‘Women workers organizing at the local level against global production demands:
the case of Northern Mexico and El Salvador’.

by Dr. Edmé Dominguez,
Associate Professor in Latin American Studies and International Politics, Gothenburg University.
Event co-organised with HRM/Org Studies subject group, Newcastle University Business School.
Wednesday 16th November 2011, 5.30 p.m.
Old Library Building, room 3.14.

Global production of goods is more and more outsourced to cheap labour countries where women's labour is more often than not preferred for several reasons. Some of these reasons have to do with women's vulnerable situation and acceptance of any kind of working conditions and salaries but also with the fact that these women are not easily organised around labour demands. This fact has not only to do with all the obstacles that workers confront when organising against big capital but also with the neglect traditional trade unions have shown these women workers. In this lecture I would like to discuss these issues giving several examples of my own research among women NGOs attending women workers needs and trade unions that have, in their ways approached this issue. The focus will be centred on maquiladora production in the border area Mexico-US and sectors of the same sort of production in El Salvador. Another issue I'll try to rise during this lecture is the one on feminist perspectives on Global Labour standards.