Untitled Document

Mexican Labor News and Analysis is produced in collaboration with the Authentic Labor Front (Frente Autentico del Trabajo - FAT) of Mexico and with the United Electrical Workers (UE) of the United States and is published the 2nd and 16th of every month.

MLNA can be viewed at the UE's international web site: HTTP://www.igc.apc.org/unitedelect/. For information about direct subscriptions, submission of articles, and all queries contact editor Dan La Botz at the following e-mail address: 103144.2651@compuserve.com or call in the U.S. (513) 961-8722. The U.S. mailing address is: Dan La Botz, Mexican Labor News and Analysis, 3436 Morrison Place, Cincinnati, OH 45220.

MLNA articles may be reprinted by other electronic or print media, but we ask that you credit Mexican Labor News and Analysis and give the UE home page location and Dan La Botz's compuserve address.

The UE Home Page which displays Mexican Labor News and Analysis has an INDEX of back issues and an URGENT ACTION ALERT section.

Staff: Editor, Dan La Botz; Correspondents in Mexico: Bob Briggs, Robert Donnelly, Peter Gellert, Elyce Hues, Jess Kincaid, Jorge Robles, Don Sherman, Jeremy Simer. -----------------------------------------------------------------

In past years we have generally had a special issue on Mexican working women following International Women's Day (March 8). This year, because of other developments around that time, we did not do so. In recompense, we have dedicated this issue to Mexican working women.

Most of the statistical information presented here comes from the Mexican Institute of Statistics (INEGI), from other government agencies, or in some cases from newspaper reports often based on studies by non-governmental organizations or academic research.

During the past five years Mexico has suffered an economic and political crisis which has also and especially been a crisis for women. While Mexican working people saw their employment become precarious, their real purchasing power decline, and their public health system begin to unravel, women-who have always occupied a weaker position in Mexican society-have suffered most from all of these problems.

Women play a central role in Mexican society, and represent an ever more significant part of the Mexican working class. Yet women's general standard of living, their career expectations, their wages, benefits and working conditions, and their treatment in society in general fall far below those of men. In part because of those inequities, women have come to play an increasingly important part within the labor and social movements, now frequently leading movements not only for their own issues, but also for those of the working class as a whole.

Labor unions with a large proportion of women members, such as the teachers' union or the flight attendants' union, have been at the forefront of the fight for independent and democratic unionism, and for a new more socially conscious and militant labor movement. The working women's movement in its independent and democratic form has pushed forward new labor leaders such as Blanca Lunca of Local 9 of el SNTE, Alejandra Barrales of the Mexican Flight Attendants Union (ASSA), and Bertha Lujan of the Authentic Labor Front (FAT).

If sisterhood is powerful, sisterhood and union organization more powerful still. Mexican women workers have begun to transform their workplaces, their labor unions, to democratize politics, and to fight for a better world for all of us.

According to the most recent figures of the Mexican Institute of Statistics (INEGI) among women over 12 years of age: 45 percent are married; 37 percent are single; 7.0 percent are widowed; 6.7 percent live in free unions (common law marriages); and 3.21 percent are separated and 1.0 percent are divorced. Some 37.4 percent of women over 12 years old who are single, married, or in a free union have no children.

Women's educational levels tend to be lower then men's. Some 12 percent of Mexican women have had no education. 15 percent of women are illiterate, while the figure for men is 9 percent. About two thirds have attended primary and secondary school, though they may not have graduated. About 14.6 percent of women have college or post-graduate education.

But women's participation in college education has been rising steadily. In 1970 women represented 25 percent of college students; in 1980 they had reached 30 percent; in 1990 they made up 40 percent; and today they make up about 46 percent. Women also now make up 40 percent of post-graduate students.

Today about 35 percent of all women work outside the home, while women today make up 34 percent of the Mexican workforce (in Mexico called the PEA or Economically Active Population). The Mexican workforce (PEA) is 38.3 million, of whom 13 million are women. Women's participation in the workforce has risen from 17 percent in 1972 to 34 percent today. (To make a comparison, in 1994 sixty percent of all women in the United States worked outside the home, compared to 43 percent in 1970.)

In general women are paid less than men. Overall women's take home pay represents about 81 percent of the wages of male workers. In part this is because a larger percentage of women receive less than one minimum wage (about US$3.00 per day): 37.6 percent for women compared to 27.4 percent for men. The same is true of wages equivalent to less than two minimum wages per day: women 29.1 percent, men 24.6 percent.

But at all levels women's wages or salaries are lower than men's, and the higher one goes on the career ladder, the smaller a percentage women's wages. Salaried women workers received only 76.6 percent of salaried men workers' wages; while women executives' salaries represent only 64.6 percent of those of men.

For the first time, Mexico's National Institute of Statistics (INEGI) has released figures for specific categories showing just how much lower women's wages are compared with those of men.

CATEGORY	PERCENT DIFFERENCE IN WAGES
Technical Workers	11%
Teachers	16.8%
Artists	6%
Public officials & Private Managers	28%
Supervisor & bosses	48%
Artisans & laborers	14%
Workers helpers	14%
Domestic workers	33.4%
Clerical workers	20%
Service employees	11%
Farmers	9%
Professionals	32%

Women's unemployment rates are higher than that of men, and their success in finding jobs lower. The Mexican government's figures for open unemployment indicate that women's rates have not only remained higher, but that the difference between the rates has increased to the disadvantage of women.

YEAR	TOTAL	MEN	WOMEN
1994	3.7	3.6	3.9
1995	6.2	6.1	6.4
1996	5.5	5.3	5.9
1997	3.7	3.4	4.1
1998	3.1	2.9	3.6

The Federal District, which includes Mexico City, is the most populous urban area in Mexico, and one of the largest industrial centers as well. In the Federal District's 2.2 million homes, some 1.7 million depend in large part upon the earnings of women workers. Women make up 40 percent of the workforce in the Federal District, and, according to one report, 70 percent of those working women are heads of households.

But 52 percent of the working women in the Federal District receive a wage of 45 pesos per day (about US$5.00). About 35 percent of working women earn two minimum wages per day (about US$6.00). Only 32 percent of women working in the Federal District receive vacations or the legally required winter bonus (aguinaldo). Mexico City has 600,000 domestic workers, most of whom receive very low wages and no benefits whatsoever.

Married women throughout Mexico work at higher levels than in the past. For example, in Monterrey in the state of Nuevo Leon the percentage of married women who work has risen from 8 percent in 1976 to 17 percent in 1996, according to a study "Change in the Labor Participation of Married Women: 1976 - 1996," by Jorge N. Valero Gil. The higher the level of education, or the older the women, the more likely she is to work, he said.

Mexico has more than 1.7 million domestic workers, of whom 89 percent or about l.5 million are women. 51.2 percent of domestic workers receive no benefits whatsoever, 29.3 percent receive less than one minimum wage (34.35 pesos or about US$3.00), 48.4 percent between one and two minimum wages. Some 40 percent work more than 12 hours per day, while 45.8 percent work more than 60 hours per week.

Many domestic workers come from rural areas, often young women with low levels of education frequently just primary school or a year or two of secondary school. They not only work long hours for little pay, but usually have only Sunday off. The rest of the time many live as virtual prisoners in the house of their employers. Their male employers sometimes sexually harass them, especially if they are young.

The real economic situation of Mexican women can be difficult to determine because 50 percent of the workforce is employed in the informal economy. The informal economy refers to businesses which have no legal existence: they do not pay taxes, do not pay social security (health, retirement and other benefits), and do not have labor unions.

For example between 1984 and 1998, the number of street vendors' stands (puestos) throughout Mexico grew from about 100,000 to over 800,000, and their employees from 400,000 to over 1,500,000. Women can frequently make more money working as street vendors than they would as domestic, clerical or industrial workers. But we do not know their working hours, their wages, nor much else about their situation.

Street vendors may have to make political payoffs to the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) or to other parties where they are in power or to the local police officers who patrol the area. Women vendors may also find themselves engaged in violent altercations with both the police and local shop owners.

The economic crisis, the great numbers minor of people--especially women--living in poverty, the lack of opportunities available for decent jobs at good pay, have all contributed to Mexico's problem of prostitution. Prostitutes, or sex workers (sexoservidores) as they are often called in Mexico, constitute one of the most oppressed groups of women workers. Dominated by madams and pimps, exploited by hotel managers, hassled and taken advantage of by the police, frequently suffering from drug and alcohol addiction problems, prostitutes--like other women workers--receive low wages while suffering special health and safety problems. Prostitutes may suffer the ordinary diseases of working people and the poor in Mexico, but also suffer from sexually transmitted diseases including AIDS.

Thousands of women work as prostitutes throughout Mexico. Somewhere between 10 and 20 percent of prostitutes may be married, many also raise children. In many areas, prostitution is quasi-legal, confined to a "zone of toleration." Women who work in the zone must register with the authorities and theoretically must have periodic medical examinations, though that often does not happen. In Monterrey there are 7,000 female prostitutes, of whom only 2,000 participate in government health programs for prostitutes. Thousands of prostitutes work in Acapulco, Cancun, and other resorts.

As the largest city in the country, Mexico City also has one of the largest populations of prostitutes. In Cuauhtemoc, The Mexico City delegation which contains many tourist hotels and restaurants, there are 1,020 female prostitutes. La Merced market, one of the largest centers of prostitution, reportedly has over 2,000 prostitutes.

Thousands of girls also practice prostitution. Some authorities estimate that Mexico City has 2,500 female child prostitutes. The states of Tlaxcala and Puebla are reported to have 5,000 female child prostitutes, while in Guadalajara 900 female child prostitutes have been detected. In Veracruz some 8,000 to 9,000 children live in the streets; the authorities believe that 3,000 of them may suffer sexual exploitation. In Juarez, girls 13 and 14-still too young to work legally in the maquiladoras, can sometimes be found working as child prostitutes, according to city authorities.

Mexican prostitutes, especially in larger cities, frequently form organizations--what amount to prostitutes' labor unions-usually to fight exploitation by the hotel owners who rent them their cribs, or to protest police harassment. Sometimes the prostitutes' unions also attempt to work with government public health workers conducting STDS and AIDS programs. Organized prostitutes also wok to eliminate child prostitution, apparently out of moral concerns and perhaps

also to eliminate cheap competition. In Mexico City, prostitutes sometimes work with feminist organizations and with political parties to lobby for legislation or regulation in their self-interest.

The economic crisis has badly hurt retired and pensioned workers, and especially women whose incomes during their working lives were lower.

The Unifying Movement of Retirees, Pensioners and Older Adults (MUNJP) claims to represent almost 800,000 retired workers, many of whom are women. It's leader, Blanca Irma Alonso Tejeda, took over leadership of the movement from her father, Eduardo Alonso Escarcega, after his death. It could be called a semi-official movement, since while criticizing the government it often supports the candidates of the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI).

According to the MUNJP the retirees' monthly pensions are $1,047.00 pesos; or $946.00 for widows. (This is just about $100 per month.) The MUNJP calls for increases in the Federal budget for retirees.

Mexico's maquiladoras--light manufacturing, processing and packing plants--represent an important sector of the Mexican economy and a significant area of female employment. The maquiladoras produce autoparts, electronic equipment, hospital supplies, clothing and other goods.

Today Mexico has 4,500 maquiladoras employing 1,150,000 working and generation 10 billion dollars in foreign exchange each year. Women workers have represented a declining percentage of the workforce, but their numbers have grown enormously. Today women make up 56 percent of the workforce of the Maquiladoras or about 644,000 worker

YEAR	PLANTS	EMPLOYEES	PERCENT MEN	PERCENT WOMEN
1960	12	3,000	10	90
1970	120	20,000	13	87
1980	620	125,000	15	85
1990	1,920	450,000	30	70
1999	4,500	1,150,000	44	56

Women tend to make up a larger percentage of the clothing and electronics industry, while men tend to be a growing percentage of the autoparts industry.

Women's wages in the maquiladora industry average around $4.00 per day. As industrial workers, female maquiladora workers receive health and retirement benefits through the Mexican Institute of Social Security (IMSS). Most maquiladora workers do not have labor unions to protect them. Where unions exist, they are "official unions" of such federations as the Confederation of Mexican Workers (CTM) which often negotiate "protection contracts" intended to protect the employers from legitimate unions. In general, the Mexican Federal and state governments, the labor boards, the employers and the official unions collude to prevent workers from either domcratizing the "official" unions or from forming independent labor unions.

Maquiladora workers, non-governmental human rights organizations, and occasionally even government agencies or official unions have sometimes protested conditions in the maquiladoras and the surrounding communities. One of the most horrendous situations in the maquiladora zone located on the U.S.-Mexico border has been that in Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua where some 184 women, many of them young maquiladora workers, have been murdered. While the police have arrested several suspects, there remains doubt that the problem has been resolved.

The murder earlier this year of Irma Angelica Rosales, a 13 year-old maquiladora worker stirred national concern about both the series of murders and the employment of child labor in the plants.

Maquiladora workers, feminists, human rights activists, and independent union organizers have complained for years about the employment of child labor in the maquiladoras. Girls under 16 or their families frequently purchase forged documents so that the illegal minors can work in the plants. For example last month (April 1999) the Mexican Labor Department found 100 children under 16 working in 25 plants in Ciudad Juarez. Most were girls working the afternoon shift (3 p.m. to 1 a.m.), also illegal for women under Mexican law.

Mexican authorities have also found that maquiladoras force women to work longer hours than permitted by labor law. For example, the Inspector (regidora) of Education in Merida, Yucatan found that maquiladora workers frequently work 10 to 12 hours a day. Similarly in Puebla, journalists report that workers in maquiladora clothing plants typically work 10 hours a day for 40 pesos (about US$4.00).

Both Mexican and international non-governmental organizations have also complained for years that maquiladora managers frequently force female maquiladora workers to take pregnancy examinations either as a condition of hiring or to keep their jobs. Workers, feminist organizations, and human rights groups have also reported widespread sexual harassment by supervisors and plant managers.

Mexican women's increasing participation in the labor market has been accompanied by their larger role in labor unions. Women make up the majority of workers in a number of job categories and professions, and therefore in certain labor unions. As discussed above, for example, women make up a majority of the workers in the maquiladora plants, and therefore a majority of the members of the unionized maquiladoras.

But because those union tend to have been imposed by the government labor boards, management and the "official" federations, women find little representation through those structures. The "official" unions tend to be dominated by authoritarian and macho men, and women play little if any role in the lives of those unions. Nevertheless women often organize in their workplaces and their communities in an attempt to force those phoney unions to represent them.

Women also make up a majority or a significant minority of the workforce in several other unions as well. Women represent a large percentage of the workers in the National Union of Workers of the Mexican Institute of Social Security (SNTSS), and women make up a significant portion of the Union of Workers of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (STUNAM). Both SNTSS and STUNAM form part of the new independent federation, the National Union of Workers (UNT).

Women make up a majority of pre-school and primary school teachers, and a significant percentage of secondary teachers too. Women play an important part in the Mexican Teachers' Union (el SNTE), and also in the rank and file reform movement within that union known as the Coordinating Committee of the Mexican Teachers Union (la CNTE). The women of la CNTE have participated in innumerable protests and strikes to fight for democracy in the union, and for Higher wages and better benefits for teachers.

The huge upheaval within that union in 1989 led former president Carlos Salinas de Gortari to support Elba Esther Gordillo's bid to become the leader of the union. Ever since then she has been one of the most visible women union leaders, still an important figure within el SNTE as head of its Political Council, also the head of the National Confederation of Peoples Organizations (CNOP) which forms one of the pillars of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). Gordillo is not only an important woman leader in the labor movement, but one of the most powerful figures in the "official" union bureaucracy.

Where the democratic opposition has been successful, it has also sometimes elected women leaders. Most recently Blanca Luna became the head of Local 9 of the Mexican Teachers Union (el SNTE) which represents 58,000 primary school teachers in Mexico City. She led her union in a struggle for its independence from the "official" leadership of the national union, and recently negotiated a pact with Elba Esther Gordillo, granting the local its autonomy.

Women also constitute a majority of Mexico's flight attendants where they participate in the Mexican Flight Attendants Union (ASSA), headed by Alejandra Barrales. Barrales has become the most important woman leader in the National Union of Workers (UNT), the new independent labor federation. As head of that union she has led strikes and organizing drives, as well as participating in movements of solidarity for other unions.

The Authentic Labor Front (FAT), a small federation of unions, peasant organizations, community groups and cooperatives, has also been a leader in the fight for a working class feminism. Bertha Lujan serves as one of its three co-presidents, and is one of the FAT's most important public figures. The FAT has established ties not only to other Mexican working women's organizations, non-governmental organizations and human rights groups, but also to Canadian, U.S. and other foreign labor unions and their women's committees.

Women workers, independent unions, feminist and human rights organizations and some legislators from various parties have proposed that a number of changes be made in Mexican labor law to protect women workers. Still, it is often difficult for women to fight for these laws, because there are so few women legislators. While women make up about half of Mexico's population, they represent only 13.9 percent of all legislators in the state legislatures or Federal Congress.

Among the most frequently mentioned legal changes to benefit women workers which have been mentioned during the recent discussion of reform of the Federal Labor Law are the following: