the Problem of Pregnancy Discrimination in Maquiladoras Operated by U.S. Employers in Mexico, 13 Berkeley Women’s L.J. 195(1998)
• The Adverse Effects of Structural Adjustment on Working Women in Mexico by Diana Alarcón-González and Terry McKinley
• Making Fantasies Real: Producing Women and Men on the Maquila Shop Floor by Leslie Salzinger