Entre lo público y lo privado. Las vías de la protección laboral en la industria maquiladora de prendas de vestir en México

Abstract

Among the public and the private. The channels of the labor protection in the clothing maquila industry in México. In this paper we check the academic and social debate about the advantages and disadvantages of the public and private, national and international, instruments bound to protect the workers in highly competitive contexts. It is argued that globalization and its consequences within the work environment have made necessary the complex strategies, which combine old and new instruments and actors and enlarge the addressee of the claims, including national States, international organisms, transnational corporations and its suppliers. The conclusion is that these strategies don´t ensure the success but increase the probabilities to achieve it. The case of the clothing maquila industry in Mexico is used in order to show the argument to the lights of the labor situation that characterizes it, the causes that would explain the non-fulfillment of the workers’ rights and the weight of the productions’ destiny in this circumstance, the problems associated to the public instruments (labor legislation, work inspection, etcetera) and private instruments (behavior codes) about protection and results achieved throughout them. KEY WORDS: labour protection, workers, companies’ social responsibility, labour human rights, social rights, cloth industry, and labour conditions.