Social Aspects of Labor Organizing: Maquiladora Workers in a Grassroots Development Effort

Beginning in the mid-1960s, Mexico encouraged the development of industrial assembly plants known as maquiladoras along its northern border and in selected areas of the interior. Although it began as a stopgap measure to employ men returning from the U.S. bracero worker program, the Border Industrialization Program soon became Mexico’s principal development initiative for the border region. Since then, numerous scholars have evaluated the success of the plants by examining their impacts on the economy, the environment, and labor. This study adds to this research literature by assessing the impact of the maquiladora program from the perspective of the assembly line workers. It describes and analyzes the activities of a grassroots, participatory development effort to organize maquiladora workers for more than 20 years. Participatory approaches to development are defined and described in terms of the problems and challenges that animate this field of research. The findings demonstrate how participatory efforts at organizing constitute one of the few avenues available to workers to resist factory exploitation and improve their general well-being. The study confirms some of the shortcomings of participatory development theory, such as its conceptual ambiguity, significant time commitment, and general cumbersomeness, but it provides justifications for its continuance.