DRAFT:

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 women are traditionally supposed to keep their presence at home while their husband worked, they wouldn’t need to enforce labor laws in the Maquiladoras if women never started working in the first place. However, in reality Mexican government should enforce labor laws in the maquiladoras because not all women are married, some are divorced while others may be single parents or widows. Undoubtedly, these women would be seeking a job to take care of themselves and family. They should be protected from what they are earning and have protection against discrimination that can lead them into poverty, 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 in the U.S.” However, after the program was lifted, it lead to many Mexicans unemployed. As the creation of Maquiladoras arise,  foreign investors “wanted a 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.” Unfortunately, in order for Maquiladoras ideas to come true, this was their fight against traditional views versus the Maquiladoras desire of cheap labor.  Convincing came through with persuasive advertising promoting women in the labor forces. As a result, women gradually joined labor forces, in hopes of earning and experiencing of what they’ve promoted 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 to preserve the foreign investors in the company. Higher wage proposed on a women salary leads to an “increase in cost” of employment, which isn’t “cheap”. 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 enfoce cheapest labor, especially on women. “Mexico’s Federal Labor Law emphasizes protecting both mother and child.38 This law requires that women be given twelve weeks of maternity leave at full pay and an optional sixty more days at fifty percent pay. 39 To avoid paying maternity leave employers administer pregnancy tests on female applicants and randomly test their female employees.4 ” If a woman is pregnant, she is either fired, not hired, or reassigned to a job that will make it difficult for her to work while she is pregnant, thus forcing her to quit. Mexican laws only require employers to pay maternity benefits to presently employed pregnant 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 they have to support their families and this seems to be the only way without any educational background. Without proper labor legislations enforced in the maquiladoras, women will still continue to be discriminated. One may think that businesses being operated by the U.S, must have ethical and equal legislation similar to the U.S.

Without proper legislation, women are not even allowed to join Labor forces 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. Not only that there has been times where women were conned out of their payment. Specifically called as marginalization of maquila women an example is “seen in what occurred with Booth Fisheries, a subsidiary of Sara Lee, in the summer of 1984. The plant sent its four hundred and seventy women workers on a two-week vacation. When 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 if they withdraw their claim, some had to withdraw from the cases early because they were not financially stable to continue fighting. By the time a proper settlement was made for the maquiladoras women only fifteen women were left who were still continued to fight. Women cannot even join labor union because they are threatened with losing their jobs, and they need their jobs in order to support their families especially if she is a single mother. “This happened to a Mexican woman worker for Clarostat, an American maquiladora. She 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”However, the Mexican government allows labor laws that discriminate women for hiring purposes. These laws even discourage women from joining labor unions; by joining a union women can face consequences that can cost their current employment status.

The reason for such discrimination towards women is the power men has in Mexico. “Since women are not in positions of power, it is difficult for women in Mexico to get laws changed or enforced. Until women are in positions of power, they are going to remain imposed upon and unprotected under the law” 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 domestic laws to that such of the U.S it is pretty much equally as good. For instances, “Mexican Constitution guarantees equal protection to both men and women” “Unlike the United States Constitution, the Mexican Constitution has social guarantees for Mexican workers, peasants and organizations.79” “Article 123 of the Mexican Constitution specifically guarantees to 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.°” These articles of the constitution are only protected within the employement options in mexico that does not deal with foriegners. “Article 123 prohibits employers from discriminating against women when they are pregnant.” if this was applied in the maquiladoras then women will not have to go through random pregnancy tests that can lead to losing their jobs if they are found to be pregnant. Not only that article 123 “The Constitution requires employers to provide pregnant women with one month paid leave prior to their delivery and an additional two months paid leave after delivery”

As many claim that men are the head of the household, women are actually becoming the main providers “While women are increasingly becoming the main providers for their families, they are still only paid as though they are temporary workers” the stereotypical idea of women staying home does not exist because women are taking up most of the predominant male jobs. So they should be protected due to the fact that the mexican constitution ensures the right to a minimum wage by the Mexican Federal Labor Law, states that minimum wage has to be sufficient enough to “sufficient to satisfy normal material, social or cultural needs of the head of the family and to provide for the compulsory education of his children.” clearly the maquiladoras do not abide by this rule because the minimum wage for women actually decrease to a pay of $0.80 per hour from $1.70. 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 constitutional articles in the maquiladoras is because of Mexico’s economic status after the Spain war. Mexico needed a way to industrialize and the only agreement it came down to was with foreign investors, with one condition, cheap labor.  A new introduction of jobs was the maquiladoras, without the maquiladoras millions of Mexicans would have been jobless. However, though 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, that does not help the economy and most women lose their jobs or not get paid because the maquiladoras find a way to cheat their payment to women who worked in the Maquiladoras. If some sort of legislation was forced upon that can give women more protection than many wouldn’t be living in poverty.

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 established after World War 1, this program established “develop international standards and promote international labor rights.” this organization includes the protection of working women too.

“As part of the pregnancy screening, maquiladoras ask the applicant invasive questions such as when she had her last menstruation, what birth control methods she uses, how many children she has, and the extent of her sexual. Activity.”

“-If a woman becomes pregnant after gaining employment at a maquiladora, she may be harassed, compelled to work more hours without breaks, assigned more strenuous work, or she may be forced to resign because of her pregnancy.”

“For example, when supervisors discover that one of their workers is pregnant, standard practice is to change the woman’s working conditions, sometimes forcing her to lift heavy boxes, or moving her into a smaller, less ventilated room so she becomes nauseous from inhaling chemical fumes”  the benefits of managers doing this is making her force to resign herself so they do not have to pay for her maternity leave. Some of this torture often leads to women having miscarriages. Although Mexican laws prohibits pregnancy discrimination it isn’t thoroughly applied in the Maquiladoras.