Abstract

HERRERA LIMA, Fernando. Mexican Workers in New York: Problems and Advances in Organizing. Nueva antropol [online]. 2006, vol.20, n.66, pp.33-60. ISSN 0185-0636.

This essay analyzes the risk conditions under which Mexican workers labor in New York. The author focused his analysis on the immigrants from the Puebla-Tlaxcala region in Mexico. He studies their insertion in the various labor markets of NY by analyzing some typical working contexts, such as apparel manufacture and services, and the gender differences that affect such insertion. He also reviews several cases of successful union organizing. Needless to say, this is a context where union organizing is very difficult, because it involves immigrant workers, many of whom are undocumented. The author studies the experiences of the UNITE! Union and the Tepeyac Organization. This essay is also a methodological contribution, giving an insight "from the bottom" of the complex processes that take place at the present time in terms of so-called globalization. It debunks a series of presumptions related to the supposed passivity of the transnational migrant workforce and offers a moderately optimistic vision of these processes.

Keywords : migrants; labor markets; union organizing and undocumented workers.

        · abstract in Spanish     · text in Spanish     · Spanish ( pdf )