Working Hard Drinking Hard Is An Ethnography Written By Adrienne Pine

Women are believed to have greater manual dexterity than men and they are therefore preferred by companies who want to maximize their production. Women who are hired for their supposed superiority to men when it comes to manual dexterity, a trade essential to a maquiladora worker, are ironically paid much less despite their valued trait. It is clear that the degree to which the women are devalued is far greater than the degree to which their ability and production is valued. Women's bodies are being exploited in factories where they are being paid ridiculously low wages based on a cultural belief that men superior to women, that women belong in the household and that men belong in the workplace. They are then paid significantly less partly to reinforce this ideal—to keep men as the leaders of the household--and partly in order to reinforce the stereotypes about the submissive and inferior nature of women.

We have read and watched a lot of information about the women and the way they are treated in their working area, specifically when we talked about the maquiladoras on the boarder. This week we are presented with another source of information about the maquiladoras and how maquiladora employees live their daily lives. The film, “Maquilapolis” by Vicky Funari and Sergio de la Torre uses a social art practice to contribute to the privileging of subalterns voices. In the film, the filmmakers start by telling the stories of a few women who worked for the maquilas and tell their experience as employees of those big corporations such as Sony, Panasonic, Sanyo, among many others. Some of these women explain how they started working since those maquiladoras opened in the 1960’s and they explain how it was a big deal to work

Maquiladoras are assembly plants clustered mostly in northern Mexico, along the U.S. border. The factories employ 17 percent of the Mexican work force, this makes maquiladoras Mexico’s second largest source of jobs but some people would say that the negatives weight over the positives. Some negatives about this situation are that how the Mexican government does not have full control of the factories, how the employees have to work in harsh conditions and, the employees get paid a low wage. Maquiladoras have both a positive and negative effect on the Mexican economy because of the poor work conditions, however the large numbers of the population they employ cannot be ignored.

Chapter 55 is named "Women behind the Labels: Worker Testimonies from Central America" and includes an interview conducted by Marion Traub-Werner with a former maquile worker, Marie Meja (Hobbs and Rice 552). A maquile is a person who works in a maquila which is a factory that "assembles goods for export" (551). This chapter retells Marie's experiences working as a child labourer, teenage domestic worker, and a maquile worker (553). Marie discusses her experiences being a domestic servant in four houses where she received a range of treatment, pay, and both verbal and physical assault. Following her fourth house, after being sent to jail out of the spite of her señora Marie chose to transition into working as a food vendor and eventually as a maquile where she was exposed to further verbal abuse, unjust pay and work hours, and eventually parasites

In the film, Maquilapolis: City of Factories, different Mexican women talk about their experiences with maquiladoras. Carmen Duran and Lourdes Lujan film video diaries that show how their communities are affected by maquiladoras and the experiences they have had working in maquiladoras. Mexico was first introduced to maquiladoras in the 1960s through foreign companies who arrived in order to get tax breaks and low-cost labor. In the 1990s, maquiladoras become prevalent and there were nearly 4,000 just near the border. A variety of things are assembled at different maquiladoras, as the film shows workers stating what they build at their perspective workplace. Workers assemble batteries, oxygen masks, filters, toys, and even urinary bags. The

Researchers could improve and expand studies on the policies of the corporations as well as study the girls and women possibly through self-report or observation. Subsequently, research may help expand and educate public knowledge as well as assist in changes to end the violence against the girls and women of the maquiladoras.

Increasing the wages of employees would make a point against the misogynistic view that poverty-stricken women are an ideal source of cheap labor. This stems from an academic article, “Murder in Juarez: Gender, Sexual Violence, and the Global Assembly Line”, written by Jessica Livingston. In the article she states, “If this male resentment and hostility was not tolerated by Mexican authorities, and if it could also be reduced with more egalitarian and better paying working conditions, perhaps the murdering of women in Juárez would also cease” (71). High male unemployment after the establishment of NAFTA meant men in the local Juárez area had and still do have to look for work elsewhere, often north of the border, because the new job openings targeted mainly young women. This gender bias causes violent repercussions against innocent women and girls merely attempting to make a living. This does not apply only to the maquiladora plants, but to other multinational corporations NAFTA enticed with cheap Hispanic

Companies in the 1960’s realized that they could lower labor costs by moving plants to other countries with lower minimum wage than here in the united states. These assembly plants just south of the Us-Mexico boarder are called maquiladoras. These plants didn't just allow for labor costs to be lowered but also duty-free production, only rule was the goods must be exported out of Mexico. The maquiladoras also gave much needed jobs to the Mexican workers. The first few years of the new millennium many of these maquiladoras went out of business, due to lower wages in countries such as China and Guatemala. Since 2004, we have seen a rise in the number of maquiladoras on the Mexican boarder. We are seeing this increase because of high value products

This relates to the analytical framework in more than one way. Firstly, the issue of gender inequality and women’s rights fits under the category of Gender-Class/ Ethnicity -Race. This section of the analytical framework examines how gender and class intersect and have an immense effect on the targeted person (Hristov, September 6, 2013). The issue of gender inequality goes hand-in-hand with this category due to the fact that the women in the tortilla factory are treated differently based on their gender. This has a great deal to do with their experience and their quality of life whilst at the factory. The first of many instances in which gender inequality is mentioned within the article is when the author is referring to the social structure of the tortilla factory. This is where the first theory comes into play. Max Weber’s term of social stratification greatly relates to this situation because it refers to the “Inequality between groups in society based on differences in economic resources, social status and political power.” (Hristov, October 4, 2013) Weber examines the way in which social stratification has an effect on the way people of different class systems are affected by the power held by the people above them. The author makes it clear that the majority of employees currently working at Hacienda Tijuana are female and that the

On this week’s topic of global violence against women, Elvia R. Arriola authored the peer-reviewed article, “Accountability for Murder in the Mquiladoras: Linking Corporate Indifference to Gender Violence at the U.S. Mexico Border” (2007). Arriola depicts the treatment of girls and women on the Mexican border who are employed in the maquiladora are due to corporations that move over to the Mexican boarders because of the salary which is higher in this area due to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) between Mexico, the United States, and Canada (1993). In fact, the frequency of domestic violence and femicide occurs more frequently regardless of policies and laws. Additionally, the maquiladora murders are a severe indication of Mexico’s

The documentary problem in the story was that the employer was harsh, ruthless and did not give the workers a conducive environment as they were overworked and still paid low wages below the minimum and thus the workers merely survived (Encore Broadcast, n.p). The employer could not contend to overtime and unpaid wages which was a significant problem facing the employees. It was problematic that the workers worked for 10-14 hours without being given breaks for either eating or even going to the bathroom which had poor ventilation. Later on, after years of meager salaries, unpaid minimum and overtime wages and also domestic abuse, Maura Colorado, Maria Pineda and Lupe Hernandez come together in unison together with other employees in their struggle and campaigning for negotiable working environment and condition and also for self-empowerment which was a battle against their employer. The Latinos' workers were motivated by the three women and to the extent of the workers announcing a lawsuit for the garment company which was a problem for the company as its reputation become known to the public.

The maquiladora industry has had a major impact on the lives of its employees. A documentary from 2006 Maquilapolis, by Vicky Funario and Sergio de la Torre, show different women talking about the type of products they assemble, from filters, toys, batteries, and electrical parts to automobile parts. In 1960, when maquiladoras emerged in border cities, it changed people’s perspective for better opportunities and a better future. The majority of people working in the maquiladoras were women. The reason for that was because women were considered to have smaller hands and could assemble the parts faster and more efficiently than men. Some of the women in the interviews talked about having to work double shifts and even night shifts, leaving their children home alone without sufficient

As a major contributor to the global economy, Mexico’s sweatshops have contributed to the United States’ wealth and economic growth. It is the unfortunate truth that many individual workers have suffered as a result of this prosperity. The sweatshops, known as maquiladoras, are in debate because of the ethical and lawful reasoning behind their existence and conditions. How can we, as a First-world nation, allow such industries to exist where people are denied basic and fundamental human rights? What, if any, laws and regulations are put into place for the maquiladoras? Are these laws and regulations hindering, harmful, or helpful? Are they enforced emphatically? If not, how does this affect development? After

These workers left their homes with the hope of earning a higher income to provide a better life for themselves and their families. However, these workers soon found out the only things available for them were low wages, dangerous work conditions, environmental hazards, and no protection from their government. In the documentary all employees complained of severely low wages, but the most significant complaints were from the female Maquiladora workers and the residents who lived near the maquiladoras. The female workers complained of being verbally and physically abused by their male supervisors while the residents complained of companies dumping toxic waste into local living areas. The concerns addressed by these people are not limited to the confines of this documentary. Countless urban residents in Mexico fear for their environmental safety and women fear for their well-being.

In Mexico, the maquiladoras are a great and beneficial source for the economy, rising up their earnings and wasting little money on their employees. Maquiladoras are own by large corporations, which they only seek for more earnings by establishing these maquiladoras in profitable locations. These corporations know exactly where to locate their maquiladoras, within near poor communities, where families are in need of jobs to put food on the table. The majority of the maquiladoras mainly hire women that are willing to work under harsh conditions. These women obtain unfair treatment and low quality of work conditions, and the reason some of these women continue to work for the maquiladoras is because they need the job to support their