PROGRAM INFO
- Title:
- The Role Of Women In Chicano Labor History
- Program #
- 1980-46
- Themes:
- Politics, Society
- Series:
- Labor, Women's Issues
- Host:
- Linda Fregoso
- Guest:
- Devon Peña
- Date:
- Oct 15, 1980
The Role of Women in Chicano Labor History
Devon Peña, an instructor at UT-Austin, discusses Chicana labor organizing in the Maquiladoras, assembly plants, along the U.S.-Mexico border. He begins with a brief introduction to Chicana labor history and its most prominent activists. He then discusses the women organizing in the maquiladoras. He explains that maquiladoras were part of a Border Industrialization Program designed to generate employment in the Mexican border states after the Bracero Program was terminated, and he discusses the program’s appeal for both Mexican and U.S. officials. Despite the program’s stated intention to hire former braceros, the maquilas instead hired a mostly female workforce, which they believed would be more productive and passive.
Peña then describes the history of unions in the maquiladoras. He explains that the plants are largely controlled by the Confederación de Trabajadores Mexicanos (CTM), a union allied with the state that often works against the interests of its workers. Consequently, women have formed independent unions to fight for better working conditions and Peña describes some of the occupational hazards Maquiladora workers face.
In addition, Maquila workers with the help of academics have organized the Centro de Orientación para la Mujer Obrera to teach themselves about self-management, cooperatives, labor history and arbitration and conciliation. Moreover, some women meet on their own to study labor law and discusses strategies to win better conditions. Peña says they have had some success using solidarity strikes to win wage increases and better conditions, but recent reforms to the federal labor law have outlawed this tactic.
KEYWORDS
1970 Federal Labor Law (Mexico)Acapulco Fashions
AFL-CIO
American Hospital Supply Corporation
Anarcho-syndicalists
Border
Border Industrialization Program (BIP)
Borderlands
Bracero Program
Centro Campesino Independiente
Centro de Orientación para la Mujer Obrera
Charrista Labor Union
Chicana Labor organizing
Ciudad Juarez
Cláusula de exclusión
Confederación de Trabajadores de México (CTM)
Confederacion Regional de Obreros y Campesinos (CROC)
Contract Labor
Cooperatives
Devon Peña
Electronics
Emma Tenayuca
Farm Workers
Fidel Velázquez Sánchez
Garment Industry
General Electric
General Motors
George Meany
Industrial Workers of the World
Instituto Mexicano del Seguro Social (IMSS)
J.P. Stevens
Juarez
Labor
Labor Arbitration and Conciliation
Labor Organizing
Luisa Moreno
Maquiladora Program
Maquiladoras
Miscarriages
Norma Rae
Nuevo Laredo
Occupational Hazards
Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA)
Partido Liberal Mexicano
Pecan Shellers Union
Production quotas
Productivity
RCA
Red Purge
Regeneracion
San Antonio, Texas
Sara Estella Ramirez
Secretaria de Patrimonio y Fomento Industrial
Sexism
Sindicato Blanco
Solidarity Striking
Sony
Stereotypes
Strikes
Unemployment
Unions
Urban Guerrilla
Violence against Workers
Westinghouse
White Union
Wobblies
Women and the Maquiladoras
Working Conditions
Yellow Unions