Wage-Labor Migration and Class in Jalisco and the United States

Datos Bibliográficos

ID4500922
AutoresTamar Diana Wilson (0000-0002-1973-0957, autor de correspondencia)
Año2004
Volumen31
Número5
Páginas100-117
Fecha de publicación2004-09-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaLatin American Perspectives (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0094-582X • E-ISSN: 1552-678X
EditorialSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/0094582x04268403
OpenAlexW1992166963
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas1
Referencias citadas47

U.S. markets have been envisioned as split (Bonacich, 1972), dual (Piore, 1986; 1979), segmented (Edwards, Reich, and Gordon, 1975), and more recently, composed of downgraded versus dynamic sectors (Sassen, 1998). Common to all these conceptions is the idea that markets in advanced capitalist societies tend to be (at a minimum) two-tiered, with the lower tier occupied by poor, mainly unskilled, semiskilled, and deskilled (Braverman, 1974) laborers, including recent immigrants with little formal education. Among the indicators of the lower tier, sometimes called the secondary sector, are low wages, unstable employment, and lack of unionization. Immigrants who occupy the low-wage sectors of the economy, especially those from Mexico, have been assigned a commodity identity (Velez-Ibaniez, 1996: 79); they are valued almost exclusively for the power they bring to be exploited or even devoured (Kearney, 1997: 158) by capitalist agro-business and industry. They are imagined by the Immigration and Naturalization Service (and many employers) as labor commodities without personhood equal to that of the officer (Heyman, 2000: 596). Workers display agency in seeking employment, however (Zlolniski, 2000), and among the low-wage jobs available to them they show preference for some over others

Class (philosophy) · Demographic economics · Economics · Labour economics · Political science · Wage · Employment and Welfare Studies · Migration and Labor Dynamics · Migration, Ethnicity, and Economy