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CONCEALED REPRESSIONS: LABOR ORGANIZING CAMPAIGNS AND

ANTIUNION PRACTICES IN THE APPAREL INDUSTRY OF GUATEMALA*

Quentin Delpech†

Research on antisweatshop mobilizations and labor-organizing campaigns in the countries of


the global South has shown that under the pressure of transnational advocacy networks,
notably NGOs and trade unions, US brands and retailers intervene in labor conflicts in their
outsourced factories, in order to escape shaming campaigns. However, little attention has
been paid to the responses of local employers to the emergence of labor organizations in their
factories, partly as a result of these campaigns. This article, based on a two-year fieldwork
project in the Guatemalan apparel sector, shows how the local managers of this industry
manage to reconcile the demands of brands with the continuation of repressive labor control
in the workplace by means of “concealed repression”; namely, preventive strategies, subtle
antiunion discrimination, “opportune inaction,” and deliberate illicit transactions involving
state officials.

Research on antisweatshop mobilization and labor-organizing campaigns in the countries of


the global South has shown that US brands and retailers, under the pressure of transnational
advocacy networks, (Keck and Sikkink 1998) intervene in labor conflicts in their outsourced
factories to escape shaming campaigns (Anner 2009, 2007; Armbruster-Sandoval 2005; Brooks
2007, 2002; Frundt 2005). These interventions generally consist in requiring that sub-
contractors improve labor conditions, comply with local labor law and, in rare cases, recog-
nize employee organizations and engage in collective bargaining with them (Anner 2012).
The few successful labor-organizing campaigns—in particular in Central America and
Mexico—that led to the emergence of employee unions have already been extensively studied
(Anner 2009; Armbruster-Sandoval 2005; Bandy 2004; Carty 2004; Frundt 2005; Jessup and
Gordon 2000; William 1999). These studies have shown that the pressure the brands put on
local employers is not sufficient to create the conditions enabling workers to build sustainable
organizations (COVERCO 2001; Rodriguez-Garavito 2005; Wells 2009). In fact, in a study
examining more than 1,000 antisweatshop campaigns run in the Caribbean basin apparel
industry—in the so-called maquilas or maquiladoras—Rodríguez-Garavito (2007) concluded
that a union’s average lifetime did not exceed eighteen months. In the existing literature on
this topic, two key factors accounting for the success of international labor-rights campaigns
have been identified: the workers’ ability to mobilize themselves in the local context
(Armbruster-Sandoval 2005; Wells 2009) and the union-friendly position of the governments
who were in place at that time (Murillo and Schrank 2007). Similarly, most studies concur
that whenever such efforts to mobilize unions in the maquilas of a particular region ended in
failure, it was due to the repressive tactics of maquila owners, which hindered all attempts to
establish a union, even when state authorities had officially recognized it (Armbruster-
Sandoval 2005; Carty 2006; Frundt 2005).
_______________________________
*
I thank Johanna Siméant, Don Wells and the anonymous peer reviewers of Mobilization for comments and advice
on an earlier version of this article.

Quentin Delpeche is an associate researcher at the Center for Mexican and Central American Studies (CEMCA).
Email: Quentin.Delpeche@yahoo.fr

© 2015 Mobilization: An International Quarterly 20(3): 325-344


DOI 10.17813/1086-671X-20-3-325
326 Mobilization

However most studies on labor-organizing campaigns tend to focus excessively on trans-


national activism (Wells 2009), overshadowing the question of the local context in relation to
the workers’ mobilization and repression. To date, only a few studies have examined the
conditions enabling the maquila workers on the ground to be mobilized (Bandy, Bickham,
and Mendez 2003; Huesca 2003; Pena 1997; Wells 2009; William 1999). How labor organ-
izers approach workers in the hostile environment of factories in the global South, where
labor is tightly controlled, how organizing strategies are implemented (and adapted) to this
specific context, and how local employers respond remain underresearched topics.
This article focuses on how maquila managers in Guatemala respond to the emergence of
labor organizations in their factories, partly in response to transnational labor-organizing
campaigns, and how they manage to reconcile the demands of foreign brands to abandon
repressive practices with the continuation of repressive labor control. Managers exercise
“concealed repression” in the form of a discreet antiunion repertoire of actions. The repertoire
includes preventive strategies and the opportunistic use of contextual violence. My research
shows that there is a continuum of practices that range from opportune inaction to deliberate
illicit relations involving state officials.
Under a façade of compliance, these employers adapt their antiunion strategies so that
they appear to conform to the pressure applied by brands and to elude the activists’ vigilance.
Ironically, the increased control that brands now hold over the supply chain does not
necessarily result in improving labor rights compliance in the factories of the global South. In
the case of the Guatemalan apparel industry, it has just prompted maquila bosses to conceal
even more their repressive policies behind a set of practices whose common feature is that
they are difficult to detect and to attribute to their perpetrators. Maquila managers adapt their
repressive policies to a context of increased vigilance from brands and labor activists who are
both prepared to react quickly if any issue regarding labor rights erupts.

Table 1. Typology of Concealed Repression

Discreet antiunion Strategy 1. Preventive strategies: the “fire door” strategy


repertoire of actions Maquila owners and managers anticipate and prevent the emergence
of organized protests in the workplace

Strategy 2. Subtle antiunion discrimination: gradually undermining


the union’s credibility
When unions finally managed to emerge, discrete and subtle anti-
union practices undermined the unions’ actions.

Opportunistic use Strategy 3. Opportune inaction: Taking a laisser-faire approach to


of social violence gangs’ predatory activities
Maquila owners and managers leverage latent violence to inhibit
labor mobilization

Strategy 4. Deliberate illicit relations involving state officials: the


police and its “dirty work”
Clandestine arrangements made between maquila owners or
managers and state officials

STRATEGIES OF CONCEALED REPRESSION

Antiunion repression in Guatemala is well-researched. Guatemala is the Latin American


country with the lowest unionization rate: less than 3 percent of the workforce is unionized,
and in many economic sectors unionization remains extremely limited (ILO 2009). The
Concealed Repressions 327

weakness of trade unions in this country can be partly explained by the detrimental effects of
neoliberal privatization policies of the 1990s on the national bastion of unionism (Robinson
2003). A second explanation lies in the persistence of the state’s repressive policies on union-
ism (Armbruster-Sandoval 2005; Frundt 2002, 1998; Robinson 2003). The labor movement—
a victim of state repression during the dictatorships of the 1970s and 1980s—is still subject to
repression, in spite of the “democratic transition” that was initiated in the late 1980s (Frundt
1998; Levenson-Estrada 1994; Petersen 1992). For over fifteen years, the International Labor
Office (ILO) has been drawing attention to the persistence of antiunion violence, which
includes death threats, physical assaults, detentions, killings, kidnapping, disappearances or
torture, and the climate of impunity that shields the perpetrators of such acts (ILO 2010).
Between 2008 and 2012, fifty-three unionists have been murdered, giving Guatemala the
dubious world-record (shared with Colombia) for the highest number of trade unionists’
killed (ILO 2010). The victims of these killings, which are regularly condemned around the
world, are mainly unionized banana or coffee workers (ILO 2010). It has been shown that the
repression of trade unionism in Latin America is often delegated to entrepreneurs of violence,
including paramilitary groups or henchmen hired by local employers (Combes 2006). In
addition to antiunion violence, there are other forms of antiunion repression that are less
visible but equally effective. For instance, discreet antiunion discrimination, clandestine
relations between state officials and employers facilitating impunity and acts of repression
delegated to gangs are common, especially in the textile and apparel industry of the urban
areas of Guatemala.
The Guatemalan maquilas, whose number has been steadily increasing since the early
1980s, provide an example of a sector that is characterized by extremely low unionization.
Since the birth of the textile and apparel industry, very few unions have emerged in the
industry. Over the past decade, only four apparel factories have been the sites of successful
attempts to organize labor, through the creation of four labor unions: the employees’ unions
of Choi Shin (SITRACHOI) and Cimatextiles (SITRACIMA) were founded in July 2001, the
employees’ organization of SAE-A International (SITRASAE) was officially recognized in
2004 and the employees’ union of Winners (SITRAWINSA), was founded in 2007.

Table 2. Active Maquila Unions in Guatemala’s Apparel Sector in the 2000s

Official date Parent Number of Unionized Current situation


Union Name of recognitiona companya workers workers (%)e (2013) a
SITRACIMA 2001 Choi Shin Around 420 40 Plant closed
Employee organization employeesb (9.5) (2008)
of Cimatextiles S.A.

SITRACHOI 2001 Choi Shin Around 750 44 Plant closed


Employee organization employeesb (5.8) (2007)
of Choi Shin S.A.

SITRASAE 2004 SAE-A Around 62 Union no longer


Employee organization Int. 4,659 (1.33) active (2010)
of SAE-A Int. S.A. employeesc

SITRAWINSA 2007 SAE-A Around 42 Union no longer


Employee organization Int. 1,782 (2.35) active (2010)
of Winners S.A. employeesd

Sources: a General Directorate for Minister of Labor and Social Insurance; bCOVERCO 2001; cInforme 2009 del
Empleador SAE-A International S. A.; d Informe 2009 del Empleador Winners S. A.; e Interviews with Secretary-General
of SITRACIMA, SITRACHOI, SITRASEA and SITRAWINSA.
328 Mobilization

In 1999, several US and Northern-based labor organizations—such as UNITE, the


ITGLWF and the international solidarity center of the AFL-CIO—launched a regional organ-
izing campaign in Central America aiming at creating independent unions and at engaging
collective bargaining in the maquila sector. These labor campaigns, which started in the late
1980s in the Dominican Republic (Anner 2009; Jessup and Gordon 2000), have overhauled
the repertoire of action of previous protests, which mainly focused on mobilizing US
consumers. They rely on strategies that resemble the so-called “corporate campaigns,” which
were initiated in the 1970s (Mannheim 2000). Those campaigns put pressure on the targeted
companies by disrupting their normal operation in order to push them to accept the cam-
paigners’ demands. Labor-organizing campaigns in factories across the global South exert
pressure on US brands or retailers in order to bolster their organizing efforts among the em-
ployees of the local subcontracting factories. They thus combine two different strategies so
that subcontractors feel the pressure of both mobilized local workers and organized groups in
the North. The practices they employ range from boycotts to demonstrations and sit-ins in the
stores of the brands involved.
After months of careful—and clandestine—militant efforts to organize and mobilize the
workers of two maquilas producing for US brands, including Liz Claiborne Inc., two unions
finally emerged on July 9, 2001 (for details, see Frundt 2005; Rodriguez-Garavito 2007). Within
a few days after the launch of the two unions, the managers of the maquilas implemented an
antiunion repression policy, involving collective threats to the union members, as well as
personal threats to the leaders. An NGO, Commission for the Verification of Corporate Codes
of Conduct, which at the time was in the process of auditing labor conditions in the two
maquilas that supplied Liz Claiborne Inc., issued a report describing the repression of workers
and highlighting formal union-busting practices and antiunion violence:

Managers began to mobilize supervisors in an effort to discourage union affiliation among


workers. Managers suggested that union affiliation would lead to the closing of the factories. . . .
From this day, onward, managers engaged in other activities to discourage growth of the
union, including: encouraging individual workers to sign a document declaring their oppo-
sition to the union; offering legal counsel to workers interested in disaffiliation with the union;
encouraging antiunion workers to identify union workers and pressure them to resign.
July 18—Antiunion workers and supervisors formed unruly groups that approach individual
union members, demanding that they resign from the factory and the union. . . . Violent demon-
strations erupted in the factories, targeting union workers. One group of union workers
managed to leave the factory, with the assistance, they reported, of the police. Another group
of workers seeked refuge in the offices of CIMA Textiles.
July 19—More violent demonstrations in the factories against union workers. Several union
workers and one COVERCO monitor were roughed up. No one was seriously injured. One
group of workers, accompanied by plant security, took refuge in the room adjacent to the
factory gate. About 50 antiunion workers participated in the disruptions. Another 150 workers
looked on while the rest of the workforce remained in the factories. (COVERCO 2001).

Thanks to the pressure of solidarity networks (Rodriguez-Garavito 2007), Liz Claiborne


Inc. finally intervened by recognizing the two unions and, a few weeks later, asked its sub-
contractors to comply with the labor law and to recognize in their turn the two unions.
Following the success of the SITRACIMA and SITRACHOI unions, a collective agreement
was signed between them and the subcontractors in July 2003. One might have expected that
the official recognition of the unions in 2001 and the victory of collective bargaining in 2003
would have encouraged more workers to join the unions. But this was not the case: the
unionization rate remained very low (see Table 2); the actual rate is even lower if the number
of unionized workers who are active is taken into account. Thus, neither union managed to
gain in strength; in fact, both are maintained only by the commitment of a handful of workers.
How can the unions’ failure to capitalize on these victories be explained? The answer to
this question lies in how the respective commitment costs developed over time: the unions
Concealed Repressions 329

failed to become stronger because they were confronted with new tactics of repression, which
were less conspicuous than the repressive tactics that the unions had to cope with over the
summer of 2001. Local managers engaged in a double game: they officially recognized the
unions as a goodwill gesture and they committed to collective bargaining but, at the same
time, they developed new forms of concealed repression to avoid a warning from brands and
from US and international labor organizations for not complying with labor rights. These
subtle antiunion tactics applied in Guatemala’s maquila sector—especially the less visible
variants—will be examined in detail.

Strategies of Repression: A Theoretical Framework

Repression is generally considered as an activity involving intelligence, surveillance, law


enforcement, legal action and specific tactics intentionally exercised by the state on targeted
protesters. This definition of repression, however, is somewhat restrictive for several reasons:
first, it does not account for the involvement of actors other than the state in repressive
activities (Combes 2006; Davenport, Johnston and Mueller 2005; Johnston 2006; Fillieule
and Combes 2011), such as “specialists in violence” (Charles Tilly 2003). Several studies
have shed light on how state actors “outsource” repressive activities to violent groups in the
context of “illicit relations” (Auyero 2000; Auyero and Malher 2011; Combes 2006). Indeed,
researchers have increasingly engaged in the study of clandestine political arrangements—
traditionally the province of journalists (Auyero 2000). Auyero, for instance, has studied the
relationship between the clandestine political connections that politicians and state officials
often maintains with protesters and collective violence. These connections, as he explains,
flourish in “a murky area where normative boundaries dissolve, where state actors and
political elites promote and/or actively tolerate and/or participate in damage making” (Auyero
2000: 32). Auyero has also described the various exchanges between the legal and the illegal
spheres in the political context of Argentina (Auyero 2000). Other researchers have recently
highlighted the persistence of concealed relations in Guatemala between a range of political
and economic actors, such as state officials, employers or politicians, and criminal groups,
such as youth gangs or former paramilitary agents (Grann 2011). This evidence shows that it
is impossible to gain a comprehensive view of repression in Guatemala without taking into
account the growing influence of criminal groups in the country’s politics.
Second, the definition given above does not take into account ordinary forms of repres-
sion. Oliver (2008) has stressed that mass incarceration as a means of controlling common
crime should be regarded as a form of repression. Her study shows that, following Nixon’s
victory in the presidential elections of 1968 and the intensification of the so-called “War on
Drugs,” surveillance and repression in the ghettos increased, as did the number of prison
sentences on Blacks in poor neighborhoods. This systematic policy of surveillance and crime
prevention weakened the Afro-Americans’ ability to protest. On the whole, however, there is
a lack of research on how social factors and repression, as well as mobilization, interact.
In general, a closer attention to the effects of the social order—or disorder—on the
mobilization/repression interaction would be more than welcomed. In fact, the assertion that
repression always involves the mobilization of resources, such as intelligence, legal actions,
police intervention, ought to be questioned. In this article, I will argue that repression can be
the result of the contextual nature of the “ordinary” social order. Sometimes repression may
arise from the inaction of actors such as the state, which, in particular social conditions,
proves to be an effective way of undermining activism. In such cases, the repressors choose to
take no action at opportune moments, which allows them to capitalize on latent violence in
order to undermine protests or (in our context) unionization. Thus, inaction translates into
repression. Moreover, inaction and strategic noninterference make it difficult to hold the
repressor accountable for what is, nevertheless, experienced as repression by those on the
receiving end.
330 Mobilization

METHODOLOGY

This research draws upon two years of fieldwork during 2009 and 2010 in Mixco and Villa
Nueva on the outskirts of Guatemala City. The fieldwork focused mainly on four labor unions
that have emerged since the late 1990s in four Korean-owned apparel plants: the SAE-A
international and Winners factories in Mixco and the Choi Shin and Cimatextiles plants in
Villa Nueva. At the time, these four plants, employing nearly 9,000 workers in total, were
producing for brands including Gap, Liz Claiborne Inc., Wal-Mart and Target.
A variety of data-collection methods were used, mainly in order to overcome difficulties
of access regarding several actors involved in labor mobilization and in repression in the four
maquilas under study. Approximately 80 interviews were conducted with labor lawyers, labor
leaders, unionized workers, labor inspectors, human resources staff, and NGOs concerned
with labor rights and involved in the mobilization of workers at the four maquilas. In addition
to the interviews, this study draws on further material; namely, testimonies published in the
national press, and documents such as disciplinary proceedings and records of proceedings
from the joint committee established through the collective agreements between employees’
unions (SITRACIMA, SITRACHOI, SITRASAE) and the maquilas’ employers. Notably, I
had access to unofficial documents related to maquilas’ human resources departments and a
22-page confidential memo that exposes antiunion strategies, written in 1995 by a former
labor minister, Samuel Cabrera Padilla, for the local officer of a US private security enterprise
operating in Guatemala, publicly revealed by Guatemalan unions at the end of the 1990s.
Using this additional material was necessary to circumvent the maquila bosses’ refusal to be
interviewed. In fact, with the exception of two human resources managers in Mixco, not a
single maquila employer accepted my request to discuss union activities in the respective
factory over the two-year fieldwork project.

DISCREET ANTIUNION REPERTOIRE OF ACTIONS

Strategy 1: The “Fire Door”

Scholars have shown the varieties of antiunion preventive strategies in the export-led and
extractive industries of the global South (McKay 2006, 2005; Petersen 1992)1. Steven
McKay’s research (2006) on the export-processing zones (EPZs) of the Philippines docu-
ments how the local employers strategically organized the housing of workers in order to
dampen unionization. His case study also shows that labor control strategies were mainly
preventive and relied on a special police force that patrolled the EPZs and controlled the labor
force and on a network of paid informants. Similar labor control strategies are also used in the
Guatemalan apparel sector; in particular, gender-related recruitment strategies are quite
common (Avancso 1989; Brooks 2007, 2002; Fernandez-Kelly 1983; Goldin 2009; Perez
Sainz 2000).
Since the early 1970s, Guatemalan economic policies have been relying mostly on
attracting foreign investments through special fiscal provisions. The maquila industry in
particular is driven by tax incentives that from the 1980s onwards have attracted massive
investments, especially South-Korean-owned capital (Petersen 1992). “Decree 29-89” (“Ley
de Fomento y Desarrollo y Actividad Exportadora de la Maquila”) regulates the benefits that
can be enjoyed by companies under the maquila regime. Specifically, it allows such com-
panies to be totally exempt from income tax for a period of ten years. This regulation is part
of a broader legislative initiative that in effect “anointed” the private sector. This initiative
was launched in the late 1960s and has been supported by all governments ever since
(Avancso 1994; Robinson 2003). According to some figures, the tax exemptions authorized in
2004 by the Guatemalan state for economic activities amounted to nearly 26 billion quetzales
Concealed Repressions 331

(3.29 billion dollars, 2014), which stands for about 12.3 percent of the country’s GDP (CIIDH
2008). Of this total, exemptions linked to Decree 29-89 are estimated to amount to 3 billion
quetzales (380 million dollars, 2014) per year—more than one percent of the GDP. Supervised
by the Ministry of Economy and the tax authorities, this exoneration system is subject to
widespread fraud and vulnerable to attempts of many employers to bend the law. Indeed,
circumventing the regulations on tax exemption is a common practice among employers in
Guatemala. In order to continue to take advantage of the exemption period, many maquila
owners close the factories after ten years, usually filing for bankruptcy. Thereafter, maquilas
are reopened under another name and in another place. The owners regularly use this strategy
for maquilas where unions have been formed or where employees are suspected of organizing
themselves.
Organizing the production in a particular way also can facilitate this strategy. Maquila
owners often split the factories into different limited companies, or sociedades anónimas,
even if in practice they all belong to the same parent company. For example, in 2011 the
Korean-owned international supplier SAE-A International produced 24 percent of its total
output in Guatemala through seven different companies: Winners SA., SAE-A I SA., SAE-A II
SA., Texpia I SA., Texpia II SA., Texpia III SA. and Glovia SA. (SAE A Trading official
website). Maquila owners also fragment the production’s organization by subcontracting
factories primarily for financial and commercial purposes. Each company enjoys tax exemp-
tions and having several companies makes the production process more flexible. However,
this strategy also allows local employers who detect signs of labor organization in one of their
factories to preempt such activity by simply closing down that factory without affecting the
whole of production. Production is deferred to another workplace nearby or to more distant
small subcontracting workshops, thereby preventing potential contagion among the maquilas,
especially in large industrial zones. The organization of tactics is shown for SAE-A Inter-
national in figure 1.

Figure 1. The International and Local Organization of SAE-A International Production

For researchers it is difficult to assess how widespread these practices are. The annual
figures on plant closures that the Guatemala Apparel and Textile Industry Commission
(VESTEX) highlights a significant decline in the number of employees since 2004. According
to VESTEX, in the space of four years (2004–2008), nearly 50,000 jobs disappeared and a
large number of maquilas were closed. However, it is impossible to distinguish legal closures
from illegal ones that simply enable the owners to take advantage of the regulations on tax
exemption. The figures provided by the Labor Inspectorate also show an increase in plant
332 Mobilization

closures. However, again it is unclear whether these closures are legal or illegal, or if these
closures are antiunion closures. This difficulty of assessing how widespread these practices
are is related to the opacity of the figures on employment in the Guatemalan maquilas.2
Interviews with labor lawyers, unionists and maquila workers show that these practices are
well-known and widespread. Hector , a worker in a factory in Mixco who was interviewed for
the purposes of this study, described imaginatively the practice of closing and reopening
maquilas: “the maquilas are like moles, they make a hole in the ground and it comes out the
other end of the field” (interview with a maquila worker; Guatemala City, August 4, 2009).
For maquila owners, creating multiple work centers is also part of a deliberate antiunion
strategy. To preempt potential protests, they use the principle of “fire doors”; that is, they
divide a maquila into separate workplaces in order to prevent attempts to organize the maquila
workers from spreading across the entire factory and to other factories. The confidential
memo mentioned earlier contained descriptions of other antiunion strategies, such as the
creation of satellite companies in order to divide the workers. The same source also highlights
that the maquila owners supply intentionally vague information about the number of work-
places they run, in order to circumvent state regulation:
One of the preventive measures to prevent employees from organizing themselves and to
ensure that this does not affect the overall workforce is to create two, three, or more com-
panies with managers, partners and different protocols, etc. In this case, if an organization is
created in a company, it will only affect this one and not the other. According to one analysis:

It is possible that this diversity of companies facilitates the confusion or errors, in cases in
which a trial occurs. . . . It is essential to maintain maximum confidentiality of the name of the
company to which employees truly belong. . . . Corporate entities must be completely
detached from each other. (Confidential Memo 1995)

Employers also penalize workers suspected of organizing the staff by firing them or en-
couraging them (or threatening them) to resign. Union leaders and rebellious workers are
usually identified by human resources staff, as the following excerpt from an interview with a
member of human resources staff at a maquila in Mixco (July 12, 2009) explains:

In Guatemala, in the maquilas, unionization is difficult. . . . When a company notices any signs
of unionization [foco sindical], it quickly dismisses the workers [and] leaders. . . . In a company
where I used to work, there was a person who just said that he would be interested in joining a
union—he was dismissed.

In various cases, informants are recruited among the workers to report any rumors about
unionization and to collect any relevant information. In addition, the recruitment process
includes specific requirements, whose purpose is to filter out applicants who have previously
worked in a unionized maquila. Indeed, many national labor federations suspect employers of
using so-called blacklists of former unions’ members, which circulate among employers in
the apparel sector (ILO 2010).

Strategy 2: Gradually Undermining the Union’s Credibility

The preventive strategies outlined above rely on the strict control of the labor force by
assembly line supervisors, who are in their turn under the orders of the chief supervisors and
the human resources staff. The role of a chief supervisor is to accumulate information on
union members and, in particular, on union leaders. A chief supervisor is expected to be fam-
iliar with “the leaders, their weaknesses such as the family environment; […] how and where
they live” (Confidential Memo 1995). Chief supervisors are thus the persons who implement
in the workplace the policy that human resources staff dictates. In the four maquilas studied,
in contrast with the rest of the human resources staff, who are mostly South Koreans, most
Concealed Repressions 333

chief supervisors are Guatemalans. As a result of their professional experience and frequent
contact with legal advisors, they usually have a very good knowledge of the national labor
law even if they do not have any legal background. As the 1995 confidential memo outlines,
legal expertise is necessary to ensure that no errors are made—especially mistakes that could
benefit unions, particularly with regard to “disciplinary measures or other applications of
labor law, such as schedules, workdays, etc.” In addition, having extensive experience in a
unionized factory is a real asset for chief supervisors. This concrete experience is highly
valued by maquila employers. In addition to the legal expertise, chief supervisors must “trick
union affiliates without compromising the company” (Confidential Memo 1995). That is to
say, they must have the ability to handle antiunion strategies with discretion and tact. They
must therefore be “clever” and “subtle” in their relations with union members, using “all the
resources available (psychological, economic, boldness, pressures, cunning and malice)”
(Confidential Memo 1995). According to confidential documents prepared by the human
resources staff of a maquila in Mixco, it is recommended for chief supervisors to “become
friends” with unionized workers and to “give them gifts.”3 Chief supervisors must also play
with legal boundaries when they engage in antiunion actions: “acting cleverly using law when
necessary and sometimes strongly, in a threatening manner without being taken for mis-
conduct or offense” (from the same confidential document).
Finding out personal details about the workers, including where they live and in what
conditions is one of the chief supervisors’ main tasks. To achieve these tasks, supervisors take
advantage of ordinary discussions with unionized workers in order to collect personal
information about them or ask the latter’s colleagues. They also use informants who infiltrate
the union or are close to union members. According to the confidential memorandum men-
tioned earlier, “the informant must . . . attend sporting events, canteen, restaurant, and meetings
organized by the union members, parties” (Confidential Memo 1995). Chief supervisors are
the “transmission belt” of the antiunion practices. Their role is not so much to punish
disobedient and unionized workers as to listen to them, become intimate with them and find
out about their relationships, their friendships, “the rumors, protests, what happens between
workers” (Confidential Memo 1995).
Antiunion practices are performed discreetly, through the back door, and often involve
spreading damaging rumors about unionized workers. Nothing is clearly said; everything is
hinted or suggested. Discrediting the actions of the union and its members in this discreet
manner is a common repressive practice. The aim is to cast doubt on the impartiality of the
union’s actions and on the trade unionists’ reputation, such as spreading rumors that the union
favors only certain members at the expense of the rest. It is also common to circulate rumors
that unionists have veiled interests or are corrupt. Fostering the suspicion of corruption is a
key component of the tactics that antiunionists apply intentionally to undermine a union’s
credibility. For example, spreading the rumor that the union misuses money undermines the
image of selfless solidarity and moral legitimacy. Rumors that union members deviate from
common cultural standards and lifestyles tend to gain considerable traction.
The rumors involving Sonia, a maquila union officer, are an illustrative example of how
gossip is used to promote antiunion discrimination:

A rumor about Sonia spread quickly within a few weeks. The rumor suggested that Sonia used
the money of the union to build an extra floor in her house. Sonia told us she built the floor
thanks to a cuchubal4 and to some money she received from letting out some property in her
home town—Sayaxché, in northern Guatemala. Sonia lives in a poor neighborhood called
Colonia Mario Alioto in Villa Nueva. Numerous coworkers also live there or nearby.
However, few houses have more than one floor and some of Sonia’s coworkers live in
precarious housing. In view of these factors, the floor that Sonia built in her home could be
easily regarded as evidence of guilt. That was the reason why the rumor seemed credible.
(Notes from an interview with a maquila union officer; Guatemala City, August 18, 2008)
334 Mobilization

Discrediting unionists by highlighting how selfish they are is another ingredient in the
repressive policy mix that employers use. The example of Juan, another maquila union
officer, shows how the chief supervisors manage to use their intimacy with union leaders in
order to discredit them:

Talking about his commitment as a union leader, Juan told me about the difficulties it
generates in his intimacy. One day, his girlfriend got fired. He helped her by involving himself
in the case with the human resources staff. But, by doing so, Juan ended in an awkward
situation. His attempts to help his girlfriend failed. And the chief supervisor rapidly used this
failure. On the one hand, he told to other workers how useless was the union suggesting that if
Juan failed to help his own girlfriend, how can he help other workers? On the other hand, he
suggested that Juan was only motivated by his own interest: Juan prefers to help his girlfriend
rather than the workers who really need help. (Notes from an interview with a maquila union
officer; Guatemala City, August 11, 2008.)

In addition to gossip and rumors, chief supervisors also use pranks for their purposes, as
the example of the “false party,” which was invented by a chief supervisor in Choi Shin
highlights:

One day, the rumor that a party was being organized by the human resources staff spread in the
Choi Shin and Cimatextiles factories. It was the chief supervisor who had launched it. However,
the union leaders were obviously not invited. Even if this seems very childish, the chief
supervisor used this rumor for a purpose. Sonia and Silvia, two union officers, eventually
complained and were upset when they heard the news. The chief supervisor had expected the two
women to react this way. He joked about it repeatedly to other workers, suggesting that these two
women were really petulant. Under the guise of a simple joke, this situation reinforces the idea
the supervisor wants to get across the other workers: in short, if they react like that for a “party,”
how do you expect they will take into account serious issues? (Notes from the interviews with
maquila union officers; Guatemala City, August 18th and 20, 2008.)

Antiunion discrimination is also concealed within everyday interactions at work. For


example, supervisors can cull damaging hints and rumors from discussions with union
workers, from complaints about working conditions to an audit team sent by brands to
monitor the factory, from chats over lunch with members of the union’s executive committee,
and so on. It is through such ordinary, everyday interactions that supervisors identify, eval-
uate and rank to what extent each employee is sympathetic to a particular union.
Beyond spreading rumors of corruption and making allusions that taint the trade
unionists’ credibility, another subtle way of attacking them paradoxically consists of showing
them consideration and respect. In other words, discrimination against unionists sometimes
takes the form of positive discrimination. Unionized workers are often perceived as more
protected or privileged than nonunionized workers. It is true that workers who are members of
a union’s executive committee enjoy a certain degree of legal protection. However, even
though they are perceived as “protected,” in reality union leaders are at the forefront of fight-
ing repression:

The following events took place during a training session carried out by a labor lawyer for the
members of two maquila unions. That day’s activity focused on the discursive strategies that
could be used to convince “ordinary” workers to join the union. Two groups were organized:
group A, which represented union members, and group B, which represented nonunionized
workers. The exercise started with group A, whose members discussed the incomplete
payment of wages—an illegal practice widely used in maquilas that needed to be addressed. A
nonunionized worker from group B responded to the arguments put forward by group A thus:
“If you keep making demands on the company, they will tell us that they are going to close the
factory.” Another worker from group B continued, “If we complain, they will fire us. The last
time, the supervisor told us we didn’t have the right to complain about anything.” In reply to
Concealed Repressions 335

these points, a trade unionist tried to argue “But if we don’t fight now, when are we going to
fight for our rights?” The exchange continued: “But, if we speak up, how can I be sure that I
won’t be fired?” asked a worker. The discussion revolved around the question of how risky it
might be to complain. Group A had to face workers who were afraid to claim their rights.
These workers believed that the union cannot protect them from the company’s reprisals. A
worker finally said, “OK, but it is easy for you [members of the executive committee] to talk,
you are protected. For us it is different. If we are fired, we get no compensation. It’s a huge
difference.” (Direct observation of a training session for members of the unions SITRASAE
and SITRAWINSA; Guatemala City, August 25, 2009)

On that occasion, the union members were short on arguments that might convince non-
unionized workers to join the union, especially because they were not able to offer them any
proof that becoming involved is not dangerous. In fact, some of the nonunionized employees
perceived them as privileged workers, for whom it was “easy to talk” because they were
“protected.” As the following example shows, chief supervisors know how to use this
perception of unionized workers that many nonunionized employees share:

This episode was narrated by a legal advisor of a maquila. One day, an assembly-line worker,
who happens to be a union member, was called by the chief supervisor and was handed an
envelope. The action as such is trivial: the chief supervisor merely gave the worker his wage.
However, doing this outside the “normal” delivery of wages and in front of other workers
allowed the latter to interpret it as an instance of corruption. Once shifted out of its context,
the act of providing a worker with his salary takes on another dimension. What the chief of
staff did is in line with the idea of fostering doubt among workers about the legitimacy of the
union and its struggle. (Notes from an interview with alegal advisor, Guatemala City, August
3th, 2009)

This kind of action is performed right in front of other workers. By letting them witness
such actions, chief supervisors insinuate that union leaders enjoy illegal benefits and thus
raise doubts about the honesty and morality of trade unionists. The effectiveness of this
double deception lies in the suggestion that human resources staff treats union members
decently and comply with the company’s commitment to respect the union, and the parallel
suggestion that trade unionists have privileges over other workers. Calling union leaders to
the management office—or “upstairs” as the workers refer to the management—and offering
them refreshments has much the same effect. Maquila unionists may see this as a form of
respect and as proof of the management’s willingness to cooperate. However, nonunionized
workers interpret it as a form of compromise on the part of the trade unionists. These small
favors aim to drive gradually a wedge between union leaders and the rest of the labor force.
Paradoxically, the only constant thing in these practices is the seemingly flawless position of
the maquila management.
The above overview shows that repression can be hidden in the form of gossip, allusions,
and rumors and so on. At first sight, some of these forms may even seem positive. However
all rely on the moral values that workers share. Indeed, the efficiency of these concealed
antiunion practices lies in the fact that they are embedded in the culture that workers share.
By exploiting these shared values the management aims to create a rift between the union and
the nonunionized workers.

OPPORTUNISTIC USE OF VIOLENCE

Beyond preventive and discreet antiunion strategies, maquila managers have found a practical
ally in their struggle against unionism in the apparel sector. The so-called maras, violent
youth gangs, have gradually penetrated some of the EPZs where maquilas operate in
Guatemala City in order to expand their criminal activities. Their growing influence in the
336 Mobilization

maquilas has negative effects on union activity. When gang violence occurs in the maquilas,
employers engage in a continuum of practices, ranging from passive tactics (allowing the
gangs to infiltrate their plants because the maras create an environment that suppresses labor
organizing), to deliberate antiunion actions (employers actively enlist the gangs to repress
union activities and/or encourage gangs to create the pretext to bring in the police, which, in
turn, can intimidate unionized workers). These forms of indirect repression have several
advantages for maquila bosses—as long as the activities of maras do not jeopardize
production. First, they lower the cost of repression. Second, no one among the employers can
be held accountable for repression that is commonly attributed to the endemic social violence
that the state fails to contain.

Strategy 3: Laisser-Faire Approach to Gangs’ Predatory Activities

Guatemala has one of the highest homicide rates in the world. In 2009, there were around
46.3 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants (UNODC Homicide Statistics 2010). In Guatemala,
violence is part of everyday life. The major newspapers make their livelihood with “bloody”
headlines: murdered bus drivers, brutally killed women and, the latest fad, decapitated
bodies—the victims of the ongoing war between drug traffickers. The area of Mixco, where
various maquilas are located, features regularly in the headlines. In the immediate neigh-
borhood of Guatemala City, the maras’ influence grows year after year, boosted by the rich
pickings from the drug trade and extortion. Entire city districts are outside the authorities’
control. These areas are run by maras. It is where they recruit new members among the
neglected youth. The low prerequisites in terms of qualifications required of maquila workers
have made it easier for maras to penetrate these workplaces. Gaining access to maquilas, and
to their high concentration of labor, has provided these criminal organizations with a site
where they can easily conduct their illegal activities. Maquilas have indeed become a prime
site for making money illegally: some estimates suggest that in 2005 the amounts made from
the extortion of businesses, individuals and factory employees reached 100 million quetzales
(about $13 million), of which nearly 11 million quetzales (approximately $1.5 million) were
extorted exclusively from maquila employees. Maquila workers are often exposed to the risk
of robbery and to assaults related to extortion during their commutes to and from work.
Maras also encourage some of their members to get jobs at the factories. From their
positions, these members provide the gangs with intelligence that helps them organize
robberies and extortion more effectively. Juan, a maquila employee in Mixco, describes how
extortion works in his factory: “The mareros [a member of a mara] require every factory
worker to pay a ‘tax’ every two weeks—20 quetzales per worker” (interview with a union
officer; Guatemala City, August 11, 2008). Given that the particular factory employs nearly
5,000 workers, the total amount of profits made from extortion is likely to add up to a very
significant figure. In some plants, the maras have even infiltrated the management. Victor,
who works at a Mixco factory and is a maquila union member, explains,

Because of their own needs, supervisors sometimes participate in the racketeering. They’ll
pay a worker 100 quetzales as a production bonus, which is more than the worker is supposed
to get, but the worker has to give 50 quetzales back. They can make money in that way.
(Interview, Guatemala City, August 20, 2008).

Like many other employees, Victor silently endures the law of the maras. Fearing
retaliation, he pays this “tax” every two weeks. He feels he has no other choice. Later, in the
same interview, Victor states, “A worker refused to pay the ‘tax’—he was found dead in a
street near the industrial park with a bullet in his head.” In general, the economy of extortion
has spread everywhere in the capital. It often targets the poorest people: employees whose
management refuses to pay these “taxes” to maras, or informal traders unable to afford the
Concealed Repressions 337

expensive services of a private security company. The maras reinforce their influence through
these means, and racketeering has become a substantial underground economy.
This criminal economy has its own headquarters. According to the head of the national
prison system, Eddy Morales, 80 per cent of all acts of extortion are directly organized from
within the main prisons of the country: El Boquerón, Pavoncito, the Infiernito Escuintla and
the Zone 18 preventive detention center in Guatemala City. However, detecting the source
does not seem to curb the activity. On the contrary, the country’s prisons have become the
operational centers of organized racketeering. With an estimated capacity of 8,000 prisoners,
Guatemalan prison facilities are severely overcrowded. According to recent report on prisons
in Latin America, which was highly critical of the deplorable living conditions and over-
crowding, nearly 13,000 inmates are crammed in the twenty-two existing jails (FLACSO
2011). The same report also emphasizes the growing influence of maras in these prisons,
where now scores are settled between gangs, riots erupt, and prisoners are forced to pay
“protection” money even in order to have access to a bed. According to these data, 87 inmates
in the Guatemalan prisons died of violent causes between 2005 and 2007. Even behind bars,
many members of the maras gangs are still able to organize their extortion networks and
cause harm: the instructions are issued by maras chiefs from within the prison facilities and
relayed to the other members of the gang. The significant revenues from these criminal
practices allow them to consolidate their control over the prisons by bribing prison staff. For
instance, in exchange of kickbacks, imprisoned maras members can acquire mobile phones
that give them access to their outside networks and to negotiate other kinds of privileges. The
reach of the maras’ power emphasizes how maquila managers can promote a climate of
violence against trade unionists simply by letting the maras thrive.
As mentioned earlier, repression can be applied by, at just the right time, taking no action
at all. In appearance, this tactic means doing nothing, but, in fact, it consists of exploiting
particular circumstances to achieve a specific objective. This can be described as “opportune
inaction.” Repression can also be the result of such “opportune inaction”: by simply allowing
the maras to attack unionized workers, especially trade union leaders, in various ways,
employers can achieve their purposes. This is what happened to Juan, a maquila union officer:

When Juan answered that phone call, he had no idea that he would find himself in a tricky
situation: at the other end of the line there was a prisoner named Fox, calling from the
Chimaltenango jail. He asked Juan to get actively involved in the extortion scheme in the
factory where he worked and threatened him with retaliation if he disobeyed. “He wanted me
to collect the ‘tax’ for them,” says Juan. Fox asked Juan to provide the phone number of a
production line supervisor at the maquila, whom he meant to also involve in the extortion
scheme. Fox had obtained Juan’s phone number from a worker affiliated with the union.
Before being incarcerated, Fox used to work in the assembly line of the same maquila. He thus
knew many of the workers and even some union members. The mara has targeted Juan for a
very simple reason: mobile phones are prohibited within the factory. However, as a trade
unionist, Juan is entitled to have one, which makes him a good “entry point” for the criminal
group. “I went to see the supervisor to tell him about the problem, that they wanted his phone
number from me,” says Juan. In the end, he did pass that phone number to the criminals.
Soon after that, however, another group of mareros from a different organization started
to threaten him: Juan was caught in the middle of a mara war over the control of extortion
revenues in the factory. A marero actually ordered him to participate in the extortion. Juan
said, “He told me, ‘You have to do as I say. I am in charge of the tax collection.’”
Faced with death threats, Juan decided to resign from his union, but the harassment
persisted. He was asked to pay 10,000 quetzales (about $1,300) for having resigned and
therefore for trying to sidestep their demands. Juan turned off his phone and asked the help of
his labor federation, to which his union was affiliated. He also went to the office of the
Prosecutor for Human Rights (PDH), and told his story to an official. The record of the calls
made to his mobile phone after he turned it off added up to more than 250 calls a day. Juan
was at the end of his tether: he decided to stop seeing his girlfriend to avoid putting her in
danger and he temporarily suspended his union activities. He even tried to change the bus he
338 Mobilization

habitually took, “just in case,” and spent his days at the labor federation headquarters. Finally,
a meeting was organized by a trade unionist at the Ministry of Internal Affairs, where a police
officer listened to the story Juan and his colleague had to tell. The policeman said that Juan
couldn’t be given any personal protection. However, he agreed to give Juan his phone number
and to increase police patrols near his house. The idea of transferring Juan to another maquila
for his safety was also discussed.
On their part, the owners of the factory promised to do everything they could to put an
end to the matter and to protect Juan. But these fine words were only a cover for what is
increasingly the bleak reality in the factories of Guatemala: attempts to enroll unionists in
extortion activities are indeed playing into the hands of the employers. The climate of vio-
lence, publicly denounced by employers, hinders the activities of trade unions; furthermore, it
puts union leaders in tragic situations. (From field notes taken in a meeting between the
respondent and a police officer from the unit specialized in extortion and kidnapping cases,
Guatemala City, August 13, 2009)

Juan’s involvement reflects a strategy aimed at exploiting the unions’ resources for
criminal purposes. The mareros target the union networks to facilitate their illegal activities
and to gain a strategic position in the gang wars over the revenues made from extortion.
Employers do not intervene directly to settle the matter. In many cases, they simply tolerate
this situation, although they regularly denounce it in public. In practice, the failure to protect
unions against gangs’ activities allows the employers to shirk the responsibility by not
requesting police intervention.
But, the gangs’ activities sometimes turn out to be a problem for maquila managers too.
In fact, despite the alleged connection between antiunion activities and gang violence, the
lives of maquila owners and management have also been jeopardized by mara activity. In
2003, the South Korean CEO of a maquila in Mixco was kidnapped by maras. Although the
company paid the ransom, maras shot him and left him for dead. In Villa Nueva, two
managers of a South Korean-owned maquila were burned to death and buried in the backyard
of the factory. The rising level of violence has triggered a backlash from employers. In
several cases, maquila employers contacted local police officers to take up stations in the
factory and crack down on illegal activity. One maquila director, who wished to remain anon-
ymous, said there was no other way to prevent extortion in his factory: “The issue of extortion
. . . impacts us too. We try to combat the trafficking but we have no choice but to count on the
police force.” But even when employers make a concerted effort to combat gang activity,
unionized workers risk ending up paying a high price. The operations inside maquilas can lead
to union busting by police under the guise of fighting against the proliferation of maras.
In several cases, some employers do participate more actively in labor repression by en-
couraging gangs to harass unionized workers. They delegate the repression of unionism to the
maras by encouraging them to harass unionized workers. In fact, criminal groups often
exploit the unions’ networks within maquilas for their own purposes. Gabriel Zelada, director
of the Guatemalan Center for Studies and Support for Local Development (CEADEL), an
advocacy NGO that assists maquila employees in Chimaltenango, explains how the arrange-
ments between gangs and employers work:

When he [the maquila boss] was told about the union [...], he called a group of workers known
to belong to a local mara and told them that if a union was created, they would be the first to
be fired. [...] Up to them to see what they had to do. Knowing the violence of these gangs, it
was a sword of Damocles hanging over the heads of protesters.” (Le Monde diplomatique
2004)

There are several examples of this approach (in other historical and geographical con-
texts) highlighting how employers involve these “entrepreneurs of violence” in their antiunion
practices. In the US, for instance, some gangs diversified their criminal activities in the early
20th century and started to provide their know-how and resources to employers who fought
Concealed Repressions 339

unionization (Fantasia and Voss 2004). In a similar vein, Combes (2006) describes the role of
pistoleros, the henchmen of landowners, in the repression of activism in Mexico. In his study
on the American South, Luders (2000) explains how, in the 1960s, state authorities encour-
aged or covered up the atrocities of the Ku Klux Klan, in particular against activists in the
civil rights movement.

Strategy 4: Deliberate Illicit Relations Involving State Officials

The repression of unions thrives on the permissiveness of the state authorities. However,
merely drawing attention to the fact that the state tolerates the illegal practices of employers is
not enough: it is important to understand how the degree to which unions are repressed is
strongly affected by the state authorities’ attitude. As Joseph Luders (2000) has demonstrated,
the intensity of the violence used against the proponents of the civil rights movement in the
American South was closely related not only to the power relations between this movement
and the racist countermovement, but also—and especially—to the state authorities’ attitude.
In maquilas, state agents—including police officers—can directly or indirectly take part in
acts aiming at repressing unions, as in the case that occurred in the SAE-A International plant
in Mixco. To thwart the maras’ influence in the factories, SAE-A’s managers and human re-
sources staff contacted the local police authority to arrange police patrols within the factory,
(Wikileaks 2005). According to staff working in the legal department of SAE-A, the
employers used human resources managers to maintain close relations with local police chiefs.
At some point, police officers were stationed on the factory premises, although no formal
order was issued, and the black SUVs of the police entered the industrial park regularly over
several days. This operation, which was officially launched to clear up criminal gangs that
were active within factories, in practice led to union busting by the police (Wikileaks 2005).
The clean-up operation involved collective layoffs, whose “collateral” victims were mainly
union members and workers suspected of engaging in labor organizing.
Under the guise of combating the proliferation of maras, employers—with the help of
police officers—used illegal practices such as discretionary dismissals and intimidation
(threatening employees with prosecution to force them to sign letters of resignation). In fact,
such clean-ups are an opportunity for employers to get rid of unionized workers or activist
employees. Several testimonies confirm that in the case of the SAE-A factory the fight against
the maras served as a cover for union-busting practices (Wikileaks 2005). For example, a
group of workers, some of whom were engaged in unionization activities, were intimidated by
police officers, forced to sign letters of resignation, and placed in custody. Two staff members
of the labor rights NGO, COVERCO, met with these workers and reported:

We met Mrs. Ramirez, an employee’s wife, who told us that the police took several workers to
put them in jail. It is possible that this event is related to the fact that, days before, there was
an attempt to form a union in the factory. Mrs. Ramirez confirmed that her husband was
among the prisoners. . . . After telling them [Mrs. Ramirez and others] that we were there to help
them, the two employees decided to explain the events.
They said they arrived as usual at work at 7:30. At 8:30, the chief supervisor told them to
go to the exit door where [some] people were waiting for them. Two persons, two plain-
clothes officers, asked them their names and to see their employee cards and if they were
involved in the extortion system in the factory. They said they weren’t. The two persons asked
them to get into a car; they refused to comply but were forced to do so. They were placed in
custody, in the building of the national civil police. The police told them they were accused of
drug trafficking and robbery. . . . We asked them why they were so afraid, and they said that
the police seemed very angry and they knew where their families lived. . . . We asked them what
the reason for their imprisonment was. They confirmed they were listed among employees
who were planning to organize a union. (Interview with COVERCO staff; Guatemala City,
August 13, 2008).
340 Mobilization

These events were independently confirmed by a U.S. official diplomatic cable issued on
December 30, 2005:

In June police officers took up stations in the factory, identified the gang members and
brought them to the human resources office. The company fired the gang members and the
police arrested them for extortion. At the same time, however, police also detained sixteen
employees who had formally submitted paperwork to form a union. The human resources
manager told these employees—in the presence of the police officers—that their activities
were illegal and that they must resign or go to jail. (Wikileaks 2005).

This case indicates that the threat of incarceration may be actually enforced. In this in-
stance, police officers turned a blind eye to the false accusations of the employers, who
attempted to implicate in extortion the workers who were planning to start a union. Their only
“crime” was that they had been identified by their employers as potential unionists. These
events also make clear that the tolerance of such unlawful practices by the police and admin-
istrative authorities could be seen as a blank check for employers to carry on their repressive
policies. The tolerance shown by the police may easily develop into direct involvement in
repression through brutal interrogation, threats of imprisonment and even illegal detentions.
In sum, the employers’ collusion with state authorities facilitates the repression of unions.

CONCLUSION

In closing, the discrete, antiunion strategies of maquila managers and owners point to two
broader theoretical issues. First, it is important to analyze mobilization-repression interactions
not only from the point of view of the effects of repression on protest—in particular the
strategic adjustments protesters make to their repertoire of action—but also from the per-
spective of feedback effects that protesters’ mobilization strategies have on their targets’
actions (see Davenport, Johnston, and Mueller 2005; Tilly 2008). There are in fact numerous
studies of how protesters facing repression favor withdrawal tactics by investing in “weapons
of the weak” (Scott 1985; Johnston 2006), but less research has been undertaken on how the
shape and the level of repression evolve over time, in particular, where repressive agents are
nonstate actors (Earl 2003).
The present study has shown how increased vigilance on maquila conditions from both
antisweatshop activists and the management of major brands in the aftermath of transnational
campaigns, caused the repertoire of repression of local managers to evolve through the imple-
mentation of “concealed” strategies. The context of increased vigilance does not so much
impact the degree of repression but its modalities. Regarding the repression-mobilization
nexus, the case of Guatemalan maquila shows that mobilization decreases the “observable”
repressive action (Earl 2003) but increases the “unobserved” repressive situations, which I
have labeled “concealed strategies”.
This article has distinguished four types of concealed strategies. Preventive actions and
subtle antiunion discrimination both rely on the proven antiunion repertoire, but, these two
approaches are made invisible (or concealed) in several ways. The first strategy prevents acts
of dissent from ever occurring by using legal techniques of commercial law. The second
strategy, which is based on surveillance techniques at the workplace, is concealed by the tools
of humor, rumors and gossip. These two strategies correspond to “unobserved channeling by
private agents” (Earl, 2003).
The two other strategies are not set in the antiunion repertoire of action. Rather than mobil-
izing repressive techniques, they rely on social violence and adopt laisser-faire approaches to
the effects of violence on protesters. Ordinary violence targeting protestors is opportun-
istically used to inhibit labor activism. Employers let violence thrive and/or take the oppor-
tunity of that particular context of violence to negotiate clandestine arrangements with police
Concealed Repressions 341

force to repress activism through intimidation and illegal detentions, under the guise of official
antigang operations.
Thus, the repression of social movements may be facilitated by social conditions,
particularly by “ordinary” social violence, which facilitates the work of laundering antiunion
actions. This raises the second theoretical issue of this article. Research on the repression of
social movements should give more focus to the effects of the ordinary violence, highlighting
how the social order of particularly violent societies may, in certain situations, facilitate the
labor of repression. As Oliver (2008) has highlighted the connection between movement
control and crime control, research should also focus on the connection between movement
control and social disorder. Indeed, a new form of union repression, one that is particularly
inauspicious for political activism, is developing in Guatemala. I have in mind the discreet
repression facilitated by the climate of “everyday violence” there. Its only visible aspect is
ordinary crime, which is used as a pretext to justify antiunion practices. This form of re-
pression has one particular advantage: it is not easy to hold the employers or the state
accountable for it. Repression is put down to endemic social violence that the state cannot
contain. Nevertheless, this violence ultimately serves the interests of certain economic
sectors. The maquila owners, for example, do not even have to employ antiunion strategies to
fight against the few maquila unions; they only have to tolerate “ordinary” everyday violence.
In this regard, criminal groups have become, under certain circumstances, the employers’
practical allies. Although employers always denounce the maras in public, they nevertheless
use them regularly behind the scenes to do the dirty work.
Domination in the work of work is not just about how production is constructed in the
workplace, it is also constructed through interactions between firms and the local social order
(McKay 2006; Ong 1986). It is possible to add that social control can, counterintuitively, rely
on social disorder, as Ferguson (2005) has asserted on the modern African extractive en-
claves. In this respect, social disorder and uncontrolled violence must be taken into account in
the transformation of the exercise of political domination.

NOTES
1
There is a large corpus of research on union avoidance strategies, not only in the world of work in the global South
but in the North as well. See for instance, Gunnigle, Lavelle, and McDonnell (2009), and Moody (2013).
2
Obtaining reliable information on the number of maquilas and, furthermore, on the total number of maquila
employees is very difficult. The organization VESTEX regularly updates employment figures in this sector, including
the number of jobs in the apparel and textile sectors. However, VESTEX only records the data of enterprises that are
affiliated with it. Furthermore, several researchers have pointed out that small maquilas are often not registered
(Armbruster-Sandoval 2005). Finally, according to Article 61 of the Guatemalan Labor Code, within the first two
months of each year employers have to submit to the Labor Ministry a report (“Informe del Empleador”) that
provides (1) an account of expenses related to salaries, bonuses and any other financial benefits for the previous year;
(2) the names of employees, as well as details on each employee’s nationality, age, sex, number of workdays and
salary. The Labor Ministry provides an online form and relevant information on its website to help employers fulfill
this legal obligation. These data are confidential. However, some employers fail to fulfill this legal obligation,
because they do not submit all requested information. Furthermore, because the statistical unit of the Labor Ministry
lacks the capacity to process these data adequately in order to create reliable statistics, these reports should be treated
cautiously.
3
Thanks to an anonymous source, we had access to documents from the agendas of human resource managers,
containing instructions for supervisors on how they should conduct their relations with the unions.
4
The term describes the practice of forming a group in order to set up a saving system. Every month, they all pitch in
a certain amount of money and one person at a time uses that amount for some purpose, so every member of the
group has a chance to use the same amount of money when his or her turn comes.

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