Abstract

MARTINEZ, María Eugenia de la O. Women and Workers' Rights Movements between Mexico and the United States: An Analysis of their Influence on Non-Border Communities. Estud. Polit. [online]. 2008, n.32, pp.255-275. ISSN 0121-5167.

Since the decade of the 1960s, hundreds of assembling factories have been installed on Mexico's northern border with United States. In the last decade, thousands of these businesses known as bonded assembly plants extended their presence beyond the border and they were located in several cities of the country (De la O, 2002), which expanded the area of action of both national and transnational organizations of labor defense that had acted along the border. The purpose of this article is to analyze the influence of these forms of national and transnational labor defense organization in communities located far away from the northern border of Mexico (where the first defense organizations for maquiladora workers originated) as illustrated by of the case of female workers at the Kukdong -today Mexmode- textile company in the city of Atlixco, Puebla in the south of the country. These women enjoyed the support of national and transnational networks of labor defense to improve their working conditions and to create an independent union, which permitted them to recognize their potential as managers of labor rights. It is assumed that the political participation of women is indispensable in the social construction of their labor rights and that the presence of NGOs has been a definitive step in generating their action. It discusses the conflict in the Kukdong plant by review of library records, internal documents of organizations and forums in which women participated. At first, the importance of NGOs was clear, but, over time, women had to cope with the absence of these organizations in continuing their struggles. This shows the boundaries of such organizations in more far-reaching projects of political organization.

Keywords : Maquiladoras (Bonded Assembly Plants); Women and Workers' Defense Movements; Workers' Rights; ONG.

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