| The study focuses on the development of organizational forms in the maquiladoras, assembly plants operating on the Mexican border. Management systems of labor process organization (Taylorism and Fordism) are described and analyzed. Female workers' struggles and self-organization are examined. Data collected includes 223 survey interviews, 30 hours of oral histories, 20 hours of management interviews, and 10 months of observational field notes. Findings suggest informal shop floor networks are of primary significance for understanding managerial and worker organizational forms in the maquiladoras. Various hypotheses on output restriction are tested. Resistance to speed-up was found to have the strongest association with output restriction. Also strongly associated are various attitudinal measures of worker militancy. The study offers new theoretical perspectives on changes in class composition and organizational forms in a transnational labor process setting. Issues related to cross-cultural and sex-specific differences in labor process organization are discussed. The researcher concludes the forms of organization and struggle among female maquiladora workers are in part responses to the patriarchical structure of managerial systems and in part results of Fordist organizational principles. The circulation of workers' struggle from the factories to the communities is also examined. The roles and experiences of former maquiladora workers as community organizers, school teachers, and members of the cooperative self-management movement are described and analyzed. The study concludes with a theoretical discussion on the relationship between scientific management and class struggle in a transnational setting. The author argues that maquiladoras represent a new form of transnational labor process organization, based on a combination of "imported" Fordist and Taylorist principles and "native" systems of control based on patriarchical traditions in Mexico. Despite the tremendous level of control exerted, female workers are involved in individual and collective resistance, both formally and informally. |
