Transnational Tortillas

Bank Munoz Carolina

Description

This book looks at the flip side of globalization: How does a company from the Global South behave differently when it also produces in the Global North? A Mexican tortilla company, "Tortimundo," has two production facilities within a hundred miles of each other, but on different sides of the U.S.-Mexico border. The workers at the two factories produce the same product with the same technology, but have significantly different work realities. This "global factory" gives Carolina Bank Munoz an ideal opportunity to reveal how management regimes and company policy on each side of the border apply different strategies to exploit their respective workforces' vulnerabilities.The author's in-depth ethnographic fieldwork shows that the U.S. factory is characterized by an "immigration regime" and the Mexican factory by a "gender regime." In the California factory, managers use state policy and laws related to immigration status to pit documented and undocumented workers against each other. Undocumented workers are subject to harsher punishment, night-shift work, and lower pay. In the Baja California factory, managers sexually harass women-who make up most of the workforce-and create divisions between light- and dark-skinned women, forcing them to compete for managerial attention, which they understand equates with job security. In describing and analyzing the differences in working conditions between the two plants, Bank Munoz provides important new insights into how, in a globalized economy, managerial strategies for labor control are determined by the interaction of state policies and labor market conditions with race, gender, and class at the point of production.

Sujets

• Sociologie, société et politique
• México
• Industrial relations
• Globalization
• Biological anthropology
• Mexico
• California
• Migration

Informations

• Publié par: Cornell University Press
• Date de parution: 15 janvier 2011
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780801460425
• Langue: English

Extrait

Transnational Tortillas

Transnational Tortillas

Race, Gender, and ShopFloor Politics in Mexico and the United States

Carolina Bank Muñoz

ILR Press an imprint of Cornell University Press Ithaca and London

Copyright © 2008 by Cornell University

All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or parts thereof, must not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher. For information, address Cornell University Press, Sage House, 512 East State Street, Ithaca, New York 14850.

First published 2008 by Cornell University Press First printing, Cornell Paperbacks, 2008 Printed in the United States of America

Library of Congress CataloginginPublication Data

Bank Muñoz, Carolina.  Transnational tortillas : race, gender, and shopfloor politics in Mexico and the United States / Carolina Bank Muñoz.  p. cm.  Includes bibliographical references and index.  ISBN 978–0–8014–4649–8 (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN 978–0–8014– 7422–4 (pbk. : alk. paper)  1. Tortilla industry—Mexico—Baja California (Peninsula) 2. Tortilla industry—California. 3. Factory system—Mexico—Baja California (Peninsula) 4. Factory system—California. 5. Industrial relations— Mexico—Baja California (Peninsula) 6. Industrial relations— California. 7. Women—Employment—Mexico—Baja California (Peninsula) 8. Alien labor, Mexican—California. I. Title.  HD9330.T753M612 2008  338.4'7664752—dc22  2008011611

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Cloth printing Paperback printing

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

For immigrants in the United States who work in the shadows; For workers in Mexico who fight for survival; And for my parents, whose struggle has been a source of inspiration.

Acknowledgments

Contents

1. The Tortilla Behemoth and Global Production

2. The Political Economy of Corn and Tortillas

3. A Tale of Two Countries: Immigration Policy and Globalization in the United States and Mexico

4. Hacienda CA: Immigration Regime

5. Hacienda BC: Gender Regime

6. Fighting Back? Resistance in the Age of Neoliberalism

7. ShopFloor Politics in the TwentyFirst Century

Notes References Index

ix

1 24

38 64 96 130 162

177 183 195

Acknowledgments

I am deeply indebted to all of the workers, managers, and organizers who participated in this study and allowed me into the factory and into their homes and lives. I am especially grateful to the production workers who took risks in speaking with me about their working conditions. Their willingness to tell me about their lives showed great courage. Without their participation, this book would not have been possible. I have been working on this project for most of my academic career. In that time I have benefited from a rich intellectual community that has en couraged and shown enthusiasm for the project from its inception. I thank Edna Bonacich, Ellen Reese, Chris ChaseDunn, and Karen Pyke, who always pushed me to sharpen my analysis. Michael Burawoy expressed excitement in the initial stages of the project and gave me the confidence to pursue it. Enrique de la Garza Toledo and Huberto Juárez Núñez in Mexico were always willing to talk to me about Mexican politics and labor law reform. I am grateful to them for the time they took to help me deepen my analysis of the situation in Mexico.