Mobile capital, immobile labor: inequality and opportunity in the tortilla industry.

• Date: 22 September 2004
• Author: Munoz, Carolina Bank
• Published date: 22 September 2004
• Author: Munoz, Carolina Bank

Introduction

DURING THE PAST 30 YEARS, WE HAVE WITNESSED AN EXPLOSION IN GLOBAL capitalism. This process has been called the new international division of labor and, more recently, globalization (Frobel et al., 1980; Mies, 1986; Sassen, 1988; Bonacich and Appelbaum, 2000; Tiano, 1994; Fernandez-Kelly, 1983; Ward, 1990). In the old international division of labor (the colonial period through the late 1960s), raw materials were produced in the colonies and then exported to industrialized countries, where they would be transformed into products (requiring a strong manufacturing base); in the new international division of labor (the 1970s to the present), labor-intensive production processes have been exported to developing countries for production, with the products then shipped back to the industrialized countries for consumption.

Among the many goods exported to developing countries for production are garments and textiles, electronics, toys, athletic equipment and shoes, and automobiles. In the U.S. (and other industrialized countries), this has resulted in deindustrialization, accompanied by growth in the service sector (Brewer, 1993; Bluestone and Harrison, 1982; Harrison, 1988). At the same time, we have seen an explosion of employment for women in many developing countries, most notably in Export Processing Zones. Women endure super-exploitation in factories that do not abide by the most minimum standards of worker protection (Fuentes and Ehrenrich, 1983; Bonacich and Appelbaum, 2000; Sklair, 1993). They are specifically targeted for jobs that are perceived as "a natural extension of their role in the home" (Mies, 1986; Fuentes and Ehrenrich, 1983; Lee, 1998). Therefore, they tend to be "ghettoized" into positions that are the least well paid, most dangerous, and lacking in access to upward mobility. "Appropriate" employment for women includes garment and textile work, as well as electronics, because industry owners believe women to be patient and dexterous with their hands and fingers. The prevalence of poor working conditions, together with the fact that a largely female labor force is being employed by capital on a global basis, constitute what has been called the "feminization of labor" (Standing, 1996).

Offshore production has led to other serious social problems in developing countries. Specifically, displacement of peasants from their land has caused the "proletarianization" of indigenous and rural peoples who mainly relied on subsistence agriculture (Sassen-Koob, 1984; Sklair, 1993; Lee, 1998). This shift from subsistence agriculture to wage labor has caused internal and external migration, the deterioration of culture, erosion of the countryside, and the super-exploitation of workers (who are most likely to take maquila jobs). Furthermore, trade liberalization policies such as the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs (GATT) and the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) have worked to push wages down in the global North and South as countries compete for foreign investment (Ross and Chart, 2002).

This article takes a new twist on issues of transnational production by focusing on a Mexican transnational tortilla corporation (Hacienda) that has production facilities on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border. I argue that both U.S. and Mexican state policies (particularly those that promote globalization and support transnational corporations), race, and gender play a critical role in shaping shop floor politics in this corporation.

The labor process literature can be useful in understanding how global inequality is produced and reproduced on the shop floor. Burawoy posits two ideal types: despotic and hegemonic regimes. The despotic regime is regulated by workers' dependence on the sale of their labor power and is therefore coercive, while the hegemonic regime is regulated by state interventions, such as providing unemployment insurance, welfare, etc. The hegemonic regime is therefore governed by consent rather than coercion (Burawoy, 1979; 1985). One of Burawoy's greatest contributions is to highlight worker subjectivities on the shop floor and to illustrate that workers are often complicit in their own exploitation. This is a valuable insight into workplace injustice. The concept of factory regimes bridges the micro and the macro levels by linking the way capitalist relations play out on the shop floor.

The literatures on labor process and women and work also have shortcomings. The latter has often cast women as passive victims of global domination. New research studies have documented that women are not intrinsically exploitable under global production; rather, management hiring practices and ideology create gendered subjectivities on the shop floor (Salzinger, 2003; Lee, 1998). As Salzinger (2003: 21) argues, "docility, no matter who exhibits it, is produced on the shop floor, it is not acquired ready-made. The notion of an 'always ready' docile, dexterous and cheap woman, that is, of a potential worker whose productive femininity requires not creation but recognition is thus a transnationally produced fantasy." Rather than analyze one firm with workers on both sides of the border, this literature often focuses on women in the global South. Ching Kwan Lee's (1998) work is an exception to this.

The labor process literature, especially Burawoy's (1979, 1985) work, has been criticized for a "class only" approach that acknowledges gender and race as externalities, rather than as constituted at the point of production. Salzinger (2003) and Lee (1998) illustrate how gender is produced at the point of production. Their work has been a significant force in debunking gender as external to production, but little has been written on how race is also produced and reproduced at the point of production. The role of the state in shaping gender, race, and other social relations on the shop floor is almost completely absent from Salzinger and Lee's studies. Burawoy (1985) does detail the significance of the state in the "politics of production," but mainly as it relates to the transition from despotic to hegemonic regimes. He convincingly illustrates that the state, through social insurance and welfare programs, limits the dependence of the working class on the selling of their labor power, and therefore leads to the transition of capitalist relations from coercive to consent based.

The primary contributions of this article to the existing literature reside in (1) addressing the state's role in helping employers to maintain despotic regimes in an age of globalization, and (2) illustrating how gender and race (through an immigration regime) are produced and reproduced in these two factories. In comprehending the role of the state and how gender and race are produced on the shop floor, this study furthers our understanding of labor control and how these dynamics can be challenged through cross-border solidarity. In the first section of this article, I describe the conditions at Hacienda Corporation (1) in Los Angeles and Tijuana. Next, I argue that disparate conditions in each factory result from trade liberalization and a state-sponsored "immigration regime." Finally, I evaluate worker resistance on the shop floor.

Data and Methods

The inspiration for this study came from Lee's book, Gender and the South China Miracle: Two Worlds of Factory Women. I was also lucky enough to stumble across a transnational corporation with production along two borders. This Mexican transnational has operations in Mexico, Central and South America, Japan, England, and the United States. Despite the corporation's many plant locations, I chose to study its Los Angeles and Tijuana factories. The first reason was that these two flagship factories represent the corporation's largest tortilla manufacturing plants. Second, each is located in a city that lies in the heart of global production. This factor is important for studying the role of the state, race, and gender. Third, gaining access to this corporation was difficult and they were hesitant to give me access to more than one plant in each country. This is a limitation to the study. However, based on numerous conversations with management, I believe that the Los Angeles and Tijuana plants are representative of other Hacienda tortilla factories in each region. Management structure is such that there is one lead operations manager that sets up a structure at each of Hacienda's factories in a particular geographic region. Therefore, all factories in the Southwest and West are structured identically. In Mexico, all three plants operate along the border and are structured by the senior vice president of manufacturing.

The data presented in this study are drawn primarily from in-depth interviews, observations, plant visits, and a review of documents (financial statements, recruitment materials, productivity calculations, etc.) collected between October 2001 and December 2003. I conducted in-depth interviews with two of Tortimundo's senior vice presidents of manufacturing (in Monterrey, Mexico, and in Texas), with two operations managers (in Tijuana and Los Angeles), and two production managers (in Tijuana and Los Angeles). (Tortimundo is the transnational corporation of which the two Hacienda factories in this study are wholly owned subsidiaries.) In addition, I had informal conversations and interviews with six supervisors and line leaders between the two locations. 1 interviewed 12 production workers and four truck drivers at the Los Angeles plant, and eight production workers at the Tijuana plant. Data sources on manufacturing wages as a whole for Los Angeles and Tijuana were gathered from the Census of Manufactures 1997, Instituto Nacional de Estadistica Geografia e Informatica (National Institute for Statistics and Geography), and the Current Population Survey.

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