Political Economy · Labor · El Salvador
A Day in the Life of Women Maquila Workers
Living conditions, super-exploitation, capital accumulation, and women’s labor in El Salvador’s export-processing industry.
Introduction
The living and working conditions of women employed in the maquila industry are not sufficiently known. Faced with the lack of funding for independent research—research responding to our own intellectual concerns rather than those of whoever happens to finance it—we have once again turned to the research carried out by our students.
This is beneficial not only to us but to them as well. They become accustomed to research, receive practical training in it, develop greater social awareness, strengthen their theoretical education, and provide their professors with valuable information that we can subsequently share with our readers.
The article is divided into four parts. The first provides an overview of the maquila industry. The second presents several workers’ accounts selected from more than forty research projects completed by students in Political Economy. The third analyzes those accounts from the perspective of Marxist political economy. The final section presents conclusions and proposals.
1. General Information on the Maquila Industry
Descriptive views of reality are useful and necessary, but they remain insufficient insofar as they do not explain why reality takes the form it does. Understanding those causes is essential if that reality is to be transformed.
- Approximately 265 maquila companies reportedly generated around 90,000 direct jobs. According to the cited report by the International Federation for Human Rights, this represented roughly 16% of total employment and close to half of industrial employment in El Salvador.
- UNIFEM’s 2004 Gender Profile of the Central American Economy placed the feminization rate of maquila employment at 82% in Guatemala, 78% in Honduras, 73% in El Salvador and Nicaragua, and 60% in Costa Rica. In simple terms, roughly seventy-three of every one hundred maquila jobs in El Salvador were held by women.
- A 2005 report by the International Federation for Human Rights stated that many companies failed to pay overtime required to meet production quotas; contracts were frequently temporary and shorter than one year; and working weeks could exceed forty-four hours.
- The U.S. human-rights report covering 2005 recorded approximately 240 maquila plants, most located in fifteen export-processing zones. It also documented allegations of dismissals of union organizers, lack of effective collective bargaining, verbal and physical abuse, sexual harassment, and inadequate public resources for labor inspection.
- The Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women expressed particular concern about the precarious working conditions of women in maquila industries and frequent violations relating to safety, hygiene, and labor rights.
- Human Rights Watch argued that the Salvadoran government’s failure to guarantee the rights of workers in the export-oriented private sector allowed both domestic employers and multinational corporations to benefit from abusive labor conditions.
These observations provide a preliminary but forceful picture of Salvadoran maquila employment. From the author’s perspective, they describe the super-exploitation of female labor power, corroborated by several institutions monitoring labor rights and simultaneously constituting part of the conditions on which the profitability of capital invested in the industry rests.
2. Accounts from Women Maquila Workers
This section seeks to portray more vividly, with both the humor and the harshness of everyday reality, not merely these women’s workplace conditions but their entire daily routine—from the moment they wake until the moment they are finally able to sleep, including what happens on days that are formally supposed to constitute rest.
María’s Day
The alarm went off at 4:30 in the morning. It felt as though the night had disappeared, but there was nothing to be done. I took a quick shower and then had to wake the kids. It is hard to get them out of bed, but the poor things—it was terribly early.
They got ready, and I prepared tortillas, beans, and coffee for Pedro and Juan so they could go fed and ready to my sister’s house. I manage because of her: she watches them during the day and takes them to school.
I started walking uphill. It takes about ten minutes to reach the bus stop. After waiting for the bus, the trip to the factory took another fifty minutes. It feels much longer because the bus is packed and I usually have to stand.
I arrived at about 6:30 a.m. and bought a cheap breakfast before entering the factory. They want us already sitting at our workstations by 7:00, even though my official starting time is 7:30.
Today has not been as heavy as other days, although the exhaustion always feels the same. It is only noon and I still have more than four hours left.
While I was finishing lunch, some university students approached and asked whether they could talk to me about my life and work.
At first their questions felt very personal and I was uncomfortable and suspicious, but after a while I relaxed. They seemed decent, so I began telling them about my experiences in the maquilas.
My name is María Esperanza. I am thirty-seven years old. I am neither married nor living with a partner, but I have two sons: Pedro, who is thirteen and in seventh grade, and Juan, who is in third grade.
I live alone, and I am able to manage because of my sister. I have been working in this maquila for ten years and would only leave if another job paid better.
Finding another job would be difficult because employers now ask for a high-school diploma, and I only completed ninth grade. Here they do not care how much schooling you have because you simply learn the task assigned to you.
After lunch I went back to cutting. At about 1:30 p.m. I needed to use the restroom but did not want to ask Don Jesús because he gets angry very easily.
Still, nothing compares with what I experienced at Charles Products S.A. de C.V., another maquila where I worked cleaning finished shirts. My daily quota was fifty dozen shirts.
We were not allowed to talk, not even to ask a coworker a question. There were no windows, the heat was unbearable, the machinery was extremely loud, the lighting was poor, and the toilets were filthy.
Whenever they thought I was working too slowly, they shouted at me. We were not allowed to use the restroom during working hours; it was opened at lunchtime and we were given only thirty minutes.
I remember becoming seriously ill there. I suffer from kidney problems and developed an infection that caused terrible pain. I begged to be allowed to go to the Social Security clinic, but they would not let me leave. That was the last thing I could tolerate. I resigned and left without compensation.
Back at my present job, I eventually could not hold it any longer and asked permission to use the bathroom:
—Don Jesús, may I go to the bathroom?
In his booming, angry voice he answered:
—Didn’t you already go this morning? Hurry up, then!
I ran to the bathroom, but the door was locked. I went looking for another one across the sewing area, but before I could enter, the supervisor’s whistle sounded and I was ordered back to work. We were allowed only about five minutes a day for the bathroom, so I had to endure it and return to my station.
I continued cutting until around 4:00 p.m. By then I was desperate from the heat and from the continuous noise of the machines.
I should have gone to the Social Security clinic, but if I miss a day they do not pay me. I decided to wait until next month because rent was almost due and there were other basic household expenses.
Finally 4:30 came. I began the long trip home and arrived around 7:15. I picked up the children from my sister’s house, made dinner, checked their homework, and helped them when I could.
At night I washed the dishes and prepared what I could for the next morning. I finally went to bed around eleven. All that remained was to hope that tomorrow would be a little less exhausting.
Karla Concepción’s Day
Karla struggles every day to support her family. She left home at fifteen following an unexpected pregnancy and began living with José Martínez. Her first child, Manuel, was born with an intellectual disability that prevents him from living fully independently.
Two years later she gave birth to twins, Nayeli and Elvira. Soon afterward her partner developed severe problems with alcohol, left his work as a carpenter, and eventually disappeared. At nineteen, Karla returned to her mother’s home and began looking for her first job. It took eight months to find one.
Her limited schooling made the search difficult. She had completed only ninth grade. Eventually she was hired by a maquila producing shirts and T-shirts from imported materials for subsequent export.
Production was divided into twelve lines, each employing roughly thirty-four operators, most of them women. Supervisors monitored the workers, production quality, machinery, and compliance with internal rules.
To protect their lungs from textile particles released during cutting and sewing, workers used simple masks that they were required to purchase from their own income.
Karla was employed as a line operator earning the minimum wage. Her tasks included closing shirts, attaching and decorating collars, hemming, and other rotating operations.
Workers could receive bonuses for exceeding production targets, which in some operations amounted to roughly one hundred dozen pieces per day. During favorable periods her weekly earnings could reach fifty to sixty dollars. During slow periods she depended entirely on her basic wage.
Her day began at 3:45 a.m. She bathed, dressed, and prepared breakfast and lunch for her children. At 4:45 she woke them, prepared them, and took them to their grandmother. At 5:50 she boarded the bus to work.
She arrived around 6:50 and began working at seven. At 8:20 she received a fifteen-minute break to eat breakfast, and at 12:15 she was allowed a lunch period.
Her factory shift ended around 5:00 p.m., and she reached home close to eight in the evening. There another shift began: cooking dinner, completing household tasks, caring for the children, and preparing for the following day.
Water reached her home only twice a week. On those days she had to wake even earlier in order to fill barrels and store enough water until the next delivery.
Karla considered her workplace relatively tolerable because she personally had not experienced aggression or sexual harassment, but she wanted a job with higher earnings. Opportunities for advancement were almost nonexistent; some women had worked as operators for decades without promotion.
The company also prohibited union organizing. Employees expressing an interest in forming a union could lose their jobs.
Monthly transportation and food expenses associated solely with her employment came to approximately seventy-five dollars. Once the rest of the family’s basic needs were included, monthly expenses reached roughly 240 dollars.
Even with bonuses and overtime, her income did not adequately cover clothing and footwear. December, when additional year-end payments were received, was essentially the only month when those purchases became possible.
Rita’s Day
Rita had worked for three years in a maquila located along the Troncal del Norte highway.
Monday through Friday she woke at 4:30 a.m. She needed enough time to prepare breakfast for herself and her family, her husband’s work lunch, and food for her children. Whenever possible she ate breakfast at home and tried to preserve those brief moments with her family.
She left home at 6:00 a.m., walked to the bus stop, and took two buses. The journey lasted approximately forty to forty-five minutes.
Her shift began at 7:00 a.m., when she started sewing sleeves onto children’s shirts and T-shirts. She continued until noon, when she was given thirty minutes for lunch—provided that the morning’s assigned production had first been completed.
She did not experience direct mistreatment from the owner but described severe pressure from supervisors. Overtime was effectively compulsory: refusing it could result in reprimands and an increased workload on the following day.
According to her account, no union existed. When visits by Labor Ministry inspectors were expected, employees were instructed to say that their conditions were excellent, under threat of dismissal.
The factory lacked an adequate first-aid facility and satisfactory industrial-safety measures.
An ordinary workday could last until 8:00 p.m., while certain overtime shifts extended to 2:00 in the morning. During those shifts workers were allowed only a few hours of sleep on mats inside the workshop.
When she did not work such overtime, the trip home could still take two hours. Once there, she had to iron clothing, organize the household, and perform other domestic tasks. She generally went to bed around 11:30 p.m.
Her monthly wage was $157.20. After transportation, food, and social-security deductions, she estimated that approximately one hundred dollars remained.
Long working days, intense heat, standing throughout the shift, inadequate machinery, lack of time with her family, and insufficient earnings led Rita to describe herself as exploited.
She also knew that her chances of finding better employment were limited because her formal education had ended when she was twelve. She could not leave the job because her husband’s earnings alone were insufficient to support the family.
Weekends did not constitute genuine leisure. After church she washed and ironed clothes, cleaned the house, cooked, and prepared food for the coming week. Some of her working days effectively extended from 4:30 in the morning until 2:00 the following morning.
3. Working Conditions and the Pattern of Capital Accumulation in El Salvador
Capital Accumulation and Maquila Labor
In Chapter XXIII of Capital, Marx’s discussion of the General Law of Capitalist Accumulation addresses relative surplus population and the industrial reserve army. His observation that misery may stand in direct relation to the torment of labor appears, from the author’s perspective, highly relevant to the reality described by women maquila workers: extremely low wages, long hours, poor physical working conditions, and mistreatment.
Workers repeatedly state that they would leave the maquila if better jobs were available. Yet alternatives are scarce. Persistent unemployment and underemployment therefore exert continuing pressure on people dependent upon these jobs.
The Valorization of Capital
Although precise figures concerning maquila profits are not available in the article, the author argues that low wages, fiscal advantages, and the simultaneous use of several mechanisms for extracting surplus value strongly suggest high levels of profitability.
Even where workers receive time wages, production quotas force them either to increase the intensity of labor or to prolong the working day. At the same time, modern machinery and production methods raise productivity.
The accounts describe controls over basic bodily needs: restrictions on conversation, permission requirements for restroom use, major difficulties obtaining authorization to seek medical attention, and uncertainty over whether deducted social-security contributions are actually remitted.
Collective organization could partially improve workers’ bargaining position. Yet the evidence presented depicts a strongly anti-union environment in which organizing attempts may lead to dismissal.
The Double Working Day
The women’s real working day does not begin when they enter the factory and does not end when they leave. It starts before dawn in the home, continues through the journey to the factory, extends throughout the industrial shift, and begins again upon their return home.
Preparing food, caring for children, washing, cleaning, ironing, organizing the household, and preparing the next day constitute a second shift that also extends across weekends.
Working Conditions
The article describes environments characterized by textile dust, excessive heat, poor lighting, constant noise, overcrowding, restrictions on conversation, inadequate industrial safety, and strict control over break times.
In the author’s interpretation, the elimination of “porosity” within the working day raises labor intensity and accelerates the physical exhaustion of workers.
These conditions are accompanied by allegations of mistreatment, sexual harassment, employment insecurity, and a persistent fear of job loss.
That maquilas generate employment does not, for the author, resolve the fundamental question. People need not simply employment of any kind, but dignified employment capable of meeting material needs while allowing the worker to live as a fully developed human being.
Subsumption of Labor under Capital
The maquila is presented as a capitalist activity in which labor is subsumed under capital both directly and indirectly. Direct subsumption becomes real insofar as wage labor is incorporated into a production process transformed by modern machinery, technical division of labor, and extreme fragmentation of individual tasks.
The author also identifies indirect subsumption. Wages are so low that they are insufficient for the full material reproduction of the working family, making family networks, domestic labor, and other forms of reproduction outside the immediate wage relation indispensable.
The Super-Exploitation of Labor Power
Within the Marxist framework employed by the article, exploitation does not require wages to fall below the value of labor power. Even when labor power is paid at its full value, exploitation remains because workers create surplus value appropriated by capital.
The maquila nevertheless represents an additional condition of super-exploitation: wages insufficient to adequately reproduce labor power, exceptionally long hours, high labor intensity, unhealthy workplaces, precarious employment, insecurity, and violations of social and economic rights.
Anti-Union Practices
Salvadoran labor law does not formally prohibit unionization, and international labor agreements ratified by the country recognize the right to organize. The evidence and testimonies discussed in the article, however, describe a very different situation within many maquilas.
From the author’s standpoint, the state’s primary obligation should be to protect those rights regardless of the possibility that some firms might threaten to relocate production.
The Exploitation of Poverty
In societies offering few employment opportunities, poorly paid work may appear preferable to having no income at all. Precisely for that reason, material necessity weakens the worker’s bargaining position.
The article argues that such a situation cannot be legitimized simply by appealing to market forces. The combination of extremely low wages, weak labor enforcement, and precarious employment ultimately reproduces the very conditions of underdevelopment used to justify the maquila system.
4. Conclusions and Proposals
The first conclusion was anticipated at the beginning: the living and working conditions described are sufficiently severe that continued tolerance of such levels of super-exploitation should be considered unacceptable.
From the Marxist perspective of the article, ordinary exploitation tends to disappear behind the wage form, which presents wages as the price of labor rather than the price of labor power. What workers themselves immediately identify as “exploitation” often corresponds to particularly intense manifestations of super-exploitation: extremely low wages, excessive working days, high labor intensity, precarious employment, and violations of rights.
Labor produces value and, according to the theoretical framework presented here, that value is divided between the portion reproducing labor power—the wage—and the surplus value appropriated directly or indirectly by capital. When wages fall below what is necessary to reproduce labor power, exploitation takes an especially intense form.
The article also emphasizes the contradiction between the formal recognition of human, social, and economic rights and the institutional failure to guarantee their effective implementation.
In many maquilas, regulations governing working hours, night work, overtime payments, freedom of association, industrial safety, employment stability, and social benefits are described as inadequately enforced. Exceptions exist, but the problem presented by the article is structural.
Proposals
Denunciation alone is insufficient. Yet every proposal, however rational or ethical, is conditioned by the socioeconomic and political environment within which it must be implemented.
- Effectively enforce existing labor legislation. A genuine rule of law requires, first and foremost, that existing laws also be enforced inside export-processing industries.
- Increase the maquila minimum wage. The author proposes a wage equal to or higher than the average urban wage, given the intensity of labor, productivity levels, and fiscal advantages enjoyed by many firms.
- Promote worker-managed enterprises. The transformation of conventional maquilas into participatory, cooperative, and self-managed productive organizations should be considered.
- Develop stronger links with the domestic market. Worker-managed enterprises might sell a share of their output domestically, contributing over time to a different form of import-substituting industrialization.
- Strengthen women’s organization. Feminist and labor organizations could play a larger role in the education, organization, and defense of women employed in the maquila industry.
- Break the cycle linking underdevelopment and low wages. Poverty and scarce employment opportunities are invoked to justify extremely low wages and tax exemptions; those same policies may then reproduce the underdevelopment they were supposedly intended to overcome.