From the Revolution to the Maquiladoras is a major contribution to the study of globalization, labor, and women’s movements. Jennifer Bickham Mendez presents a detailed ethnographic account of the Nicaraguan Working and Unemployed Women’s Movement, “María Elena Cuadra” (mec), which emerged as an autonomous organization in 1994. Most of its efforts revolve around organizing women workers in Nicaragua’s free trade zones and working to improve conditions in maquiladora factories. Mendez examines the structural and cultural elements of mec in order to demonstrate how globalization affects grassroots advocacy for social and economic justice. She argues that globalization has created opportunities for new forms of organizing among those local populations that suffer its effects and that mec, which has forged vital links with transnational feminist and labor groups, exemplifies the possibilities—and pitfalls—of this new type of organizing. Mendez draws on interviews with leaders and program participants, including maquiladora workers; her participant observation while she worked as a volunteer within the organization; and analysis of the public statements, speeches, and texts written by mec members. She provides a sense of the day-to-day operations of the group as well as its strategies. By exploring the tension between mec and transnational feminist, labor, and solidarity networks, she illustrates how mec women’s outlooks are shaped by both their revolutionary roots within the Sandinista regime and their exposure to global discourses of human rights and citizenship. The complexities of the women’s labor movement analyzed in From the Revolution to the Maquiladoras speak to social and economic justice movements in the many locales around the world.

The emergence of global assembly plants is closely linked to the creation of a global female industrial labor force. Women and Work in Mexico's Maquiladoras examines this larger process in Mexico, where--despite a century of industrialization and a tradition of well-paid, highly organized, male workers--the maquiladora factories have turned to predominantly female labor. Exploring this dramatic shift, this book convincingly demonstrates how gender restructuring in workplaces and households has become a crucial element in the reorientation of Mexican development. The author compares Mexico's new industrial system with its historical antecedent and documents federal policy changes that have resulted in distinct patterns of gender, unionization, household form, and social welfare. Rich in ethnographic detail, the book uses the voices of workers themselves to provide an intimate look at how daily lives have been transformed--in ways that could not have been foreseen--by the national and international processes shaping the country's industrial transition.

Examines the history and culture of Mexico and its relations with its neighbors to the north and east from the Spanish Conquest to the current presidency of Vicente Fox.

A tale of sin and redemption, Joseph U. Lenti's Redeeming the Revolution demonstrates how the killing of hundreds of student protestors in Mexico City's Tlatelolco district on October 2-3, 1968, sparked a crisis of legitimacy that moved Mexican political leaders to reestablish their revolutionary credentials with the working class, a sector only tangentially connected to the bloodbath. State-allied labor groups hence became darlings of public policy in the post-Tlatelolco period, and with the implementation of the New Federal Labor Law of 1970, the historical symbiotic relationship of the government and organized labor was restored. Renewing old bonds with trusted allies such as the Confederation of Mexican Workers bore fruit for the regime, yet the road to redemption was fraught with peril during this era of Cold War and class contestation. While Luis Echeverr�a, Fidel Vel�zquez, and other officials appeased union brass with discourses of revolutionary populism and policies that challenged business leaders, conflicts emerged, and repression ensued when rank-and-file workers criticized the chasm between rhetoric and reality and tested their leaders' limits of toleration.

This book presents an analysis of contemporary Central American from a social perspective and, more specifically, from that of one of its main components: the world of labor. Despite undeniable changes, this world is still made up of three basic logics. Labor markets reflect an inability to generate sufficient employment. Labor relations remain precarious. And labor subjects and actors solid enough for their voice to be heard have not managed to establish themselves. The result is that the world of labor in Central America is still marked by vulnerability. }The oligarchic crises in Central America has provoked a variety of responses at different levels during the last decades. The development of new agroexports in the 1950s, the import substitution industrialization of the 1960s, and the current opening up of trade along with the development of new tradables sectors under the influence of globalization, represent attempts to modernize the regions economies. The same has occurred at the political level with the current democratization processes that have meant competitive elections taking place in all the countries. It is at the social level that responses have been most weak and levels of poverty remain extremely high. This book presents an analysis of contemporary Central American history from a social perspective and, more specifically, from that of one of its main components: the world of labor. Despite undeniable changes, this world is still made up of three basic logics. Labor markets reflect an inability to generate sufficient employment. Labor relations remain precarious. And labor subjects and actors solid enough for their voice to be heard have not managed to establish themselves. The result is that the world of labor in Central America is still marked by vulnerability. }

Describing the field, spanning individual, organisation, societal and cultural perspectives in a cross-disciplinary manner, this is the premier reference tool for students, lecturers, academics and practitioners to gather knowledge about a range of important topics from the perspective of organisation studies.