Bandy and Bickham Mendez 2006

“A Place of Their Own? Women Organizers in the Maquilas of Nicaragua and Mexico”, Joe Bandy and Jennifer Bickham Mendez, pp 131-144

in Johnston, Hank, and Paul Almeida, eds. 2006. Latin American social movements: globalization, democratization, and transnational networks. Lanham, Md: Rowman & Littlefield.

• Authors examine the opportunities and obstacles that women workers’ movements have faced, specifically surrounding gender differences, as the seek social change via national and transnational coalitions (132)
• EPZs in Nicaragua and Mexico
• important to see power relations between women and male-dominated labor unions and NGOs
• US-Mexico border
• Women labor activists act as brokers between communities and workplaces, local and national organizations (133)
• the strategy here has evolved in four steps (134)
• 1st: get codes of conduct
• 2nd litigation
• third, use international institutions (NAFTA NAO) (134-135)
• 4th, direct action and unionization, because last three weren’t effective enough (135)
• but women find they have had to struggle to voice their perspectives and gendered critiques (135)
• community-based concerns, which are noted alongside/as gendered concerns (by the authors), have been ignored/not been engaged fully by male-dominated labor organizations (135-136)
• WHY?
• unions have taken the lead on many cross-border collaborations
• not uncommon to see union tendencies lean towards bravado, machismo, gendered divisions of labor activism, and resentment of women’s public voice (136)
• females activists have found it difficult to work their way up hierarchical and/or less participatory forms of organization, especially as they privilege shopfloor interests over community interests
• unions tend toward strikes and litigation, which are more masculine forms of confrontation (137)
• men more willing to confront since they are less threatened by physical and sexual coercion
• therefore unions seek out militant factories, which tend to be more male workers
• Nicaragua
• Central Sandinista de Trabajadores (CST), main labor union, started women’s programs in 1992 (137)
• BUT male leadership of CST limited gendered demands (137), women actively prevented from attaining leadership roles (138)
• some women left, formed the Maria Elena Cuadra, an organization by and for women
• MEC has turned away from unionization and strikes
• focuses more on political lobbying and public awareness
• has created regional connections with Central American Network of Women in Solidarity with Maquila Workers, and is sustained by its financial support
• focused on a campaign to get a code of ethics for maquilas
• don’t want maquilas to leave, just want them to be better places to work (138-139)
• BUT MEC has faced a lot of obstacles
• other organizations not excited about expanding their work outside labor/workplace specific issues (139)
• also, MEC adamantly refuses to join boycotts, fearing the loss of jobs (140)...self-limiting radicalism (Cohen and Arato 1992)
• “we are asking for the minimum.  We aren’t even questioning the exploitation of workers”
• MEC active in late 1990s, early 2000s, in more recent years has been less active combatting employers, some MEC activists have returned to labor movement (141)
• A Place of the Own, Global-Local Resistance
• women in both regions have struggle for accountability, but have also sought to maintain the empowering aspects of new political opportunities (141)
• public attention has fixed some issues in both places (142)
• BUT women have discovered that labor movement is highly gendered at evey level
• Conclusion
• as transnational social movements resist global inequality, they also face an awkward negotiation between their own unequal structures
• if civil societies weaken the position of diverse stakeholders they only succeed in mobilizing activists, and limiting the possibility for a more inclusive, democratic alternative to neoliberalism (144)