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Women Workers in the Maquiladoras and the Debate on Global Labor

Standards
Edmé Domínguezab; Rosalba Icazac; Cirila Quinterod; Silvia Lópeze; Åsa Stenmana
a
School of Global Studies, University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden b Department of Political
Science, Linnaeus University, Sweden c Institute of Social Studies, The Netherlands d Dirección General
Regional Noreste, Colegio de la Frontera Norte, Matamoros, Tamaulipas, Mexico e Departamento de
Estudios de Población, Colegio de la Frontera Norte, Tijuana, B. California, Mexico
Online publication date: 22 December 2010
To cite this Article Domínguez, Edmé , Icaza, Rosalba , Quintero, Cirila , López, Silvia and Stenman, Åsa(2010) 'Women
Workers in the Maquiladoras and the Debate on Global Labor Standards', Feminist Economics, 16: 4, 185 — 209
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Feminist Economics 16(4), October 2010, 185–209
WOMEN WORKERS IN THE MAQUILADORAS

AND THE DEBATE ON GLOBAL LABOR
STANDARDS
Edmé Domı́nguez, Rosalba Icaza, Cirila Quintero, Silvia López, and

Åsa Stenman
ABSTRACT
This paper represents a collective contribution to an ongoing debate on the
Downloaded By: [Dominguez R., Edmé] At: 10:33 30 December 2010
benefits and disadvantages of export-based, industrial jobs for women as well as

on the implications of global labor standards on these types of jobs. On the basis
of extensive research on women in Mexico’s and Central America’s
maquiladoras (assembly plants that produce export goods), this paper aims to
problematize the viewpoints that present export-based, industrial jobs as
dignified alternatives for women in the South and to question the skepticism
about global labor standards as a possible alternative for improving work
conditions in all sectors producing for export. In so doing, the paper stresses
three interrelated issues: a) the relevance of local and regional contexts that
inform diverse industrialization paths over time, b) the agency the women
workers represent, and c) the legal instruments already existent in our common
efforts to improve working conditions.
K EY W O R D S
Export-oriented growth, women’s labor force participation, globalization, labor
standards, maquiladoras
JEL Codes: J8, J81, N76
W OM E N W O R K E R S I N M A Q U I L A D O R A S I N M E X I C O A N D
C E N T R A L A M E R I CA
Since the 1990s, we have seen an enormous proliferation of studies and
debates around the situation of women workers within globalization, their
struggles for rights, and strategies to enforce these rights. Some examples
of this debate are Naila Kabeer’s article in Feminist Economics in 2004 as well
as Elizabeth Fussell (2000), Christine M. Kogell (2003), and Ana
Bergareche (2006). Ajit Singh and Ann Zammit (2000), Anita Chan and
Robert J. S. Ross (2003), Stephanie Luce (2005), and Stephanie Barrientos
(2007a, 2007b) have also debated the advantages or shortcomings and risks
Feminist Economics ISSN 1354-5701 print/ISSN 1466-4372 online Ó 2010 IAFFE

http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals
DOI: 10.1080/13545701.2010.530603
ARTICLES
of international labor standards and other types of transnational strategies.

As a group of academics working on these themes in the contexts of Mexico
and Central America, we feel that a critical re-examination of these issues
is needed. Our views are also informed by our participation, from fall 2005
up to the end of 2009, in a virtual international seminar entitled
‘‘Globalization, Gender, and Citizenship,’’ which included scholars and
activists from Mexico, the United States, Canada, and Sweden.
Taking as points of departure the cases of maquiladoras (assembly
plants that produce goods for export) in Mexico and Central America, we
discuss alternatives to perspectives on the implications of export-based,
industrial jobs for women’s well-being, especially to those views that
emphasize the apparent benefits these jobs have for women. Moreover,
we emphasize the importance of learning more about the lives of women
workers and the extent to which export-based, industrial jobs may
contribute to their questioning of gender roles in the household and
elsewhere. Finally, we present some experiences of women organizing in

maquiladora export zones in Mexico and Central America and some
viewpoints on social clauses in trade treaties as well as on different
proposals to improve the situation of women workers.
Our objective is not so much to propose new alternative positions on
these issues, but rather to contribute to the dynamic and constructive
debate on the consequences of export-based, industrial jobs for women and
to consider the potential impact of social clauses and global labor standards
on the women working in maquiladoras.
M A Q U I L A JO B S : W O R K I N G W I T H D I G N IT Y A N D
E NH A N CI N G W O M E N’ S A U T O N O M Y ?
Some authors, in particular Linda Lim (1990) and Kabeer (2004), challenge
the negative descriptions of the conditions within garment factories
producing for export. Kabeer not only questions such negative images of
working conditions but also argues that this is the only option most women
have for ‘‘working with dignity’’ (2004: 4). For Lim (1990), these kinds of
jobs are a good alternative within the formal sector. Kabeer wants to stop
‘‘victimizing’’ these women and to have others recognize that these women’s
jobs are improving their sense of self-esteem and independence. We would
like to discuss two of the main arguments developed by Kabeer (2004) and
Lim (1990), in the context of the regions we study: first, that these jobs are
good alternatives to informal work and, second, that they have a beneficial
effect on women’s autonomy and self-esteem.
Even though globalization and the transnationalization of capital have
increasingly and more intensely created common patterns among distant
localities, it is rather problematic to assume that the Bangladeshi or other
Asian export industrialization experiences could be similar to those of
186
Mexico or Central America. For example, the Mexican maquiladora

sector was initiated during the 1960s, while Bangladesh and Central
America have more recent experiences of industrialization. Mexico
already had a traditional industrial sector (mining, iron, steel, light
industry, and textiles), which maquiladoras competed with, but the
opening of the Mexican economy in the 1980s affected this sector (Kevin
J. Middlebrook and Eduardo Zepeda 2003). In the case of Central
America, maquiladoras did not start to flourish until the late 1980s and
have predominantly developed within the textile sector and apparel
industries. As we shall see, this focus has made working conditions and
salaries there even worse than in maquiladoras on the Mexican border
(Ralph Armbruster-Sandoval 2005).
Moreover, to study the possibilities for enhancing women’s autonomy,
long-term patterns of industrialization are certainly important, but differing
profiles of women workers also impact these efforts. For example, Fussell’s
well-documented analysis indicates that, during the 1970s, several studies

focusing on maquiladoras on the Mexico–US border found that workers
were ‘‘young, single, childless, and relatively more educated migrant
women’’ (2000: 65). Employers chose these workers because of their
dexterity and presumed docility (Susan Tiano 1994; Fussell 2000).
However, the work force started to change after 1982, when the general
profile became mostly married, middle-aged women (apparently as docile
as the younger women before), and men. Later, as production became
more technologically sophisticated, companies switched to hiring mainly
men, with a significant defeminization of the maquiladora labor force
(Fussell 2000; de la O Martı́nez 2004; Quintero and Dragustinovis 2006).
From being about 80 percent of Mexico’s total maquiladora labor force
during the 1980s (INEGI 1991), by 2006 women constituted 58.8 percent of
this labor force and men 41.2 percent, especially in the areas of transport
equipment, electronics, automobiles, and plastics (INEGI 2007). However,
this trend and the proportions of men and women within the maquila
industries vary according to the region within Mexico. For example, in the
northeast border town of Matamoros, women constituted 53.6 percent of
the work force in 2005 (INEGI 2005). At 53.4 percent of factory operatives
in Matamoros in 2007, women also continue to outnumber men in this
specific area (Kristen Marie Petros 2007: 34).
Apparently hiring practices in Mexico’s maquiladoras reflect the
changing images of the ‘‘ideal worker’’ (Helene Safa 2002; Susan Tiano
2006). Married women are increasingly perceived as better workers
‘‘because they [are] more mature, reliable, and less apt to jump from job
to job than single women’’ (Tiano 2006: 80). Employers justify their hiring
practices by stating that they are helping to strengthen Mexican families by
hiring married women who contribute to supporting their children. Thus,
employers continue their patriarchal practices of defining women workers
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in relation to their reproductive roles, and use these patriarchal

conceptions to employ a maquiladora workforce that is more
vulnerable and docile than the earlier cohort was. The income of
young girls who enter the labor market without household
responsibilities may in some cases be regarded as a source of
increased independence, as the interviews among such young women
carried out by Petros (2007) and Quintero and Dragustinovis (2006)
evidence. However, the same studies point out that single or married
mothers cannot be presumed to be able to achieve the same autonomy
due to their family responsibilities, usually strongly embedded in cultural
norms. For example, the fieldwork of Petros (2007) and Quintero and
Dragustinovis (2006) in the eastern part of the Northern Mexican
border shows that although many factory women learn to appreciate and
value their roles as workers, they still experience a large responsibility as
mothers and or family providers.
The work of Quintero and Dragustinovis (2006) in Matamoros showed

how the trade union leadership’s and factory management’s intrinsic
association of women workers with their mother or daughter roles
subordinated such workers, even those who were the primary providers
for their families, as merely trade union members (rather than eligible for
the trade union hierarchy) and workers on the factory floor. Thus, rather
than changing their traditional roles, these women experienced a double
burden attached to more responsibilities.
In the case of Central America (with the possible exception of Costa
Rica), maquiladora industries, concentrated in the textile sector, employ
predominantly women, although some trends of masculinization of the
labor force are also visible. The case of El Salvador is very illustrative of the
situation in the rest of this region: most maquila workers are young women
between 16 and 30 years old. Although in recent years more men are being
recruited as maquila workers, in the mid-1990s, women represented about
78 percent of all maquila workers and 87 percent of all women in the labor
force, and in 2008, around 80 percent of women in the labor force
(Informe 2005; IFPRI 2008). About 50 percent of these women were single
mothers (Maria Rosa Renzi 2004; Marı́a Eugenia Trejos 2004; Armbruster-
Sandoval 2005; Angela Aurora Peña Hena 2005; Informe 2005). Studies
also show that gender relations are, in general, the same as before women
became maquiladora workers in Central America. Instead of representing a
way of enhancing themselves, the income women earn in the maquiladoras
seems only a means of economic survival that rarely permits them to
question the patriarchal gender order (G. Gloria Marı́a Araque and V.
Adriana Ospina 2008; Åsa Stenman 2010). Moreover, this patriarchal order
is replicated on the factory floor, as several studies have pointed out (see
Peña Hena [2005]; Susan A. Berger [2006]; Edmé Domı́nguez and Cirila
Quintero [2010]).
188
Discussions about the consequences of Mexico and Central America’s

maquiladora employment for women’s self-enhancement are not new. The
debate between the integration (Lim 1981) and the exploitation theses
(Marı́a Patricia Fernández-Kelly 1983; Annette Fuentes and Barbara
Ehrenreich 1983) is already well known. According to the integration
theses, women workers with industrial, export-based jobs in the formal
sector would become winners in the long run as their salaries would
increase and their working conditions improve following a rapid growth of
export-oriented production. The exploitation theses emphasized the
negative conditions in these jobs and the fact that the competition
between low-wage production zones would lead to the deterioration of,
instead of the improvement of, salaries and working conditions for these
women workers. Studies from the 1980s relate women’s enhancement to
such factors as age, marital status, household headship, and exposure to
political and social organizations (Kathleen Staudt 1986; Gay Young 1987).
These variables are used by Tiano (1994) to elaborate a typology of how

women’s consciousness about gender subordination develops. Kogell
(2003) observes how insufficient it is to look only at women’s increased
participation in the labor force; instead, we must take into account the
obstacles to freedom and agency these women confront and acknowledge
these as obstacles coming from the intersections of the global and the local
context in the form of social practices and political institutions.
More recent studies show the importance of factors like those above,
together with women’s solidarity and participation in labor or other kinds
of organizations and consciousness-raising groups, in the transformation of
gender roles among maquiladora workers (Bergareche 2006). These
studies show that the combination of several factors along with the
maquiladora working experience is a source of gender awakening or at
least of work satisfaction. Experiences from field work in the northeastern
border of Mexico show, for example, that in the case of Matamoros, the
presence of a well-established trade union that procured the well-being of
women workers and encouraged their trade union participation during the
1990s helped them appreciate their value as workers and feel a certain
sense of self-fulfillment, even if many material demands were still
unsatisfied and the trade union structures allowed for a very
limited presence of women within the leadership group (Quintero and
Dragustinovis 2006). Petros (2007) also found a certain sense of satisfaction
among migrant worker women in Reynosa who managed to obtain some
material advantages (like buying a small house), which seemed significant
in comparison to the conditions of material scarcity in which they had
lived in the countryside. However, adverse circumstances like the
economic crises in 2001 and 200778 may turn this satisfaction into
frustration and deep unrest, as recent observations among women
workers in Matamoros have shown (Domı́nguez and Quintero 2010).
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Interviews among women workers in El Salvador show similar patterns of

enhancement or frustration depending on the factors mentioned above,
as we shall see regarding the issues of working conditions and wages
(Domı́nguez and Quintero 2010).
LOW WAGES AND BAD WORKING CONDITIONS: THE PRICE

T O PA Y ?
Lim (1990) and Kabeer (2004) argue that wages and working conditions
are better in the export industry than in other job opportunities available to
women with low education and income. Several observations have been
made in Mexico and Central America that seem to at least partially
contradict or complicate this argument. Some women working in the
maquilas rank their jobs as better than being a domestic employee (maid),
but they also have negative experiences of bad working conditions and
limited possibilities to take action to change these conditions without losing

their jobs (Janina Fernández and Carolina Quinteros 2007; Stenman 2010).
In the case of Central America, the 2006 annual survey of the International
Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) for the Americas states that
multinational corporations based in export processing zones have a
considerably worse record of violating labor rights than other sectors.
In Mexico, where the harsh conditions of maquiladora work have been
well documented since the 1990s (ILO 1991, 2005), there are several
examples of women workers preferring maquiladora work to agricultural or
informal sector work (Martı́n A. Barrios Hernández and Rodrigo S.
Hernández 2003; Quintero and Dragustinovis 2006; Petros 2007). However,
we have to remember that the informal sector is heterogeneous and
depends on the structure of opportunities that characterizes each labor
market. For instance, in the interior city of Torreón, where there was an
increasing proportion of women working in the garment industry,
informality within domestic work and small business became acceptable
options when the 2001 economic recession in the United States closed
down most of the factories in the region. In earlier economic crises, such as
the one that occurred after the 1994 peso devaluation, Mexican border
cities like Tijuana, Ciudad Juárez, Matamoros, and Nuevo Laredo showed
increased informal work, especially among women (Marie-Laure Coubes
2003). Moreover, in many of the border cities in northern Mexico, informal
jobs compete with export industry jobs in terms of wages, and many women
choose to work informally. Several interviews conducted in some of these
cities have shown that many women who are former maquiladora workers
have preferred to start small enterprises of their own (such as beauty
parlors) rather than continuing to work for a maquiladora, for both
financial and health reasons.1 For example, as Silvia López Estrada and
Gerardo Ordoñez’s fieldwork in the area has shown, a woman might earn
190
1,500 pesos (US$137.61) per week as a domestic worker or in self-

employment, while a maquiladora worker earns 600 pesos (US$59.63) per
week (2006). Moreover, the salaries in most maquila industries do not
exceed the minimum salary, which is considered completely insufficient to
cover the basic basket needs (Ruth Rosenbaum 2001).
Interviews among women maquiladora workers during the summer of
20092 revealed that most of them earned US$146 per month in the
maquila, which is lower than the Mexican minimum wage of US$174 in the
industrial sector as a whole (see UNDP 2008). Their ordinary working
hours were nine hours during the weekdays and four on Saturdays.
However, daily working schedules of twelve hours were not uncommon, as
most of the women needed to work extra hours in order to increase their
pay and cover the basic needs of their families (Red Regional de Monitoreo
del CAFTA-DR, Capı́tulo El Salvador 2008). The alternative jobs for most of
maquiladora workers were informal trade or domestic work. For example,
some of the interviewed women had formal (legal) stands at the municipal
market, and they claimed to earn more than the maquila workers with the
advantage of having a steady inflow of money every day instead of a
paycheck every fifteen days. The group of interviewed maquila women
workers also included several who had chosen to quit their maquila job or
not look for a new job when they were fired, and nearly all those
interviewed would prefer their daughters not to work as maquiladora
workers if they could avoid it. As arguments for leaving the maquila, they
adduced harsh working conditions, long working hours, and low salaries.
But the decision to leave the maquila often coincided with receiving a
relatively stable extra income, such as migrant remittances from a daughter
or son or a small pension from a deceased husband (Diana Santillán and
Marı́a Eugenia Ulfe 2006; Stenman 2010).
Although these income differences between formal and informal jobs
may not be generalized to the whole Mexican border area, nor to all of
Central America, it is well known that maquiladora salaries are so low that
they are insufficient to cover basic needs, and workers have to complement
them with informal work (Informe 2005; Red Regional 2008).3 And even if
there may be other advantages than salaries in the form of medical
insurance and other security and monetary benefits (such as bonuses), we
believe that it is important to contextualize and problematize women’s
choices between the maquiladora and the informal sector. As we have
mentioned, the bad working conditions and the comparably low wages in
the maquiladoras might make women choose other alternatives in the
informal sector. However, it would be important to question how ‘‘free’’
this choice is. Most women would probably argue that their first choice
would be formal employment with a decent paycheck and social security
benefits. These women are simply making the best possible choices in a
segmented and discriminating labor market.
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In a comparative analysis of China and Mexico, Chan and Ross (2003)

pointed out that the problem of the widespread violation of labor rights
and low wages not only remains unsolved, but also increases as the race to
the bottom continues in the search of the cheapest and most docile labor in
order to maximize profits.4 Chan and Ross (2003) argued that the growth
of employment in China and Mexico has not translated into higher wages.
On the contrary, minimum wages have deteriorated in relation to their real
purchasing power. A similar argument is found in Fussell (2000), who
concluded that even though the international competitiveness of export
manufacturing in Mexico had improved, wages in the same sector declined
over time, reflecting a race to the bottom as a consequence of the
globalization of production.
Studies in the Mexican border area as well as in Central Mexico (Gloria
Tello Sánchez 2003; Barrios Hernández and Hernández 2003; Huberto
Juárez 2004; Maquilapolis [City of Factories] 2006) have also revealed not only
poor wages, but also extremely poor living conditions and serious
environmental problems that are reflected in the workers’ health. Most
workers live in poor housing in slum areas that lack infrastructure, where
schools and hospitals are quite scarce, and where drug-related violence is
common. This scenario contrasts with the neighboring export-processing
zones (EPZs), which have modern infrastructure and machinery. Moreover,
many of the female workers are heads of households, and in everyday life,
they face the multiple social, economic, and environmental problems of
living in communities located close to these industrial parks.5 In the case of
the garment industry in Mexico, those sites in which this industry is
established particularly face the problem of scarce water resources due to
extensive industrial use of water, which affects not only the communities of
factory workers but also the population in general (Tello Sánchez
2003; Juárez 2004). The environmental and health problems that
Central American workers face have also been widely documented and
corroborated by our own fieldwork in El Salvador (see also Informe 2005;
Peña Hena 2005; ICFTU 2006).
We must also take into account that working conditions constantly
change in response to economic cycles and thus affect the bargaining
power of labor. One example is the case of the maquiladora workers in
the garment industry in the Lagunera region of northern Mexico. During
the early 1990s, this region became the new ‘‘blue jeans capital’’ when
some of the most important companies dealing with garment production
moved from Los Angeles to Torreón and Gómez Palacio, and 75,000 jobs
were created offering higher wages and better working conditions than
elsewhere in the border area (Gary Gereffi, Martha Martı́nez, and
Jennifer Bair 2002). However, this situation changed rapidly: the
economic recession in the US in 2001 meant a massive loss of 35,000
jobs. The favorable bargaining position of the workers was lost, salaries
192
went down, and working conditions generally deteriorated (Silvia López

Estrada 2005). This situation illustrates, at least partially, Fussell’s (2000)
argument that in the long run maquiladoras have not improved the wages
and working conditions they offer women, as Lim (1990) argued some
time ago. Moreover, it also illustrates how formal jobs’ advantages
obtained during boom periods are easily reversed during harsh economic
cycles.
Several studies from the mid-1980s to 2006 in Mexico and Central
America have shown clear examples of sexual harassment by managers and
supervisors, such as touching and inappropriate sexual comments (Norma
Iglesias Prieto 1985/1997; Maquila Solidarity Network 2003; Leslie
Salzinger 2003; Alex Covarrubias and Gabriela Grijalva 2004; Renzi 2004;
Marie-France Labrecque 2006). In their 2004 study carried out in Sonora
(northern Mexico), Covarrubias and Grijalva found that one out of five
workers were victims of sexual harassment not only by supervisors and
managers but also by their male co-workers. In general, the experiences

from Mexico and Central America show that even if there are cases of
women who use their sexuality as a way of improving their working
positions (as mentioned in Kabeer 2004), the reasons behind such
decisions should be seriously analyzed. Moreover, it should be recognized
that for an overwhelming majority of these women, sexual harassment is a
factor that worsens their daily working conditions within the factories, often
forcing them to quit their jobs (see, for example, Jule Alvarenga and
Elizabeth Ligia [2001]; Armbruster-Sandoval [2005]; ICFTU [2006]; Red
Regional [2008]). Besides harassment, the Maquila Solidarity Network
(2003) also reported the use of pregnancy tests as a common practice
among maquiladoras in Mexico and Honduras in order to avoid employing
pregnant women and deter already employed women from becoming
pregnant; this practice seems to continue all over Central America
(Informe 2005).6
Moreover, women are increasingly facing the problem of extreme
violence, in the form of systematic killing that often includes torture or
feminicidios. The case of Ciudad Juárez has been very well documented by
several international reports (Amnesty International 2003). Unfortunately
these types of killings, which in Ciudad Juárez include several maquiladora
workers among their victims, are also becoming common in other
maquiladora countries in Central America (Informe 2005:12; Marina
Prieto-Carrión, Marilyn Thomson, and Mandy Macdonald 2007). Deborah
Weissman (2005), among others, has investigated the Juárez case and
pointed to a correlation between trade liberalization, the development of
the maquiladora industry, and the feminicides in Ciudad Juárez.
This violence seems to have spread to the regions of origin of the
workers, as Lorenzo Blanco and Sandra M. Villa have shown in the case of
Veracruz (2008). Blanco and Villa also show how the improved economic
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status of women challenges the traditional gender relations in a society and

might, under certain conditions, provoke violence against these women or
groups of women.
The problems of sexual harassment, control over women within the
factory, and extreme systematic physical violence against women workers
are, as far as we know, worldwide phenomena. It is rather difficult to tackle
them because they are the expression of a widespread gender ideology that
undervalues women in general and women workers in particular. Thus, the
problem is not only a question of exploitative wages but of open disdain for
women workers.
W O M E N W O R K E R ’ S A G E N C Y : T O W A R D N E W F O R M S OF
M O B IL I Z A T IO N
As experience has shown, traditional unions’ ability to defend women’s
rights in developing countries is rather weak (Sergio Sánchez 2000;

Rachel K. Brickner 2006). In the case of Mexico, there is the paradox of
a strong trade-union experience in past stages of industrialization (not
related to maquiladora production) and a clear trend toward flexibility –
that is, a loss of previous gains that unions had attained in most
formal jobs and in the maquiladoras in particular. Unions, wherever they
existed, have become weaker. Quintero and Dragustinovis’s research
has documented this increased flexibility regarding working conditions
and that neither corporative/traditional unions nor the employer-
sponsored or subordinate ones, which may exist only on paper, have
ever taken a serious interest in, or actively promoted, women workers’
rights or conditions (2006).7 Jennifer Bickham Mendez (2005),
Armbruster-Sandoval (2005), Domı́nguez and Quintero (2010), and
Stenman (2010) have recorded similar experiences in Central American
countries.
However, we should not underestimate the organizing potential of
women workers themselves. Our experiences in Mexico and Central
America show that in the absence of active or responsive unions, other sorts
of activism mostly associated with NGOs and transnational solidarity
networks have developed since the end of the 1980s, coinciding with
preparations for the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).
Along the northern Mexico border, these sorts of organizations include the
Coalition for Justice in Maquiladoras (CJM); the Comité Fronterizo de
Obreras, the Border Committee of Female Workers (CFO); Servicio,
Desarrollo, y Paz, AC (SEDEPAC); and until recently, Factor X, among
others. These organizations are coordinated with transnational networks
such as the Maquiladora Solidarity Network (Canada) and with American
and Canadian trade unions (Joe Bandy 2004; Edmé Domı́nguez 2007).
Although such organizations and their networks have had rather mixed
194
outcomes confronting multinational companies, their overall success in

relation to women’s capacity-building is rather impressive.8
In Central America, there have been several organizing efforts, and there
is a good mobilization potential. Although the empirical evidence shows
very strongly that anti-union attitudes and active resistance from private
companies have discouraged the formation of unions, NGOs have also
been active in organizing labor in this region.9 Moreover, according to
evidence gathered from our recent fieldwork in El Salvador, some unions
have started helping women workers in the maquiladora zones to organize.
Some productive cooperation is taking place between feminist NGOs and
some trade union federations. Even coordination efforts aimed at
defending women workers’ rights are taking place, as the Concertación
por un Empleo Digno en la Maquila (CEDM) in El Salvador shows.10 Both
in Nicaragua and in Honduras, we can also see several examples of NGOs
organizing labor (Armbruster-Sandoval 2005; Mendez 2005).
The experiences of these groups are mixed, but an important part of

their mission is to denounce the bad working conditions and wages these
women workers endure and to find mechanisms to improve such
conditions including capacity-building, training, and providing
information on women’s and workers’ rights. A very important tool in
the realization of these tasks is transnational solidarity, an indirect
consequence of free trade integration models, which has made it possible
for many women workers to articulate their demands and platforms in a
way that goes well beyond just defending their jobs.11
L A B O R ST A N D A R D S , C O D E S O F C O N D U C T , A N D
‘ ‘ C O M M O N F L O O R ’ ’ A S A L T E R NA T I V E S : V I E W S F R O M
G R A S S R O O T S OR G A N I Z I N G E X P E R I E N C E S
There is a worldwide discussion as to how to enhance core labor rights
(processes) and improve labor standards (outcomes) (Luce 2005;
Barrientos 2007a, 2007b).12 The inclusion of rights and standards in
trade agreements or other compulsive frameworks has led to continuing
controversy. We argue that a North–South dichotomization (‘‘the industrial
rich North wants labor standards and the poor developing South opposes
them’’) fails to grasp a more complex reality (Ajit Singh and Ann Zammit
2003; Kabeer 2004). According to Chan and Ross (2003) and Luce (2005),
support for or opposition to these labor standards does not necessarily
follow a North–South alignment. In the South, some unions (in South
Africa and some countries in Latin America), NGOs, workers, and even
governments support ‘‘hard law’’ labor standards (Luce 2005). Other
organizations supporting the implementation of social clauses are
international unions, like the ICFTU, which represents 226 unions in 148
countries, including nineteen from developing countries that have
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explicitly expressed their support for a social clause regulating labor rights
in the World Trade Organization (WTO) agreement (Chan and Ross
2003).13 Governments in the South, Northern banks, multinationals, and
employers, together with many workers in the South, have favored
unrestricted trade without any labor standards, while some Western
governments and Northern and Southern NGOs dealing with labor and
human rights issues, several trade unions and many workers in the South do
support such global social clauses (Chan and Ross 2003; Ian Thomas
MacDonald 2003; Luce 2005). Some authors like Kabeer (2004) and Singh
and Zammit (2003) point out the desirability of labor standards but are
worried about the risks of their inclusion in compulsory international
frameworks, like trade treaties.
We argue that linking trade to labor standards is not always negative. To
illustrate the problem with dichotomization and these unexpected results
of linking, we highlight the case of NAFTA and its parallel agreement, the
North American Agreement on Labor Cooperation (NAALC). Although

the NAALC has been seen as a concession from former President Clinton
to neutralize American organized labor’s rejection of NAFTA, its support
and opposition did not follow the North–South divide. Canadian unions
rejected the agreement, considering it ineffective, and Mexican corporatist
government-controlled unions did the same, though ‘‘out of fears that it
would actually succeed in enforcing Mexico’s progressive labor legislation
and undermine the federation’s corporatist privileges’’ (MacDonald 2003:
181).14 On the other hand, Mexican independent trade-union movements
and labor organizations, like Federación de Sindicatos de Empresas de
Bienes y Servicios (FESEBES) and Frente Auténtico del Trabajo (FAT)
welcomed the NAALC, seeing it as a potential tool in their struggles for
workers’ rights against government abuses (Graciela Bensusan 2002; David
Brooks and Jonathan Fox 2002; MacDonald 2003). Interestingly, in Mexico,
a country that has low rates of law enforcement, an international regime
was seen as a good step toward pressuring national authorities to comply
with better standards.
As different voices have pointed out, the problem with the NAALC has
not been its use as a protectionist tool but the failure to implement it.
Formally, according to a Human Rights Watch report, it is ‘‘the most
ambitious link between labor rights and trade ever implemented’’ (Kim
Moody 1997: 71). The NAALC urges its member countries to comply with
their respective labor laws according to eleven core principles, largely
corresponding to the core conventions of the ILO, that include the rights
of association and organization, the right to strike, minimum employment
standards, equal pay for men and women, and the protection of
migrant workers (CLC 1994). In spite of the fact that the NAALC also
established detailed procedures for responding to labor rights
violations, the implementation record of this agreement is extremely
196
poor. Understandably, many labor activists have filed complaints against

the NAALC, depicting it as a paper tiger and regarding it as ‘‘soft’’ instead
of ‘‘hard’’ law (Brooks and Fox 2002; MacDonald 2003). In spite of this
failure, the controversy surrounding the NAALC does not concern its
existence but how to make it work for the workers’ benefit. Moreover, such
frustration has accelerated the establishment of cross-border alliances of
interested parties (unions and labor organizations as well as solidarity
groups) in a process of contestation that can be depicted as ‘‘governance
from below’’ (MacDonald 2003: 173).15 Within this process we see alliances
between unions of the three NAFTA member countries, like the Dana
alliance gathering the United Electrical Workers (UE), the International
Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT), the Union of Needleworkers, Industrial,
and Textile Employees (UNITE), the United Paperworkers International
Union (UPIU), the United Steelworkers (USW), the United Autoworkers
(UAW), the Canadian Autoworkers (CAW), the International Association
of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM), and the FAT (MacDonald

2003). In addition, NGO coalitions like the CJM, mentioned above, gather
organizations from Canada, Mexico, and the US and develop diverse tactics
and strategies (including educational training on rights and on union
organizing, juridical support in suing the companies, contacts with
shareholders, etc.) to address the workers’ struggles for their rights. The
success of these organizations should not be measured in their victories
against multinational companies but in their skill in training workers,
including women, in the defense of their rights (Domı́nguez 2002, 2007;
Bandy 2004; Bergareche 2006).
Similarly, Luce (2005) presents the case of workers in Central America
building international campaigns to fight unfair treatment, under the US
Generalized System of Preferences (GSP).16 This GSP framework was
used by the workers of Sindicato de Trabajadores de Bananeros de
Izabal (SITRABI) who, together with a US-based NGO, United States
Labor Education in the Americas Project (USLEAP), threatened the
Guatemalan government with trade sanctions, thus forcing it to press
the Del Monte corporation to reinstate fired workers. Similar cases of
the use of GSP alongside other tactics have been seen in Nicaragua and
Honduras in 1997–9 (Luce 2005). In all these cases, transnational
campaigns involving support and solidarity from unions and NGOs in
the US have been important in redirecting local dynamics and
responses. Moreover, as Luce and other authors underline, it is crucial
that in addition to the existence of international regulations and the
threat of sanctions, the affected workers have a leading voice in the
campaigns and that they be represented by democratic unions (Luce
2005; Domı́nguez 2007). In all these campaigns previously fired workers
were reinstated, the unions have been recognized, and wage and benefit
cuts have been avoided.
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Another way to address labor standards has been the use of codes of
conduct. As Luce (2005) and Barrientos (2007a) have described it, there
are two sorts of codes: voluntary corporate codes and negotiated codes or
multi-stakeholder initiatives like the Ethical Trade Initiative (ETI ) in the
United Kingdom. However, the effectiveness of codes of conduct is
questionable. According to Barrientos (2007a, 2007b), even though codes
may direct behavior at a deeper level in production networks than social
clauses can, they are still a top-down and paternalist approach that
suppliers see as a condition for receiving orders, not as a recognition of
workers’ rights. Barrientos (2007a, 2007b) assesses both types of labor
codes and concludes that although multiple-stakeholder initiatives like
the ETI have better performance because they provide a possibility of
collaboration between companies, trade unions, and NGOs, their impact,
when there is one, is more on outcome standards, such as health and
safety provisions, the reductions of working hours, or increased wages,
than on process rights, such as freedom of association or the right to

collective bargaining (Barrientos 2007a). Moreover, she relates this
limited impact to the ‘‘double standards’’ of corporations whose
purchasing practices undermine their compliance with any labor codes
(Barrientos 2007b).
Manuela Wolf Herrera, Lucas Bernal Mármol, and Carlos Alberto
Martı́nez (2003), as well as our own fieldwork in El Salvador during 2009,
point to the same shortcomings of corporate labor codes regarding
maquiladoras in Central America. Moreover, in the absence of trade unions
or other labor organizations, many workers have no knowledge of the
existence of such codes, and monitoring often misses such issues as
discrimination, sexual harassment, and the lack of access to maternity leave
or childcare (Barrientos 2007b; Domı́nguez and Quintero 2010). Many
such disadvantages can be found in the case of northern Mexico, where
certain companies enforce the codes only when they expect an inspector’s
visit (Gereffi, Martı́nez, and Bair 2002).
For some trade union leaders in Mexico, like Rosario Ortiz, from the Red
de Mujeres Sindicalistas de México (RMSM), corporate labor codes are
only rhetorical appraisals of justice and labor standards that were privately
negotiated and enforced without workers’ involvement and replace the
enforcement of national labor legislation.17 According to Ortiz, these codes
are disguised forms of manipulation that legitimize the companies’ control,
imposed from the top down in the same way the productivity standards
were imposed some years ago. Even if the codes succeeded in improving
working conditions, there is no guarantee that such improvements would
last, since the company unilaterally determines their enforcement.18
Finally, such codes could result in reducing labor rights to the minimum
level, instead of forcing maquiladoras to comply with existing labor laws
and the ILO key conventions.
198
As an alternative, to move beyond codes of conduct, the competitive

advantage framework and the ILO have formulated the strategy of decent
work. This strategy tries to go beyond just improving formal working
conditions to encompass social protection (involving several actors and
including reproductive work) and a dialogue that includes all kinds of
organizations not formally linked with labor, for example, women’s
organizations (Barrientos 2007a, 2007b).19
Finally, ideas of a common universal social floor or a basic citizen income
for everyone as a solution to poverty in developing countries have been
proposed as an alternative to global labor standards and social clauses. This
idea builds in redistributive cash transfers and a basic income for citizens,
covering basic needs (health, education, food) following the patterns of
most developing countries (Judith Tendler 2000; Stephen Devereux 2002;
Kabeer 2004). However, such a framework fails to sufficiently problematize
the gendered nature of a common floor. We believe that pre-existing
gendered social structures, though not fixed, would act as constraints for
turning a universal material basis into a transformative experience for
women. Even if a universal material basis is achieved for all sectors of
society, one cannot assume that complex material, cultural, and ideational
structures of inequality and exploitation would start to fade away.
Moreover, it is uncertain that a common social floor is a ‘‘win–win’’
situation for women in general.
Although the idea of a common social floor is not the same as the limited
cash transfer programs we see today, it is useful to see how these have
performed as such programs form the principle on which a general social
floor would build. According to Maxine Molyneux (2006), who takes the
example of the ‘‘Oportunidades’’ program in Mexico, such schemes are
problematic from a gender perspective because they have increased
women’s daily burdens by giving them the main responsibility for resource
allocation within the family, ensuring children’s attendance at school, and
performing volunteer work.20 Moreover, traditional gender structures are
not questioned, as Molyneux (2006) and Silvia López Estrada and Gerardo
Ordoñez (2006) have shown.21 Thus, gendered structures of inequality
need to be problematized if any alternative, such as a common social floor,
is to be further discussed.
A common social floor would probably be very difficult to attain in the
short or medium term due to the problem of financing, especially in the
current economic crisis. The introduction of a common social floor would
imply a considerably larger public investment in the social budget than is the
case in most countries today. The major part of such an investment would
probably need to be financed domestically by increasing or diversifying
taxes. At least in Mexico and Central America, the present tax system (and
the collection of taxes) is very limited and far from being even a first step to
financing a common social floor. It would also be necessary to analyze more
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closely the possible socioeconomic and gendered effects of choosing

indirect or direct taxes and the effect these would have on the success of a
common social floor. Moreover, taxes are usually a very complicated
political matter in these countries (as well as in many others). So even
though a common social floor contains positive aspects as a policy option, it
is difficult to see how this could replace demands for respecting labor rights
and some sort of global labor standards with a gender perspective.
In the absence of acceptable approaches within the current framework of
capitalist industrialization at the global level, it is necessary to reflect on
some of the concrete alternatives that have been advanced by women of
differing backgrounds, including indigenous women, working-class women,
eco-feminists, and so on. Their proposals might differ in the extent to
which the capitalist industrialization model is rejected, but the ones that
include nonindustrial sustainable agrarian activities and cooperative arts-
and-crafts production generate family incomes in poor sectors of Pakistan
and India and among indigenous women in southern Mexico, New

Zealand, and Australia (Communities Economics Project 2009). These
projects coincide in that women’s empowerment is central to all of them.22
Meanwhile, from a poststructuralist perspective, some feminist economists
are questioning whose views on development are being reproduced, and
hence which other views are being made invisible, when certain economic
activities, such as those linked to maquiladoras plants, are deemed as better
jobs for women (J. K. Gibson-Graham 1996, 2006). This is certainly a
relevant point if the emancipatory potentials of feminism are to be realized
in the debate we aim to develop in this article.
FINAL REFLECTIONS
As mentioned, our objective has been to contribute to a dynamic and
constructive debate on the implications of export-based, industrial jobs for
women workers and on the potential effects of global labor standards for
these women. Based on our own research and experiences from Mexico
and Central America, we have contested the argument that these jobs
would always be the first choice of certain groups of women workers and
that they necessarily represent a better alternative compared to any other
income-generating activity that these women could engage in and, finally,
that enforcing global labor standards might only worsen the conditions of
women workers in the export-based industries. We claim that there are
several heterogeneous realities that defy generalizations.
First, we have argued against the perception that these kinds of jobs are
the best or only alternative for women workers. We have also shown that in
Mexico and Central America, women have in some cases found better and
more dignified income possibilities outside the maquiladora sector.
Industrial jobs may provide good opportunities for women to earn
200
incomes and improve their autonomy and independence, but these

opportunities should be problematized and questioned as gender roles
do not always change for these women. Moreover, these are vulnerable jobs
subject to economic cycles and with high personal costs given their low
salaries, poor working conditions, and the health and environmental
problems they cause.
We claim that the right to organize freely for workers to defend their rights
is crucial. We question the argument that global social clauses have been
rejected by a majority of workers in the South, and we argue that many of
these workers are indeed interested in some kind of international legislation
that does not depend on the goodwill and unilateral decisions of
multinational enterprises or single governments. By presenting the
experiences of Mexico, Central America, and NAFTA, we have shown how
such social clauses may also lead to transnational organizing from below.
We have also critically discussed alternative forms of regulation like
ethical codes of conduct, competitive advantage frameworks, and the

recent ILO strategy of decent work, as well as the proposal for a common
social floor. We have commented on the problems this proposal and
similarly orientated solutions like cash transfer programs (already in
practice in some of the countries we study) entail.
The issue of alternatives is particularly important both for providing
choice of employment to individual workers and for choosing models of
development. As we have shown, the answer is not always obvious, but
underestimating the costs of these kinds of jobs may hold us back from
finding solutions based on solidarity and collective action to facilitate
women’s agency and resistance and the possibility of finding alternative
means of economic survival and development toward greater dignity.
Overall, the main objective of this collective response is to contribute to
the ongoing debate by arguing for the need for contextualization,
alternatives, collective action, and agency. It would also be desirable to
have comparative studies regularly updated on the situation of women
workers in export-based industries in all regions concerned. We look
forward to a continued exchange of ideas and experiences through which
academic research could contribute to a better knowledge of these
complex issues on which the survival, autonomy, and empowerment of so
many women workers depend.
Edmé Dominguez
School of Global Studies, University of Gothenburg
Konstepidemins Väg 2, Box 700, 405 30, Gothenburg, Sweden
e-mail: edme.dominguez@globalstudies.gu.se
Department of Political Science, Linnaeus University
91 82 Kalmar or SE-351 95 Växjö, Sweden
e-mail: edme.dominguez@lnu.se
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ARTICLES
Rosalba Icaza
Institute of Social Studies
SG2 Kortenaerkade, 12 The Hague 2518 AX, The Netherlands
e-mail: icaza@iss.nl
Cirila Quintero
Dirección General Regional Noreste, Colegio de la Frontera Norte
Calle Herrera No. 169 entre 16 y 17, Zona Centro, CP 87300,
Matamoros, Tamaulipas, Mexico
e-mail: cquintero@riogrande.net.mx
Silvia López
Departamento de Estudios de Población, Colegio de la Frontera Norte
Blvd. Abelardo L. Rodrı́guez No. 2929, Zona Rı́o, CP 22010
Tijuana, B. California, Mexico
e-mail: slopez@colef.mx
Åsa Stenman
School of Global Studies, University of Gothenburg
Konstepidemins Väg 2, Box 700, 405 30 Gothenburg, Sweden
e-mail: asa.stenman@globalstudies.gu.se
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We are very grateful to the associate editor and the reviewers for their
enormous help in producing the final version of this article. It has been a
long process but a fruitful one. We are also grateful for financial support
from the Institute of Iberoamerican Studies (research-environment
support) in order to revise the final version of this manuscript.
NOTES
1
See Brı́gida Garcı́a and Orlandina de Oliveira (1994) and Fussell (2000). In interviews
carried out during 2004–5, Domı́nguez and Quintero have also found these
testimonies, especially in the cities of Piedras Negras and Ciudad Acuña, border
areas in northeastern Mexico.
2
This fieldwork, carried out during July 2009 in El Salvador, is part of the project
Maquilas and Remittances in El Salvador: Transnational Processes, Women and Gender
financed during 2009 by the Swedish Agency for Development Cooperation (SAREC-
Sida). Edmé Domı́nguez leads this project with the assistance of Åsa Stenman.
3
Fieldwork in Tijuana, Piedras Negras, and Matamoros carried out by the authors, as
well as Domı́nguez, Quintero, and Lopez’s already-mentioned fieldwork in El
Salvador in 2009, support these findings.
4
In government regulation, a ‘‘race to the bottom’’ is a phenomenon that is said to
occur when competition between nations or states (over investment capital, for
example) leads to the progressive dismantling of regulatory standards.
202
5
For examples of different campaigns trying to fight companies for environmental
damages, see Edmé Domı́nguez (2002). See also the Coalition for Justice in the
Maquiladoras (CJM 1993), and the documentary films produced by CJM and other
NGOs involved in labor issues in the northern Mexico border area (Dan Oko 2001).
6
Human Rights Watch, together with several local NGOs, undertook a campaign to
stop these compulsory pregnancy tests in 1997. The result of the campaign was that
some, but not all, of the big maquiladoras stopped testing (Domı́nguez 2002).
7
Cirila Quintero Ramı́rez (1999) distinguishes two types of unions in maquiladoras:
traditional unions, which focused on better wages and labor benefits for workers, and
subordinate unions, which were controlled by managerial interests. In spite of their
differences, the labor board (Junta de Conciliación y Arbitraje) recognizes both.
8
However, studies of different transnational networks, like Factor X and CJM, have also
found complicated relationships with international donors and internal conflicts
within the organizations themselves (Domı́nguez 2007).
9
An interesting case of combative union activity occurred in the Dominican Republic,
where the Federación Nacional de Trabajadores de Zonas Francas (FENATRAZONAS)
organized a sizable percentage of the companies in the free zones during the 1990s. By the
end of the decade, this organization had unionized at least twenty maquiladoras.
10
Trade unions like the Sindicato General de Costureras [General Seamstresses Union] and
the Federación de Asociaciones y Sindicatos Autónomos de El Salvador (FEASIES) are
either organizing women directly or cooperating with NGOs in training women workers to
organize and claim their rights (fieldwork in El Salvador, summer 2009).
11
See Domı́nguez (2002) and Luce (2005) for examples of such successful campaigns.
12
By labor rights, we understand those included in core ILO conventions: 1) abolition
of forced labor, 2) abolition of child labor, 3) elimination of discrimination, 4) the
right to organize and freedom of association (Luce 2005).
13
Our interviews with several Mexican labor organizations since 2004 and our fieldwork
in 2009 in El Salvador also support these findings.
14
Publicly, the Confederación de Trabajadores de Méxio (CTM) argued that Mexican labor
legislation was more advanced than that of Canada or the US, and therefore, the NAALC
was both irrelevant and a violation of Mexico’s sovereignty (MacDonald 2003).
15
See the examples in MacDonald (2003), Bensusan (2002), and Domı́nguez (2007).
16
In 1984, there was an amendment to the GSP legislation that provided an opening for
requiring that specific labor standards, such as the freedom of association and the abolition
of child and forced labor, be respected by countries granted GSP treatment (Luce 2005).
17
Rosario Ortiz is the main leader of the RMSM, a women’s trade union network in
Mexico and one of CJM’s member organizations.
18
See Domı́nguez 2007. Other critical voices also claim that codes of conduct have
created new business opportunities for NGOs, which market themselves as
independent teams monitoring the implementation of such codes (Wolf Herrera,
Mármol, and Martı́nez 2003).
19
There have also been multiple stakeholder projects involving international institu-
tions like the World Bank, multinational corporations, NGOs, and national
governments that propose comparative advantage schemes focusing on the respect
of decent labor norms and other advantages like geographic proximity to central
markets (Marion Traub-Werner 2006).
20
The Mexican program ‘‘Oportunidades’’ is based on transferring cash amounts to
mothers in extreme poverty on the condition that their children attend school and
health clinics and that the mothers act as volunteers to clean clinics and schools and
promote the program (Molyneux 2006). According to Sylvia Chant (2007)
and Molyneux (2006), these women are made responsible and empowered to deal
with their own poverty.
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ARTICLES
21
In analyzing the Mexican Jefas de Familia [female family heads] subprogram, which is
part of the government project Habitat, López Estrada and Ordoñez (2006) found
that Jefas de Familia reinforces traditional divisions of labor.
22
For Pakistan and India, see the Pan Asia Cooperation Society’s clothing stores, which
are rapidly spreading in Sweden. For the case of Zapatista women in Mexico, see
Christine Eber (2003) and Yolanda Castro Apreza (2003). For other experiences in
southern Mexico, see Lynn Stephen (2005).
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WOMEN WORKERS IN THE MAQUILADORAS

Edmé Domı́nguez, Rosalba Icaza, Cirila Quintero, Silvia López, and

benefits and disadvantages of export-based, industrial jobs for women as well as

JEL Codes: J8, J81, N76

Feminist Economics ISSN 1354-5701 print/ISSN 1466-4372 online Ó 2010 IAFFE

of international labor standards and other types of transnational strategies.

elsewhere. Finally, we present some experiences of women organizing in

Mexico or Central America. For example, the Mexican maquiladora

well-documented analysis indicates that, during the 1970s, several studies

in relation to their reproductive roles, and use these patriarchal

The work of Quintero and Dragustinovis (2006) in Matamoros showed

Discussions about the consequences of Mexico and Central America’s

These variables are used by Tiano (1994) to elaborate a typology of how

Interviews among women workers in El Salvador show similar patterns of

LOW WAGES AND BAD WORKING CONDITIONS: THE PRICE

limited possibilities to take action to change these conditions without losing

1,500 pesos (US$137.61) per week as a domestic worker or in self-

In a comparative analysis of China and Mexico, Chan and Ross (2003)

went down, and working conditions generally deteriorated (Silvia López

managers but also by their male co-workers. In general, the experiences

status of women challenges the traditional gender relations in a society and

rights in developing countries is rather weak (Sergio Sánchez 2000;

outcomes confronting multinational companies, their overall success in

The experiences of these groups are mixed, but an important part of

North American Agreement on Labor Cooperation (NAALC). Although

poor. Understandably, many labor activists have filed complaints against

of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM), and the FAT (MacDonald

than on process rights, such as freedom of association or the right to

As an alternative, to move beyond codes of conduct, the competitive

closely the possible socioeconomic and gendered effects of choosing

and India and among indigenous women in southern Mexico, New

incomes and improve their autonomy and independence, but these

ethical codes of conduct, competitive advantage frameworks, and the

Apreza, Yolanda Castro. 2003. ‘‘J’pas Joloviletik-Jolom Mayaetik-K’inal Antzetik: An

de la mujer en la maquila. [I am more than my hands, the different worlds of women in

Stenman, Åsa. 2010. ‘‘Empowerment and/or Exploitation? Women Workers in El

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