Background

The Female Labor Force

In Mexico, the garment industry is the second most important source of paid employment for women, involving more than 700,000 workers. It is surpassed only by domestic work in the number of women employed. Garment concerns employ many more women (80 percent) than men (20 percent). Within the industry, women's jobs are concentrated in the actual sewing of garments, while men perform the heavier work as material handlers, drivers, warehouse men, cutters, and so on. A majority (51 percent) of the garment workforce is dispersed among a huge number of illegal sweatshops, to which the large and medium-sized firms deliver pre-cut fabric to be assembled.

Working Conditions

In the large plants as well as the small and medium-sized shops, the working conditions of thousands of women are dictated solely by management's strategies for organizing the productive process. Some jobs in the industry are permanent, but the majority (51.3 percent) are temporary. The latter are characterized by instability and a total lack of benefits. All garment jobs, whether temporary or permanent, feature an intense pace of work, lengthy days, and underpayment of benefits, both economic and social.

Article 61 of Mexico's Federal Labor Code stipulates a maximum workweek of forty-eight hours. In garment shops, however, workdays are sometimes as much as twelve hours long, not counting breaks taken for rest or meals. Time taken to relieve oneself is strictly counted. There are no cafeterias; the workers eat their meals cold or heat them up in hallways or bathrooms. The women call their workplaces "ratholes," since not only do the buildings lack security measures, generally the workers are locked in during working hours, leaving them helpless in case of emergency.

The daily payment received by garment workers is usually less than the minimum wage. In general, only a set daily wage is paid regardless of the length of the workday—which lasts however long it takes the worker to fill her daily quota, which the garment owners impose arbitrarily.

In Mexico City and its periphery there are many young women who need work and thus constitute a reserve army to keep wages down for those who are employed. This situation benefits the employers exclusively, allowing them to pay low wages and provide subhuman and unhealthy working conditions. The employers, not surprisingly, prefer workers who will meekly accept their control—workers who have little access to other types of work because of their low educational level and lack of other marketable skills.

How long a person has worked counts for nothing with the bosses. They ignore seniority and fire the workers whenever they want, without paying legally mandated severance benefits.

These are the words of one woman whose shop was destroyed in the 1985 earthquake:

The sweatshops were all downtown, in one or two dark rooms of some old building. Even when they put in lamps, it still hurt our eyes to work all day in that kind of lighting. Since the rooms were small, all the noises were magnified. The ventilation was very poor; there were only one or two windows and an air shaft where garbage cans and such things were kept on the ground floor.

Opening time was different in different shops. In mine it was 7:30; that's why we weren't there yet on the morning of the earthquake. Closing time was 5:30. We had an hour to eat, but there was no lunchroom. In each shop it was different. Some women went out; others ate right there on top of the equipment, even though there was hardly room. A few of the women borrowed a long bench that they put in a hallway.

So on the one hand, there are no standards that limit the speed of production, while on the other hand, the average wage in the industry is supposedly pegged to an average level of productivity. The bosses pay piece rates and the workers must finish a quota in order to receive their day's wages. The quotas are set unilaterally by management, who of course sets them to conform to prevailing wage rates. When the workers do not manage to reach the quota, they are docked. Thus wages do not actually correspond to any average level of productivity, but rather to an optimal level that yields the amount of profit desired by management. Piecework production is measured per unit time, in minutes—so a day's pay is calculated from minute to minute. As for social benefits, the situation is deplorable; in general the owners do not comply with even the most minimal legal standards.

An atmosphere of pressure and many other tactics designed to divide the workers are used to impede any organization. This, of course, violates the workers' legal rights. Management tactics include mistreatment, sexual harassment, physical aggression, and favoritism.

These, then, are the working conditions within the garment industry—conditions that may be characterized as extremely favorable for the super exploitation of women workers.

Living Conditions

The average age of garment workers is thirty-three years, although some are as young as sixteen to eighteen while others are older than sixty. Most came originally from the countryside. Single women comprise 42.5 percent of the total, married women 42.1 percent. Twenty-four percent are single mothers, mostly with one or two children, although some have three, four, or even five children.

Eighty-three percent of garment workers report that in addition to their paid jobs they are responsible for taking care of their homes, with all the tasks that implies. Women are not excused from their social role in the family simply by reason of their heavy burden of paid work; they must also fulfill their duties as mothers, wives, or heads of households. Daily tasks include preparing food, washing, ironing, helping their children with their school work, tending the sick, and so on. Thus women's workdays are eighteen hours or even longer.

Only 5.6 percent are able to send their children to daycare; the rest leave them with their own mothers, another relative, or a neighbor. Children may also be left in the care of an older brother or sister.

Housing is a serious problem for garment workers. Most live in precarious situations, sometimes in one or two rooms, paying rents that eat up the lion's share of the family's income. In nearly every family more than one member works; the average number is 2.5 per household. The average number of persons per household is 5.3, with a range from two to twelve. Thirty-five percent of garment workers report a household size of five to seven persons.

Food is scanty in most garment worker households. For nearly 40 percent, weekly food expenditures are between 4 and 5.6 times the minimum daily wage (1250 pesos in November 1985). When more is spent it is an indication that the household has additional sources of income.

Meat—whether beef, pork, or poultry—is becoming a rarity, with nearly 50 percent of households reporting that they eat meat no more than once a week. Fish is eaten once a week by 30 percent and once a month by another 30 percent. Eggs and milk are eaten daily by 50 percent, but only 33 percent eat vegetables and 21 percent fruit every day. Tortillas are eaten more often than bread, and beans are eaten daily, or at least three times a week. These figures were collected at the end of 1985, and we may state without a doubt that nutrition levels today have deteriorated even further.

Recreation is beyond reach for most garment workers, as a result of their low wages. Only 22 percent report ever going out; 2 percent take vacations and 1 percent visit parks or gardens. Another factor that contributes to the daily grind for garment workers is traveling between their home and the workplace. The great distances involved and the lack of public transportation in Mexico City mean that the vast majority must spend from thirty minutes to an hour and a half traveling each way, thus making their workday so much the longer.

Organizational Conditions

Women who earn their living in illegal sweatshops or through homework enjoy no labor representation whatsoever that could help them break their isolation and press for their rights. Most larger garment shops are organized, at least in name, by unions that belong to one of the large labor confederations (CTM, CROC, CROM, or COR). Other shops have company unions with no name, affiliated with no confederation. Most garment workers only hear from their unions when it is time for dues to be collected.

In this industry, unions have traditionally been one more link in the chain of exploitation. In 1983, an attempt to register a national garment workers union was turned down on the basis that it did not meet the legal requirements for jurisdiction, i.e. representing a truly nationwide industry—as if there were only a few garment workers scattered among shops in the capital, and not large numbers of garment firms throughout the republic.

Role of the Mexican State

The situation we have described could not have existed without a conspiracy among owners, unions, and the state. No other explanation is possible for the constant violations of labor rights, illegal sweatshops, mistreatment and humiliation, unions unknown to the workers they supposedly represent, weekly contracts, sale of sweetheart contracts to garment firms, collusion between union officials and labor authorities, changes in contracts and wage rates behind the workers' backs, tax evasion, mechanisms for lowering salaries, lack of attention to minimal standards of safety and health, unauthorized use of trademarks, and anarchic variation in prices with no control whatsoever.

Thus we may describe the role of the Mexican state with regard to the garment workers as one of control and containment in the service of management interests. This, then, was the situation that reigned in the garment industry before the 1985 earthquake—without the knowledge of a majority of inhabitants of Mexico City.

September 19, 1985: The Earthquake

At 7:19 a.m. on September 19, 1985, Mexico City underwent the longest and most serious earthquake it has sustained during this century. The event was the beginning of a tragic awakening.

Within hours, residents of one of the world's most heavily populated cities had become survivors of and witnesses to a macabre spectacle of fallen buildings and ambulances rushing to and fro. Rescue equipment was lacking everywhere.

In the downtown area, which sustained the worst damage, the years of corruption and injustice in the clandestine sweatshops were exposed in one blow. An entire industry came to light. Its workers, mainly women, were buried buildings that had been poorly constructed in the first place, badly maintained, overloaded with machinery and raw materials, and left without emergency safeguards.

Of those who began their workday at 7:00, more than 600 lost their lives. Some 3000 garment workers were employed in that district; most survived only because their workday began a little later.

The first ones to realize that the women lay buried under the rubble of the buildings were their own relatives, who desperately tried to save them without any rescue equipment. With the help of volunteers, they were able to rescue some 200 women alive by October 23.

On the 24th, the owners of the sweatshops arrived with earth-moving equipment. Their single thought was to retrieve their merchandise and their safes.* As two truckloads were taken away by the owners, the audience of surviving workers, relatives, and neighbors came together. In the face of so much chaos, the death of so many workers, the cynicism of the owners, a movement was born. In that moment, no one imagined what was to come of it.

* Note: Mexican law holds the employer, not the government, responsible for payments to workers who lose their jobs, and legal mechanisms exist for seizing a firm's assets to compensate the workers. Thus by moving out their merchandise, the garment owners were not only exhibiting incredible callousness, they were signaling their intention to evade their legal responsibilities to the workers, leaving the women with no jobs and no compensation. Likewise, the effect of the manufacturers' report discussed in the following section would have been to deprive the workers of legally guaranteed compensation.—Translator.

The Garment Manufacturers and the Government

By October 2, the owners had arrived at a joint position on the crisis, meeting together in the National Garment Manufacturers Association (CNIV—Camera Nacional de la Industria del Vestido). The association's lawyer issued a report on how the industry had been affected by the earthquake and offered some recommendations for how the nation should respond.

The report asserted that there was no need to worry about payment of wages or compensation, except in cases where the owners "were very fond of their employees."

It was also proposed that the manufacturers be permitted to declare themselves bankrupt for one year, during which time they would be exempt from all fiscal and labor responsibilities and all payments to creditors. With the assent of union officials—who for their part agreed to the setting aside of all contracts—the report proposed that a universal severance payment be set at three months plus twelve days wages. This payment, the minimum possible under Mexican law, was to include nothing extra for seniority. The report also stated that since the owners found themselves in an exceptional situation, they should be exempt from paying taxes, social security fees, housing allowances, and so on.

At this juncture the class interests of the owners were clearer than ever. Even in this life-and-death situation, their first thought was for their profits.

Solidarity from the People

The formless aggregate of "the people," that mass that has sweated out day after day, shoved from one side to another, enduring in silence—a people that has lived for centuries on hope alone—suddenly began to take action, to coordinate its moves, to understand that only the people could offer one another solidarity: no one else would do it for them. In the rubble of the fallen buildings, and especially in San Antonio Abad, the heart of the garment district, the people's coordinated solidarity efforts found their center.

The garment workers became news on October 2, in a march commemorating the 1968 Tlaltelolco Massacre. Garment workers, women who had never spoken out, the humblest and most exploited workers of all, were shouting, "!Costureras Unidas, Jamas Seran Vencidas!" (garment workers united, will never be defeated!). The people flocked to their support, applauded them, admired them, commiserated with them, mourned with them—and saw that a new hope was rising, for and through the garment workers.

An Organization Is Born

For the garment workers, the routine rhythms of life had been broken. Before, they went from the house to the factory, from the factory to the house. Now, many were unemployed, their shops fallen in the quake. The owners turned a blind eye to the workers' situation, washing their hands of it entirely, saying only, "we're bankrupt."

Some garment workers had always stood up to the bosses, but as individuals. They talked back, and then they were fired. Almost never did they act as a group. The women were so dependent on their bosses that often they came to see them as good-hearted father figures who gave them work, did them the occasional favor, asked after their children, cheered them along, wished them well on Mothers Day and New Year's. The bosses too believed themselves to be good and kind men.

All that ended. Just as the facades were ripped from the sweatshops, so too was the mask torn from the image of the fatherly boss. Amid greed and injustice. The women saw that their bosses were exploiters who cared only for profits and not at all for their workers' lives. They saw too that the bosses were united among themselves, that they helped one another, that they had grabbed their machines and their merchandise and fled the country.

The reality beneath the image appeared all at once and very clearly, in a sort of interior earthquake. Everyone that the workers had believed would help them—the owners, the authorities, the union leaders—instead were revealed as their common enemy.

"They left us in the street," workers began saying. "We must unite and stand together."

Each woman saw herself naked before her sisters—naked in all the pain of seeing her coworkers dead, the shock of seeing how the owners scurried to rescue their goods without even a sign of grief for the workers who were buried beneath the shops where they had labored to make the owners rich.

If we sought for an example of dehumanization, we could not find a clearer one. From this we can see that the ruling class is not moved in the least by human feelings—and so we will have to fight to the death to reclaim from them all the wealth that they have grabbed for themselves.

At first, disoriented, the garment workers did not know what to do. But faced with such behavior, they quickly saw that they would have to fight for themselves, because the authorities cared nothing for justice.

They set up one encampment in the downtown area and another one in San Antonio Abad, a major highway running through the garment district where one of the most severely damaged buildings had stood. With the goal of organizing themselves, the workers formed two groups—the Union of Garment Workers in Struggle and the Downtown Garment Workers Council. Once organized they could put pressure on the authorities, who wanted to remove the encampments. They could also prevent the owners from taking away any more of the equipment and raw materials from the various factories.

Women who had lost their jobs or suffered other damages staged their first march to demand compensation. The government, which had always protected and overlooked the lawbreaking of the garment owners, confronted with the evidence of so much poverty and exploitation, found itself forced to concede "that the employers, union officials, and labor authorities had colluded in a monstrous fashion."

Such statements, however, did not change the situation, and so the garment workers kept on organizing marches, rallies, and sit-ins, painting graffiti, handing out leaflets, and issuing statements to television, radio, and the press. Through such means they induced the authorities to force the owners to compensate 80 percent of the damage victims.*

* Note: Eventually all but forty-seven out of some 1700 women received their full compensation. — Translator.

With a courage they had never known before, the garment workers continued onward. The next step was to press for registration of an independent union—and so they arrived at Los Pinos, the presidential residence.

It is worth noting that it had been many years since registration had been granted to any union independent of the official labor confederations. But the pressure of public opinion was continuing to grow. The earthquake far exceeded the state's capacity to respond. Nearly a month had passed and the city was still a sea of crumbled buildings. The people were discontent and the issue of the garment workers was like an uncontrollable avalanche. Some corrupt union officials were sanctioned; others were removed from office. The government had few alternatives if it was to retain any of its political credibility.

On October 19, the garment workers announced that they would form a national independent union that would fight to put an end to the subhuman working conditions in the garment industry. October 20, a month after the earthquake, the Secretary of Labor approved the registration of the September 19 National Union of Garment and Related Trades. This was the first victory, but the struggle had hardly begun.

Development of the Union

In the course of 1986, while continuing to press for compensation for those who still needed it, the union turned its attention to a new concern. The group needed to grow, and so it began to focus its efforts on organizing sweatshops with illegal working conditions whose employees sought to affiliate with the September 19 Union. Now the struggle was to be recognized as a bargaining agent and to negotiate contracts.

To gain a foothold in the garment shops, the union had to seek out workers who were ready to take a look at their working conditions and organize within their shops in order to join September 19. Union elections became a new arena, in which it was necessary to compete with other unions controlled by large confederations like C TM or CTC, whose corrupt officials are loyal to the interests of the owners.

Organizing could not proceed directly to the stage of elections. First, it was necessary for the workers to become aware of the differences between unions controlled by the state and an independent union. Union organizers needed to be strong and ready to make many sacrifices in order to be faithful to this struggle. Initially the union won twenty elections, but in several of these shops the bosses preferred to shut down rather than accept the September 19 Union.

The struggle took place on every level. Not all the women realized that they could move forward only by being united. In some cases, when the owners offered them their "liquidation" or severance pay, they accepted it and withdrew. This gives some idea of how difficult the union's task was.

To meet this challenge, the first union training programs were being formed inside the contested factories, as well as within the union's own National Executive Committee. Such programs were sorely needed so that the workers could learn from their experiences, understand and learn to use the labor laws, and know what their rights were and how to defend them.

Obtaining the registration for the union was only a beginning. Then it was necessary to work out the by-laws and educate the membership so that everyone could understand and apply them. The women also needed to learn how to conduct their assemblies democratically, how to have an orderly discussion, how to reach agreements.

While learning all these skills, the workers also had to come to terms with themselves as women, with a lived experience of oppression and exploitation that they needed to transform.

It is important to note that the union had attracted the participation of many popular and political groups. The impact of the earthquake was so great that many groups and individuals wanted to help out. As time passed it became clear which of these forces offered the most—which ones took on work, committed themselves to the garment workers, and understood clearly who their class enemies were.

Solidarity from various international organizations made it possible for the union to offer food aid to women who had lost their jobs, whether because of the earthquake or because of their union activities. This aid also permitted the union to undertake two projects: a garment cooperative for older workers and a child development center.

Women for Dialog has played its strongest role in the childcare project, while also supporting all of the union's efforts. The goal of the center is to develop an alternative that addresses all aspects of the children's needs, so that the garment workers can discharge their own employment and union responsibilities.

The child development center is designed to promote the all-around well-being of children by attending to their physical, emotional, social, intellectual, nutritional, and health needs. The center will serve children from forty-five days to six years old during the eight hours that their mothers work.

We believe that childcare should not be merely custodial, but should offer adequate stimulation to sensory development, manual skills, creativity, and so on. Also, given that these are children of the working class, the center will also seek to instill new values such as solidarity, collective effort, justice, critical awareness, and the like.

Three main components are planned for the project. The first will be an interim daycare project that will serve children from forty-five days to twelve years, but only on special days, for example when their mothers wish to participate in a mobilization or union meeting. Recreational activities will be offered, including craft activities, movies, plays, or time to do homework. A small library will be included.

The second component is a parenting workshop for mothers, so that the children's experience in the center has continuity with their home life. The workshop will take up themes of interest to the mothers and in this way will also support them in their role as union members. The third component is the child development center itself, as described above.

Women for Dialog is part of the interdisciplinary team responsible for this project, which has faced many difficulties in its realization. Interim daycare services and the parenting workshops are already in place, and it is hoped that the center will begin to operate in the near future.*

* Note: Funds to permit construction of a permanent center were finally obtained in mid-1987.—Translator.

Perspectives on the September 19 Union

The September 19 Union is one of the great hopes of our country, as a union made up mainly of women who are workers and also mothers. During a time of crisis and, on many fronts, retreat, this union has demonstrated more courage and sheer boldness than any other.

At the same time we cannot forget that the oppression faced by all women falls heavily on women workers, not just in the workplace but everywhere: in the family, in the relationship between husband and wife, in the unequal sharing of housework, in the streets where women must contend with constant harassment, in the demands of child-rearing, in the sexual harassment inflicted by owners, supervisors, and foremen, and in the mistreatment women suffer from male bosses and coworkers alike.

As the garment union develops, this reality is becoming clearer and clearer. Thus the union's struggle cannot be reduced to a matter of better salaries and working conditions. As the great majority of union members are women, they cannot stop fighting until they obtain their complete liberation: until they are recognized as persons, with equal rights and abilities in society.

In more than a year and a half of constant struggle, these garment workers have come to recognize the exploitation of other women and all working class people. Thus the September 19 union hall has become "the house of the people," open to all the independent movements that are fighting for a different world. Every day women come there for all types of activities: study groups, workshops, courses, or meetings. Not only women workers use the hall, but also women from the popular neighborhoods or from peasant groups, or members of various organizations that are planning some activity. More than once dances have taken place there to raise money for some campaign.

The state is well aware of the boldness of this union and the government cannot permit it to keep on growing. Thus in recent months the union has been threatened with the withdrawal of its registration. It has been outvoted at union recognition elections by imported scabs—not only in Mexico City but also in the provinces.

The union hall has been surrounded and threatened by police troops. The terroristic provocations carried out by police during the May Day celebrations of 1986 and 1987 are notorious.

Precisely because the 19th of September is a steadily maturing hope, it preys on the minds of the government and the ruling class. It is vulnerable to attacks from its enemies. Nonetheless the painstaking day-to-day work of planting and tending the seeds of awareness, of organization, of unity, of courage, of righteous anger, of truth, will one day yield a harvest that will nourish every corner of the country.

In September 1987 the union will hold its second annual conference—a time to assess challenges, correct mistakes, and move forward. Knowing that the government, the corrupt union leaders, and the bosses will never yield, women are growing so strong that they can never be defeated—and this struggle will belong to an entire exploited people.

Mujeres para el Dialogo
(Women for Dialog)
Apartado 19-493
Mixcoac 03910
Mexico, D.F., Mexico 

Women for Dialog

Women for Dialog was founded as a base from which to struggle in 1979, at the initiative of a group of Christian women and others who wanted to work for their own liberation within the context of the popular organizing process. The group includes fifteen women who work for the struggle at different levels, standing with the people as they seek their own liberation as well as with revolutionary forces building new societies in Latin America.

Women for Dialog seeks to foster ongoing organization and mobilization among grassroots women at the local, regional, and national levels. We aim to connect the women's movement in our country, Mexico, with all popular movements in Latin America, especially women's movements.

We work to deepen and systematize our understanding of the process of struggle. Concretely, we work in support of grassroots women's groups, helping them to develop a systematic understanding of their experiences, sponsoring workshops on training and research, and undertaking specific solidarity projects.

Through such efforts we seek to raise the level of understanding of women's issues, so that women may participate equally in the popular struggle and in deciding how to work toward building a new society. Such a society, among other things, must eliminate the family as a source of women's exploitation—that is, we must also build a new family.

We also believe that it is important to grasp the crucial role of religion and culture as an element of the people's struggle. Faith is a liberating force when it is a faith the people themselves have taken up and when it is a faith that is committed to the popular struggle and loyal to the needs of the emergent popular classes. In this vision of faith, we see salvation as the destruction of the chains of fear and the construction of a new society.