Psycho-Management Hit Mexican Maquiladoras

"These tactics are a new level in the psychological game, to get people used to the idea that they are kind of owned and really don't have any worth apart from the company," says Howard Hawhee, who helped to coordinate a listening tour in late May.

"These kinds of stories are very bizarre," says Judith Rosenberg, who has been organizing tours across the border since 1999. "These are management techniques that someone compared to Hitler."

For example, Hawhee and Rosenberg say women in maquiladoras report that they are sometimes asked to prove they are not pregnant by showing proof of menstruation.

"They are very distasteful management techniques," says Rosenberg. "And you have to call them that because they are used very methodically. This business with the sanitary napkins is outrageous, and people feel the attack on their dignity, the women do. And the men do too."

In an interview conducted in Austin after they returned (published at stateofnature.org) Hawhee and Rosenberg said they also heard new stories about workers who were directed to undo work or pass their shifts in isolation.

"One is they would have a whole section of people in a factory that for instance manufactures seat covers or seat belts," reported Hawhee. "And they would do a whole day's worth of work, you know, sew everything. And the next day when they came back their job was to un-sew it all. Just to make the point that 'okay, we don't need you. We just got you around because we like having you around, and that's all'."

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