An Uphill Struggle to Resist Downward Harmonization in Puebla, Mexico: The Case of Volkswagen Workers

Vanderbush, Walt

doi:10.1177/089124249801200306

Cited by 3 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 5 publications

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“…After that, they were relegated to a market built on the city's outskirts. See also Vanderbush 1997. 5. Some of the decline in sales for vendors and market sellers, moreover, relates to national and global developments.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The city therefore may not be able to compete effectively for these investors' business. Volkswagen workers at the plant just outside the Puebla city limits provide a striking example of the prominent role that the president and other national-level officials play in creating a favorable climate for foreign investors (see Vanderbush 1998). In the early 1990s, a union widely believed to be militant and strong was eliminated by a transnational corporation and the Mexican federal government.…”

Section: Municipal Governance In a Larger Contextmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Assessing Democracy in Puebla: The Opposition Takes Charge of Municipal Government

Vanderbush

1999

J. inter-Am. stud. world aff.

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JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.. Center for Latin American Studies at the University of Miami is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs. AbstractsAssessing Democracy in Puebla: The Opposition Takes Charge of Municipal Government Debates about democratization in developing countries have generally emphasized competitive elections, broad participation, and the protection of civil and political liberties. A survey of the first two years of PAN administration in the city of Puebla, Mexico, assesses government capacities and policy responses to social and economic demands. It suggests that excitement over the election of opposition party officials should be tempered pending evidence of the accommodation of such demands. Antonio Gramsci and the Palabra Verdadera: The Political Discourse of Mexico's Guerrilla ForcesThis article examines the political strategies of the EZLN, or Zapatista army, in Chiapas and the EPR, which operates mostly in Oaxaca and Guerrero, through a content analysis of their communiques. It argues that these two guerrilla movements demonstrate, through their cultural production, significantly different priorities and preferences; and that these differences reflect different strategic choices. Whereas the EZLN has chosen to pursue a revolutionary strategy similar in key respects to the "war of position" described by Gramsci, the EPR remains closer to the "war of movement." NAFTA Coalitions and the Political Viability of Neoliberalism in MexicoThe process of political coalition building surrounding trade reform in Mexico had implications for the 1994-95 peso crisis. This article traces the formation of a free trade coalition between state and business elites across several episodes of trade opening, focusing on the NAFTA negotiations. The consolidation of this powerful but narrow coalition helped to cement the Salinas government's neoliberal reform agenda, boost investor confidence, and restore moderate levels of low-inflation growth in the early 1990s, but it also gave rise to the macroeconomic imbalances and political instability that led to the 1994 crisis. Since then, the economic basis of the neoliberal coalition may have recovered, but its political viability may be questionable. AbstractsAssessing Democracy in Puebla: The Opposition Takes Charge of Municipal Government Debates about democratization in developing countries have generally emphasized competitive elections, broad participation, and the protection of civil and political liberties. A survey of the first two years of PAN administration in the city of Puebla, Mexico, assesses government capacities and policy responses to social and economic demands. It su...

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Municipal Governance In a Larger Contextmentioning

confidence: 99%

Assessing Democracy in Puebla: The Opposition Takes Charge of Municipal Government

Vanderbush

1999

J. inter-Am. stud. world aff.

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In the eye of the beholder: The social construction of injustice along the Mexico‐U.S. border

Horowitz

2006

Journal of Borderlands Studies

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Cross-Boarder Trade with Mexico and the Prospect for Worker Solidarity: the Case of Mexico

Babson¹

2000

Critical Sociology

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While auto labor in North America remains fragmented and local, the auto companies have been reorganizing on a continental basis, building a modern, export-oriented production base in Mexico. This paper addresses the question of whether and how the diverse labor movements of Mexico, the U.S. and Canada can overcome the competitive dynamic of free trade and establish a regional union movement based on cross-border solidarity. A review of the salient events of the last 30 years indicates that, despite the widespread assumption that Mexican autoworkers must be benefiting from globalization to the same degree that U.S. and Canadian workers are losing, the actual outcomes are mixed on both sides of the border. Jobs are up in most years, but real wages are stagnant or falling, bargaining leverage is weakened, and de-unionization is growing across the continent. At the same time, the North American integration of production has established a common “occupational idiom” (and accompanying grievances) centered on lean production, outsourcing, and competitive “whipsawing” of plants making the same product. On this basis alone, proponents of cross-border solidarity can find potential allies from Puebla to Oshawa. Mobilizing that potential is difficult, however, when there are so few links between the labor movements of North America. Historical divisions rooted in the Mexican revolution and the Cold War are now diminished, but barriers of language and culture remain. A further barrier is the heightened job insecurity felt in many corners of the auto industry. Shifting market shares, global mergers, and periodic downsizing all contribute to this anxious state, which continental whipsawing makes all the more intense, continuous, and potentially divisive for any cross-border union movement. The paper ends with an assessment of current initiatives that point towards a possible North American movement of autoworkers.

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An Uphill Struggle to Resist Downward Harmonization in Puebla, Mexico: The Case of Volkswagen Workers

Cited by 3 publications

References 5 publications

Assessing Democracy in Puebla: The Opposition Takes Charge of Municipal Government

Assessing Democracy in Puebla: The Opposition Takes Charge of Municipal Government

In the eye of the beholder: The social construction of injustice along the Mexico‐U.S. border

Cross-Boarder Trade with Mexico and the Prospect for Worker Solidarity: the Case of Mexico

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