We examine unequal access to the law among industrial workers in the export processing plants of the central highlands of Guatemala. Through qualitative interviews with 40 workers and a three‐wave panel survey in four communities, we elicited perspectives on labor conditions and legal protections as perceived by workers. The workers, mostly young, indigenous women, are caught in the apparent fragmentation of transnational circuits of production through outsourcing, flexibilization strategies, and layers of removed accountability. Workers are subjected to discrimination and inequality before the law. This is facilitated by global regimes that allow corporations to create separate realms of responsibility by relying on contractors and subcontractors that renegotiate national and international laws with states. The nature of global regimes is such that new forms of activism and participation, including transnational networks of workers and consumers, are needed to provide protections and equal access to rights to a vulnerable, young, and mostly indigenous workforce.

Research with hundreds of mostly indigenous Maya workers in the export processing plants (maquilas) of highland Guatemala has revealed a disconnect between working conditions in the factories, perceived rights, national and international labor laws, and law enforcement. Because of this disjunction, efforts to address the plight of workers must engage the complex conditions of the current labor regimes. Maquilas operate in contexts that are virtually exempt from regulation and conflate national and global orders, precluding a clear perspective on issues of rights and legal claims. In the new geographies of power, workers in transnational factories fall into the interstices between state and nonstate spaces and lose their rights and entitlements in the process. Investigaciones en torno a cientos de trabajadores, en su mayor parte indígenas mayas, en las maquilas del altiplano guatemalteco revelan profundas discrepancias entre las condiciones laborales en las fábricas, los derechos presuntamente establecidos, una gama de leyes nacionales e internacionales a las cuales se suscribe Guatemala, y los sistemas de tutela y aplicación de la ley. Dadas estas divergencias, cualquier esfuerzo por atender las condiciones de los trabajadores tiene que tomar en cuenta el complejo entorno de los actuales regímenes laborales. Las maquilas operan en contextos prácticamente exentos de regulación y entremezclan el orden nacional y global, impidiendo una visión clara sobre los derechos y reclamos legales. En las nuevas geografías de poder, los trabajadores de las fábricas transnacionales desaparecen en los intersticios entre el espacio estatal y espacios no estatales, dando lugar a una pérdida de derechos y situaciones vagas dentro del marco de la ley.