SUMMARY

Maquiladoras, or export-processing factories, along the U.S.-Mexico border account for over US$29 billion in export earnings for Mexico and employ over 500,000 workers.  At least half of the Mexicans employed in this sector, mainly in assembly plants, are women, and the income they earn supports them and their families at wages higher than they could earn in any other employment sector in northern Mexico. 

These women workers routinely suffer a form of discrimination unique to women:  the maquiladoras require them to undergo pregnancy testing as a condition of employment and deny them work if they are pregnant; if a woman becomes pregnant soon after gaining employment at a maquiladora, in some instances she may be mistreated or forced to resign because of her pregnancy.   Maquiladora operators target women for discriminatory treatment, in violation of international human rights and labor rights norms.  And despite its international and domestic legal responsibility to ensure protection for these workers, the Mexican government has done little to acknowledge or remedy violations of women's rights to nondiscrimination and to privacy. In addition, the Mexican government's failure to remedy discrimination in the maquiladoras infringes on women's right to decide freely and responsibly on the number and spacing of their children. In fact, government employees responsible for overseeing compliance with and enforcement of Mexico's federal labor lawCwhich explicitly prohibits sex discriminationCinconsistently condemn such discriminatory practices; view themselves as incapable of enforcing the law; and, in one instance, defended the pregnancy-based discrimination as reasonable or legitimate.

Pregnancy as a condition is inextricably linked and specific to being female.  Consequently, when women are treated differently by their employers or potential employers because they are pregnant or because they may become pregnant, they are being subjected to requirements for employment to which men are not.  Thus pregnancy-based discrimination constitutes a form of sex discrimination, by targeting a condition only women experience.

It is difficult for workersCpoor, under-educated, and female in a society with 6.3 percent official unemployment (Mexico's official, national unemployment figures are widely acknowledged by the U.S. Commerce Department and other U.S. agencies as being significantly underestimated)Cwith so few job alternatives to contest maquiladora policies.  Most of the women Human Rights Watch interviewed had not finished primary school and had very little work experience outside the manufacturing sector.  As a consequence, these women emphasized that their only other opportunity for work is in domestic service, which pays poorly, allows them very little control over their schedules and working conditions, and provides no health insurance or social security.  Women repeatedly expressed unwillingness to challenge discriminatory practices in the maquiladoras, given the lack of other comparable employment opportunities. 

For the Mexican government, there are economic disincentives to regulating closely the conduct of these companies, given the number of people the maquiladora industry employs and the amount of foreign currency earnings it produces.

In March 1995 the Human Rights Watch Women's Rights Project sent a mission to Mexico to investigate discrimination against pregnant workers or women who might become pregnant in the maquiladora sector.  We interviewed women's rights activists, maquiladora personnel, labor rights advocates, Mexican government officials, community organizers, and victims of sex-based employment discrimination in five cities: Tijuana, in Baja California state; Chihuahua, in Chihuahua state; and Matamoros, Reynosa, and Río Bravo, in Tamaulipas state.  We interviewed women who currently or in the recent past worked as line workers or assemblers in forty-three maquiladora plants along the border.  Human Rights Watch interviewed women workers from the following factories in Tijuana:  (Names in parentheses are parent companies.)  Ensambles de Precisión (Los Angeles, CA-based Teledyne), Plásticos Bajacal (Phoenix, AZ-based Carlisle Plastics), Panasonic (Osaka, Japan-based Matsushita Electric Works), Zettler (Aliso Viejo, CA-based American Zettler), KW de México, Dalila (closed), Etcétera (closed), Maquiladora de Accesorios para Mascotas (Chula Vista, CA-based Coyote Pet Supplies), Sanyo (based in Osaka, Japan), Afi de México (closed, made toys for Fisher Price), Exportadora de Mano de Obra (closed, was owned by Downey, CA-based American United Global), Bebe Products (closed), Chappel (100 percent Mexican owned), Intercombustion (Los Angeles, CA-based Lipps Inc.), Temco, Ensambles de Precisión de las Californias (Gardena, CA-based Pacific Electricord), Nellcor de Mexicanos (Pleasanton, CA-based Nellcor Puritan Bennet), and Administración de Maquiladoras (closed, was owned by Temecula, CA-based Hudson Oxygen Therapy Sales, now called Hudson Respiratory Care, Inc.).

We interviewed women workers from the following factories in Chihuahua: Electromex (Colorado Springs, CO-based Electromech), Industrias de Américas (closed), Sistemas Eléctricos y Conductores (SECOSA) (Tokyo, Japan-based Yazaki Corporation), Buena Ventura Auto Partes (BAPSA) (Tokyo, Japan-based Yazaki Corporation), and Alambrados y Circuitos Eléctricos (Detroit, MI-based General Motors).

We interviewed women workers from the following factories in Reynosa: Attel Fábrica (New York, NY-based AT&T), TRW (based in Cleveland, Ohio), Partes de Televisión de Reynosa (Glen View, IL-based Zenith, now majority owned by South Korea-based Goldstar), La Bonita Señorita de Reynosa (closed, was owned by McAllen, TX-based Sportswear International), Erika de Reynosa (Boca Raton, FL-based W.R. Grace), Delnosa (Detroit, MI-based General Motors), Sociedad de Motores Domésticos (Fairfield, CT-based General Electric), Rey Mex Bra (Reading, PA-based VF Corp., supplies bras to Sears Roebuck), Jen-O-Mex (Totowa, NJ-based Jenncraft Corp.),  Controles de Reynosa (Milwaukee, WI-based Johnson Controls), Datacom de México (Chantilly, VA-based GENICOM Corporation).

We interviewed women workers from the following factory in Río Bravo:  ITT (based in New York, New York).

We interviewed women workers from the following factories in Matamoros: Trico Componente Fábrica (Richmond, IN-based TRICO STANT Co.), Sunbeam-Oster (based in Fort Lauderdale, FL), MagneTek Componentes Eléctricos (Nashville, TN-based Magnetek), Nova/Link (made undergarments for Fruit of the Loom until 1993; now subcontracts for Polo and Liz Claiborne), Deltrónicos (Detroit, MI-based General Motors), Texitron de México (Chicago, IL-based Midwestco Enterprises), Lepco (Brownsville, TX-based Leonard Electric); and Zenith (based in Glen View, IL.,  now majority owned by South Korea-based Goldstar).

Where possible, Human Rights Watch has contacted parent companies implicated in this report to alert them to our findings and seek their responses.  We have received written responses from Zenith, American Zettler, W.R. Grace, Carlisle Plastics, Pacific Electricord, and Sanyo. The responses range from a complete disavowal of any discriminatory behavior (American Zettler) to promises to investigate the allegations immediately and rectify the practice where appropriate (Sanyo), to admissions that pregnant women are  in fact screened out of the applicant pool as a way to avoid paying for maternity leave (Zenith).  A  copy of the letter Human Rights Watch wrote can be found in the appendices, as well as copies of all the corporate responses we received. 

Maquiladora employers discriminate against pregnant female employees, or women who might become pregnant (women of childbearing age, sexually active women, women who use contraceptives), largely to keep costs down.  Starting in the 1960s, many U.S. and other companies relocated production to northern Mexico to take advantage of favorable tariff structures for importing unassembled goods and exporting finished products; low wages; and an abundance of available workers.  Hiring or employing pregnant women could entail higher costs because Mexico's federal labor law contains explicit maternity provisions.  According to the federal labor code, companies are required to protect pregnant women from executing tasks that would cause danger to their health in relation to the fetus; pay pregnant women maternity leave of six weeks before delivery and six weeks after delivery; allow new mothers two paid extra breaks of half hour each to breast feed their infants; and allow pregnant women to take an extra sixty days off while receiving 50 percent of their salary, if they so desire, apart from the twelve weeks of maternity leave, so long as no more than one year after the birth has passed.  Thus, while many maquiladoras seek to hire women workers because they are believed to work harder and to be especially equipped emotionally and anatomically to execute such work, employers attempt to weed out potentially costly women workers from the applicant pool and at times force to resign those who become pregnant soon after beginning to work.

In maquiladoras along the U.S.-Mexico border, from Tijuana to Matamoros, we found, with few exceptions,  that in the course of the hiring process employers require women applicants to submit to pregnancy exams, most commonly given through urine samples. These exams are administered by doctors or nurses employed at individual maquiladoras or by private clinics contracted by companies.  Maquiladora staff also try to determine a woman's pregnancy status by asking intrusive questions about the woman applicant's menses schedule, whether she is sexually active, or what type of birth control she uses.  Once a woman is hired to work in a maquiladora, should she become pregnant shortly after starting to work, maquiladora managers sometime attempt to reassign women to more physically difficult work or demand overtime work in an effort to force the pregnant woman worker to resign. The results of Human Rights Watch interviews suggest that the longer a woman is employed in a maquiladora the more able she might be to rely on her relationship with her supervisor to avoid being fired if she becomes pregnant.  Nonetheless, there are no guarantees.

The women affected by pregnancy discrimination in the maquiladora sector are among the poorest, least experienced, and least educated in the workforce.  Most women who work in the maquiladoras do so because their lack of schooling and previous significant work experience renders them unqualified for most other jobs and because work in the maquiladora sector affords them a better wage than they might earn in other sectors.  Screened out of the applicant pool and denied jobs in the maquiladora sector, these pregnant women would be rendered virtually unemployable.  Women applicants are often single mothers or their families' primary wage earners. Their desperation to get or retain maquiladora jobs combined with ignorance of the law make them reluctant to contest the discriminatory testing or forced resignations.  Furthermore, Human Rights Watch is greatly concerned that such discriminatory treatment may directly compromise women workers' regulation of their pregnancies by forcing them into a situation of fearing the loss of their jobs if they become pregnant. In cases when women workers become pregnant, the fear of losing their jobs often compels women to hide their pregnancies, and risk their and their fetuses' well being.  In many instances women find themselves in the untenable position of choosing between their jobs and their rights. 

            Such employment practices constitute discrimination on the basis of sex, an invasion of  a woman's privacy, and, in some instances, an undue limit on a woman's ability to decide freely and responsibly on the number and spacing of her children.  By failing to address and remedy these practices the Mexican government fails to fulfill its human rights obligation to protect those under its jurisdiction from human rights abuses; promote respect for human rights within its borders; and ensure that those under its jurisdiction are able fully to enjoy and exercise their rights under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (iccpr), the Convention to Eliminate All Forms of Discrimination against Women (cedaw), the American Convention on Human Rights, the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (icescr), International Labor Organization (ilo) standards, and the North American Agreement on Labor Cooperation.  Such discriminatory treatment also contravenes Mexico's domestic laws prohibiting discrimination and guaranteeing the protection of women's reproductive health.

Women victims of sex discrimination in the maquiladoras have few tenable options for legal redress.  Various states within Mexico have a human rights commission, and these are tasked, under their charters, to investigate human rights abuses involving public officials, but they cannot investigate private sector labor issues. Government mechanisms such as the Inspector of Labor's Office, which is responsible for assuring compliance with federal labor law; the Labor Rights Ombudsman's Office, which is responsible for offering workers free legal advice and assisting them in the resolution of labor disputes; and the Conciliation and Arbitration Board (hereafter cab), which adjudicates worker disputes and issues binding resolutions, are not legally empowered to address sex discrimination in the hiring process and fail consistently to condemn such discrimination in those instances where women are already employed.  Furthermore, none of these offices collects data on cases and their resolution disaggregated by gender or gender-specific claims.

To end the widespread discrimination against women in the maquiladora sector and the related denial of their right to privacy and, in some instances, to decide freely and responsibly on the number and spacing of their children, Human Rights Watch calls on the government of Mexico, the state legislatures, the Mexican commissions for human rights, the government of the United States, corporations that operate maquiladoras, and corporations that use maquiladoras as subcontractors, to take the following steps:

RECOMMENDATIONS

Human Rights Watch urges the Government of Mexico to:

C                     Uphold international human rights obligations to guarantee the right to nondiscrimination,  the right to privacy and the right to decide freely and responsibly on the number and spacing of children without discrimination.

C                     Acknowledge and publicly condemn pregnancy discrimination as discrimination based on sex.

C                     Publicly condemn employment practices and procedures that discriminate against women in their intent or impact.

C                     Enact federal legislation that explicitly prohibits any company, public or private, from requiring that women give proof of pregnancy status, contraceptive use (or any other information related to reproductive choice and health) in order to be considered for, gain, or retain employment.

C                     Fortify existing labor-resolution mechanisms by staffing the offices of the Inspector of Labor, the Labor Rights Ombudsman, and the Conciliation and Arbitration Boards with employees who are well informed about federal labor law and by putting resources at the disposal of these offices so that they may enforce  federal labor law.

C                     Amend the rules governing the work of the Office of the Inspector of Labor, the Office of the Labor Rights Ombudsman, and the Conciliation and Arbitration Board so that these offices can investigate and adjudicate cases of discriminatory non-hiring as well as disputes involving an established labor relationship.

C                     Under the authority of the Secretary of Labor and Social Security, establish labor offices at the state and local level that have full powers to investigate and remedy discrimination in the hiring process, in compliance with obligations under the Convention to Eliminate All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (cedaw).

C                     Oblige the Office of the Inspector of Labor, the Office of the Labor Rights Ombudsman, and the Conciliation and Arbitration Boards to maintain statistics on their investigations, case loads and decisions, where appropriate, disaggregated by gender and the type of claim filed. 

C                     Establish and enforce penalties, including fines, to punish companies, foreign or domestic-owned, engaged in pregnancy-based sex discrimination, in accordance with cedaw provisions.

C                     Investigate vigorously all allegations of sex-based discriminatory employment practices and punish those responsible.

C                     Include specific information on efforts undertaken to eradicate discrimination against women in the workplace, including specific measures to end the testing of women for pregnancy, and the use of such information to make discriminatory hiring or firing decisions in its country compliance reports under cedaw.

C                     Encourage state legislatures to amend the charter of the state human rights commissions so that it includes the ability to investigate private action as it relates to the state's human rights obligation to combat sex discrimination.

In compliance with the International Labor Organization's Convention Concerning Discrimination in Respect of Employment and Occupation [Convention No. 111], Mexico should:

C                     Pursue national policies to promote equality of opportunity and treatment in employment and occupation;

C                     Take practicable measures to foster public understanding and acceptance of non-discrimination; and

C                     Receive and examine complaints of abrogation of non-discrimination principles.

Mexico is also obligated, under the North American Free Trade Agreement's North American

Agreement on Labor Cooperation, to:

C                     Promote elimination of employment discrimination;

C                     Ensure that its labor laws are enforced;

C                     Initiate, in a timely manner, proceedings to seek appropriate sanctions or remedies for violations of its labor law; and

C                     Publicize the content of its labor law regarding non-discrimination, thereby upholding its obligations under the nafta's Article 6, which states, "Each Party shall ensure that its laws, regulations, procedures and administrative rulings of general application respecting any matter covered by this Agreement are promptly published or otherwise made available in such a manner as to enable interested persons and Parties to become acquainted with them."

Human Rights Watch urges Mexico's state legislatures to:

C                     Amend the charters of state human rights commissions so that they are able to investigate and report on unremedied private sector employment sex discrimination.

Human Rights Watch urges Mexico's state commissions for human rights to:

C                     Recognize that unremedied private sector employment sex discrimination is within the mandate of the state commissions for human rights because it is a violation of a woman's right to nondiscrimination and infringes on her ability to decide freely and responsibly on the number and spacing of children;

C                     Incorporate the monitoring of discrimination against women in the private sector labor force into the cases they investigate and report on; and

C                     Monitor and report on steps taken by Mexico to comply with nondiscrimination requirements of international human rights law in a manner that would promote the eradication of discrimination against women in the work place.

Human Rights Watch urges the United States Government to:

C                     Take up the case of pregnancy-based sex discrimination and encourage the Mexican government to take immediate steps to combat it, in any interaction with the Mexican government; and

C                     Encourage the Government of Mexico to meet its obligations under the North American Free Trade Agreement's North American Agreement on Labor Cooperation, including the enforcement of its own labor law and the elimination of employment discrimination.

Human Rights Watch urges private corporations that own maquiladoras to:

C                     End the practice of requiring women applicants to provide proof of pregnancy status or contraception use or information about sexual habits in order to be considered for or to obtain employment in the maquiladoras;

C                     End the practice of denying pregnant women applicants work by screening them out of the applicant pool;

C                     Explicitly prohibit pregnancy exams for women applicants or any other such method that would invade a woman's privacy regarding her pregnancy status and right to nondiscrimination;

C                     End harassment, intimidation, and forced resignation of female employees who become pregnant;

C                     Reprimand personnel officers and other maquiladora employees who continue to discriminate against women workers by subjecting them to practices to determine their pregnancy status, including the practice of obliging them to provide proof of that status;

C                     Explicitly prohibit discrimination based on sex in all company materials, including materials in Spanish that are easily accessible to both management and workers at all Mexico-based company branches; and 

C                     Accommodate pregnant women during their pregnancies, as per international standards and Mexican domestic law, by giving them seated work; allowing them to take maternity leave; and allowing them temporary transfers to less physically taxing work.

Human Rights Watch urges corporations that use maquiladoras as subcontractors to:

C                     Require proof that subcontracting factories are being operated without discrimination, as a condition for a continuing contractual relationship; and

C                     Monitor subcontractor plants on an ongoing basis, by, at a minimum, requiring periodic, timely certification that plants are being operated without discrimination; establishing an independent, impartial group wholly unconnected to the factory to monitor compliance; and periodically visiting the subcontractor plants to review the hiring process and solicit information from workers on the absence of discrimination.

BACKGROUND

The practice of widespread pregnancy-based sex discrimination in Mexico's maquiladora sector is rooted in economic interest on the part of the maquiladora operators.  The discrimination persists because of a confluence of interests and needs: the economic interest of maquiladora operators to keep their operating costs as low as possible, government interest in attracting and keeping foreign investment, and women's desperation for jobs.

Maquiladora owners operate factories in Mexico largely because of the low cost of doing business there.  Low wages allow them to remain operational and make Mexico attractive for investment.  U.S.-owned companies relocated to the border area in the late 1960s, drawn primarily by the potential to reduce their labor costs.  U.S. multinationals were faced with a choice between improving productivity at home or reducing cost by moving to "Third World countries that offered low-cost, plentiful (and female) labor . . . "^[1] 

The Mexican government may overlook this sex discrimination because of the importance of maquiladoras in the Mexican economy.  In the first eleven months of 1995, the maquiladora sector generated US$29.5 billion in export earning for Mexico.  The 2,100-plant^[2] maquiladora sector is the largest source of dollars for Mexico, surpassing oil and tourism.^[3]  The Mexican government benefits from the hard currency earned from the value assessed on finished maquiladora goods and the employment the maquiladora sector provides for hundreds of thousands of Mexicans.  In addition, owners and operators of maquiladoras send dollars to Mexico to meet their payroll and other expenses.^[4]  Those dollars are converted into pesos to pay workers' salaries.

The Mexican government's reliance on income from the maquiladora sector,^[5] combined with sex discrimination in Mexico's legal and social systems,^[6]  is a powerful disincentive to remedying pregnancy-based discrimination. Moreover, official lack of interest in addressing this problem has extended even to employment in the government sector, as noted and condemned by the Commission for Human Rights of Mexico City in 1995.^[7]

Women workers are themselves very reluctant to challenge pregnancy-based sex discrimination, largely for fear of losing jobs they desperately need.^[8]  The tolerance of this discriminatory treatment by women workers is rooted in the women's own economic desperation.  Women who work in the maquiladora sector, because of their lack of education and previous significant labor experience, have almost no opportunity outside of the maquiladora sector to earn a wage that will allow them to support themselves and their families.^[9]  Many told us that they feel fortunate to have work and to receive the steady income that maquiladora work supplies.  The Mexican government has failed to ensure that women participating in the maquiladora sector are protected from discrimination and do not have their privacy invaded.  

The women workers Human Rights Watch interviewed, the majority of whom had not completed primary school,^[10] felt their only alternative to working at maquiladoras was to work as domestic servantsCpositions which entail considerable physical work for relatively little monetary compensation and scant possibilities to set firm working hours or to receive health insurance or social security.^[11] A 1978-1979 study of women in the maquiladora sector in Ciudad Juárez, notes that of the 510 women surveyed, "[f]ifty-six percent of those with a labor history started to work between the ages of 13 and 15 as maids."^[12]  A 1989 to 1990 study of 1,029 women workers in the maquiladora sector in the Mexican state of Chihuahua noted that there was a strong correlation between women's education level and their reasons for entering the maquiladora sector.  The study found that a majority of women workers who had not completed primary school cited economic necessity as being the motivating factor behind their entry into the maquiladora sectorC78.6 percent in Chihuahua city and 68.6 percent in Ciudad Juárez city.  It also showed that even among those who completed primary schoolC61.9 percent in Chihuahua city and 63.5 percent in Ciudad Juárez cityCa majority cited economic necessity for their entry into the sector.^[13]

Many women workers' incomes are not supplemental to incomes of spouses or partners, but are essential to maintaining the their households and providing for their children.  Many women we interviewed were working outside of the home for the first time and had few skills.  When such women begin looking for work, they have severely limited prospects.  For example, jobs traditionally available to unskilled workersCworking in a supermarket or in some other service-sector positionCare now beginning to require applicants to have completed secondary school, at a minimum.^[14]  In the past, maquiladoras accepted applicants who had finished primary school only, but did not routinely verify the completion of primary school.  Now, more and more maquiladoras are requiring proof of secondary education.^[15]  For women currently working in the maquiladoras, many without the benefit of a secondary education, this seemingly minor change in hiring criteria could directly challenge their ability to continue working in the sector.  They do not want to risk having to look for new jobs in the maquiladora sector and be unable to meet the minimal education requirement.

Women workers' fear of challenging pregnancy-based discrimination is compounded by the fact that many have traveled great distances from Mexico's interior and do not wish to risk being fired for challenging maquiladora practices. Many women workers told Human Rights Watch that they and their families migrated from Mexico's interior to the border area specifically to seek work in the maquiladora sector.  Women workers we spoke with in Tijuana had migrated from other areas in southern Baja California to look for work in the maquiladoras.  This pattern was repeated in Chihuahua, where many women and their families migrated from as far away as San Luis Potosí in east-central Mexico to find work in the maquiladoras; and in the Matamoros-Reynosa-Río Bravo area, where workers migrated from Veracruz and Guadalajara, in western and eastern Mexico, respectively, to find work in the maquiladoras.  As a worker at Sunbeam-Oster de Matamoros explained to us:

I was one of twelve kids in my family.  We were very, very poor, and my parents could not afford to keep all the children in school.  I was the oldest and so I dropped out and helped around the house and helped in neighbors' houses to earn a little money.  We had to leave San Luis Potosí  because there was just no work and no way to feed a family.  It was even worse for women.  No one would hire you for anything except to clean houses.   And we were nine girls in my family.  Work in the maquiladoras was our only hope. When we arrived here we saw how bad it was with no place to live and working like machines all day long.  But we would have been returning to nothing in San Luis Potosí.^[16]

Mexico's maquiladora sector was created in 1965^[17] with the goals of industrializing the northern border area; providing employment to a vastly under-employed and unemployed northern Mexico population; and stemming the tide of illegal immigrants seeking to cross the U.S.-Mexico border to obtain work in the United States. Maquiladoras in the border area employ over 420,000 Mexicans as assemblers; some 242,000 of these are women. Nationwide, the maquiladora sector employs over 600,000 people, over 493,000 as assemblers.^[18]  In 1990, 90 percent of all maquiladoras were partially or completely owned by U.S. corporations,^[19] although over the last five years both Korean and Japanese firms have increased their presence in this sector.^[20]

Today, many U.S. companies continue to relocate their production to the U.S.-Mexico border area to take advantage of Mexico's pay scales.  The devaluation of the Mexican peso by 40 percent on December 20, 1994, for example, dropped workers' wages in some maquiladoras to approximately US$5 a day.^[21]  According to Alfred Rich, chairman emeritus of the Western Maquiladora Trade Association, a San Diego-based maquiladora membership organization, these lower labor costs helped the maquiladoras lower payroll costs,^[22] which normally constitute 80 percent of a maquiladora's operating budget.^[23]  The manager of one maquiladora, Productos MG de México,^[24] noted that after the peso devaluation, some Mexican companies closed but maquiladoras remained open and some hired even more workers.^[25]  In fact, between the 1994 devaluation and March 1996, maquiladora exports grew 20 percent.^[26]

President Ernesto Zedillo, facing the prospect of further economic deterioration, has encouraged leading companies with maquiladora investments to attract additional investors to the sector.^[27]   Commerce Minister Herminio Blanco, citing southern Mexicans' desperation for work and the possibility of paying even lower wages there than in the border states, has spoken of the government's desire to "maquiladorize" the southern part of MexicoCthat is, to promote it as a manufacturing center in order to attract investors.^[28]

The Preference for Women Workers

Women have always constituted a large percentage of the maquiladora workforce, reaching a high point in the early 1980s of approximately 80 percent.^[29]  Although the proportion of men working in maquiladoras has increased steadily since the 1980s,^[30] women are still in the majority.  Some estimate their participation at 70 percent in the Matamoros-Río Bravo-Reynosa border area, which is dominated by light assembly-oriented plants.^[31]  According to labor activists and organizers in Mexico, employers seek out women workers because they view them as more diligent and hard working than men, and consider women's hands more adept at executing the repetitive motions necessary for rote assembly work.^[32]  Some labor activists discount the notion that women are prized for their supposed dexterity and work ethic, and instead point to the fact that women are considered to be less informed about their rights, and consequently less insistent in demanding them.^[33]

Maquiladora employers aggressively recruit female workers.  Some companies, such as Zenith, TRW, and Delnosa (owned by General Motors), specifically advertise assembly jobs for "women only."  Each of these companies sends trucks around to neighborhoods, with men using bullhorns to advertise available jobs.^[34]  Research into the hiring practices of maquiladoras in other areas of Mexico supports the analysis that women are sought for light assembly work within the maquiladora sector.  One labor market analyst and sociologist who interviewed women maquiladora workers and examined job advertisements spanning the 1980s found that a pattern existed of preferring women for low-wage assembly work in Nogales, then Mexico's sixth-largest maquiladora center.  Her study of advertisements by maquiladoras placed in the Spanish-language daily, La Voz del Norte, throughout the 1980s showed that, "39 percent specified the gender of the person to be hired.  In over two thirds of these cases women were preferred. . . . [A]lmost 89 percent were unskilled production jobs."^[35]

An anthropologist who studied women in the maquiladora sector in the late 1970s (including working in an apparel manufacturing plant for two months in Ciudad Juárez) noted that  maquiladora managers claimed to hire women for their skill level, performance, docility and because they were unlikely to unionize, and avoided hiring men because of their greater willingness to unionize and disinclination to tolerate inadequate working conditions and low wages.  She concluded:

The employment of women with acute economic needs by the maquiladora industry represents, in objective terms, the use of the most vulnerable sector of the population to achieve greater productivity and larger profits.  The employment of men to perform similar operations would require higher wages, better working conditions and more flexible work schedules, all of which would increase labor costs and reduce capitalist gains.^[36]

That women are willing to endure extremely poor conditions in order to keep their jobs, is also clear from the conditions that prevail in many factories without significant female-worker protest or opposition.  Speaking only on the condition of anonymity, women working in the Erika factory in Reynosa told us of assembling medical kits without the benefit of mouth and nose covering to protect them from noxious fumes;^[37] women workers at the Zenith plant in Reynosa told us that they were given protective gloves for their soldering work only when managers visited from the U.S.;^[38] women working in the ITT plant in Río Bravo reported that because they were not given protective eyewear, when oiling car parts, the oil habitually fell into their eyes;^[39] and women workers complained at the Erika factory in Reynosa that they were often dizzy from the fumes with which they worked but were not allowed to take breaks.^[40]

A number of women from different factories told us of being paid for fewer hours than they had actually worked; of being denied time off to take their children to the doctor because the women themselves were not sick; of being short-changed on overtime pay; of being forced to work overtime on demand; of being temporarily laid off when work was slow or manufacturing orders were completely filled; of being told to clean the factory's restrooms when work was slow; and of being forced to sign probationary contracts typically of thirty or ninety days before a permanent one was offered.^[41]

Formal studies conducted by Mexican professors Jorge Carrillo and Alberto Hernández in the 1980s regarding the role of women workers in the maquiladora sector in Ciudad Juárez corroborate the widely held view that women are recruited for assembly work in the maquiladoras because of the unlikelihood that they will challenge exacting working conditions.  In their book Mujeres Fronterizas en la Industria Maquiladora (Border Women in the Maquiladora Industry), Carrillo and Hernández point out that although maquiladora managers and administrators consistently claimed to hire women workers because of their patience, attention to detail, and dexterity, the facts belie their assertions.  The authors concluded:

In reality what all this means is that women are hired [by maquiladoras] because they bear the workload with more ease, and because there are imposed on them great work assignments and certain conditions which a man would be less disposed to accept . . . ^[42]

Historically, comparable labor had been done by men, calling into question maquiladora managers' pronounced belief that women were better suited for such work as a motivating factor for their being hired.  In fact, at the time of the professors' investigation, there was a dearth of female workers in maquiladoras in Mexican towns such as Nogales and such traditionally "female" work was in fact being done quite successfully by males, in contradiction of the reasons maquiladora managers gave for preferring women as workers.

DISCRIMINATION AGAINST AND MISTREATMENT OF WOMEN WORKERS

Pregnancy-based discrimination against women workers in the maquiladora sector takes three forms: testing and other treatment of women applicants during the hiring process to determine their pregnancy status; refusal to hire women applicants who are pregnant; and mistreatment and forced resignation of women workers who become pregnant.

Discrimination in the Hiring Process

Everyone knows not to even bother going [to the maquiladoras to look for work] if you are pregnant.

CBonita, Matamoros, March 19, 1995

Women applying for positions as line workers or assemblers in Mexico's maquiladora^[43] sector are routinely required to undergo pregnancy exams as a condition of employment.  This practice occurs in many factories across the northern Mexico border, from Tijuana to Matamoros.  The implicated companies are:  Ensambles de Precisión (Los Angeles, CA-based Teledyne), Panasonic (Osaka, Japan-based Matsushita Electric Works), Zettler (Aliso Viejo, CA-based American Zettler), Maquiladora de Accesorios para Mascotas (Chula Vista, CA-based Coyote Pet Products), Sanyo (based in Osaka, Japan), Afi de México (closed; made toys for Fisher Price), Ensambles de Precisión de las Californias (Gardena, CA-based Pacific Electricord), Intercombustion (Los Angeles, CA-based Lipps Inc.), Nellcor de Mexicanos (Pleasanton, CA-based Assemble in Mexico), and Administración de Maquiladoras (Temecula, CA-based Hudson Respiratory Care) in Tijuana; Industrias de Américas (closed), Sistemas Eléctricos y Conductores (secosa) (Tokyo, Japan-based Yazaki Corporation), and Buena Ventura Auto Partes (bapsa) (Tokyo, Japan-based American Yazaki), in Chihuahua; Attel Fábrica (New York City, NY-based AT&T), TRW (based in Cleveland, Ohio), Partes de Televisión de Reynosa (Glen View, IL-based  Zenith, now majority owned by South Korea-based Goldstar), La Bonita Señorita de Reynosa (closed; formerly owned by McAllen, TX-based Sportswear International), Erika de Reynosa (Boca Raton, FL-based W.R. Grace), Zenith (based in Glen View, IL;  now majority owned by South Korea-based Goldstar), Datacom de México (Chantilly, VA-based GENICOM Corp.), Controles de Reynosa (Milwaukee, WI-based Johnson Controls),  Delnosa (Detroit, MI-based General Motors), Sociedad de Motores Domésticos (Fairfield, CT-based General Electric), and Jen-O-Mex (Totowa, NJ-based Jenncraft Corp.) in Reynosa; International Telephone and Telegraph (ITT) (based in New York City) in Río Bravo; and Trico Componentes Fábrica (Richmond, IN-based TRICO STANT Co.), Sunbeam-Oster (based in Fort Lauderdale, FL), MagneTek Componentes Eléctricos (Nashville, TN-based Magnetek Inc.), Nova/Link (made undergarments for Fruit of the Loom, now subcontracts for Polo and Liz Claiborne), Lepco (Brownsville, TX-based Leonard Electric), and Deltrónicos (Detroit, MI-based General Motors),  in Matamoros. 

In the following maquiladoras, women applicants were required either to reveal their pregnancy status on a job application or during an interview with maquiladora personnel: Plásticos Bajacal (Phoenix, AZ-based Carlisle Plastics), Dalila (closed), Maquiladora de Accesorios para Mascotas (Chula Vista, CA-based Coyote Pet Products), Exportadora de Mano de Obra (closed; was owned by Downey, CA-based American United Global), Chappel (100 percent Mexican owned), Temco, Ensambles de Precisión de las Californias (Gardena, CA-based Pacific Electricord), and Administración de Maquiladoras (closed, was owned by Temecula, CA-based Hudson Oxygen Therapy Sales now called Hudson Respiratory Care) in Tijuana; Alambrados y Circuitos Eléctricos in Chihuahua; (Detroit, MI-based General Motors); Partes de Televisión de Reynosa (Glen View, IL-based Zenith, now majority owned by South Korea-based Goldstar), Controles de Reynosa (Milwaukee, WI-based Johnson Controls), Datacom de México (Chantilly, VA-based GENICOM), and Zenith (based in Glen View, IL; now majority owned by South Korea-based Goldstar) in Reynosa; and Sunbeam-Oster (based in Fort Lauderdale, FL), Texitron (Chicago, IL-based Midwestco), and Zenith (based in Glen View, IL; now majority owned by South Korea-based Goldstar) in Matamoros.

Among the companies from which we interviewed women, there were five that, to our knowledge, did not attempt to determine women's pregnancy status as a condition of employment:  Bebe Products (closed); K.W. de México and Etcétera (closed) in Tijuana; Electromex (Colorado Springs, CO-based Electromech) in Chihuahua; and Rey Mex Bra (Reading, PA-based VF Corp., supplies bras to Sears Roebuck) in Reynosa.   

Human Rights Watch interviews reveal that pregnancy exams are administered either by the corporations' own doctors and nurses or by contracted private clinics in conjunction with other medical tests, such as those measuring blood pressure and vision or testing for anemia or diabetes.  Many times, these other tests serve as a pretext to test for pregnancy.^[44]  Women workers told us they thought that the results of the exams are forwarded to the heads of personnel at the factories, who examine them and decide which applicants will be selected for work.  The women Human Rights Watch interviewed, many of whom went through the application process with friends, indicated that pregnant women seemed to be the only applicants not offered work. In some instances, doctors, nurses or other maquiladora personnel told women explicitly that if their pregnancy exams returned positive they would not be hired.^[45]  Personnel office employees from other companies, such as Zenith in Reynosa, admonished women that they should not become pregnant or they would lose their jobs.

Maquiladoras use a variety of means other than direct medical testing to ascertain whether a woman is pregnant.  At some plants, personnel employees ask women applicants directly if they are pregnant; in other plants, women must indicate on their job applications if they are pregnant; and in still other instances, maquiladora employment personnel resort to asking intrusive questions, such as whether the applicant is sexually active, when she last  menstruated, and what type of contraception she uses to determine her pregnancy status.  A supervisor currently working at Alambrados y Circuitos Eléctricos in Chihuahua told Human Rights Watch that supervisors were routinely encouraged not to hire pregnant women (or overweight women, because they could not stand for a long time).^[46]  On their application is the question "Are you pregnant?"  A copy of this application can be found in Appendix C.

Maquiladoras would be less successful in screening out pregnant women from their prospective applicants and denying them jobs if it were not for the direct participation in this discriminatory practice of some health care personnel, at the behest of the maquiladoras themselves.  Dr. Adela Moreno,^[47]  who worked at the Matsushita-Panasonic Plant in Tijuana in 1993, told Human Rights Watch that her job consisted almost exclusively of testing women applicants for pregnancy so that pregnant women would not be hired:

When I first started working at Matsushita, the director of personnel told me to make sure that I tested every single female applicant for pregnancy because pregnant women were too costly to the company. It seemed that was all I did.  I was appalled, but I did the pregnancy exams. At times, I would be so angry at what was going on at the plant and fed up with how they were exploiting these very young girls that I would tell them [supervisors] that girls were not pregnant when they were.  I knew that what the factory was doing was illegal.  It denied these girls their right to work, which is guaranteed in our constitution.  Any applicant labeled as pregnant was told by the personnel director that she was not qualified, or that all the positions were taken.  It was awful.  For girls who managed to slip byCwith my help or because they switched their urine samplesCsupervisors made life difficult for them when they discovered the girls were pregnant. They would do things like put them on the night shiftCwhich is completely illegal under Mexican labor law.^[48]

According to Dr. Moreno, Matsushita-Panasonic fired her because she complained about the lack of a proper ventilation system and protective clothing and eyeware for workers who were welding.  According to the doctor, there were many health and safety hazards at the plant.  She had begun to try to raise the consciousness of the women workers by explaining to them what their rights were according to the federal labor code and encouraging them to exercise them.  Dr. Moreno challenged her firing before a cab but was not reinstated to her position.  Instead, she was paid her full severance pay, which Matsushita-Panasonic had not paid upon firing her.  In her case before the cab, on the advice of her attorney, Dr. Moreno did not mention that Matsushita-Panasonic specifically used pregnancy exams to deny women applicants work, but included information on the widespread practice within the maquiladora sector of using pregnancy exams as a means to deny women work.^[49]

The following cases document the widespread use of a variety of techniques, from direct pregnancy testing to intrusive questioning of women applicants, to determine their pregnancy status:

C                     Bonita, now twenty-eight years old, assembles car radios for the General Motors-owned plant Deltrónicos in Matamoros.  When she first started working there in the 1980s, she was sent directly to a private clinic in Matamoros to be examined.  The pregnancy exam was the only exam they administered to her.  Now the General Motors-owned plant has its own clinic, on the premises, staffed by a doctor and a nurse.^[50]

C                     Paula, now twenty-eight years old, began working at American Zettler in Tijuana in September 1994.  When she went to apply for a job there as a line worker, she was required to undergo a pregnancy exam in order to be considered for work.  The pregnancy exam was performed at the plant by a doctor employed by American Zettler.^[51]

C                     Francesca, now twenty-one years old, applied for work in La Bonita Señorita de Reynosa in December 1994 to iron finished blouses. While she was not given a pregnancy exam because she recently had a baby, all of the other married women who applied for work that day with her were required to undergo pregnancy exams as a condition of employment with La Bonita Señorita de Reynosa.^[52]

C                     In August 1991 Sofía, then twenty-three years old, applied for an assembly position at Sistemas Eléctricos y Conductores, S.A. (secosa) in Chihuahua.^[53]  She was given a general medical exam, including a pregnancy exam, when she applied for work there.^[54]

C                     Paloma, twenty-nine years old, has worked at the Datacom de México^[55] factory in Reynosa for almost four years. The factory had a doctor ask the women applicants if they were pregnant and give them a pregnancy test.^[56]

C                     Graciela, now twenty-seven years old, worked for Panasonic in Tijuana in 1990.  She had to undergo a pregnancy exam as a part of the application process.^[57]

C                     Reina, twenty-nine years old, works for Lepco^[58] in Matamoros assembling product transformers. She was sent to a private laboratory to submit to a pregnancy exam before being offered a job.^[59]

C                     Clara, thirty-seven years old, has worked at Partes de Televisión de Reynosa for over seven years.  She is an inspector of the cables that come out of the back of Zenith televisions.  When she applied to work at Partes de Televisión de Reynosa seven years ago, the factory nurse asked her if she was pregnant.  The nurse did not give her a pregnancy exam, but told her that they did not hire pregnant women.^[60]

C                     Rebeca, a twenty-two-year-old, works for MagneTek^[61] in Matamoros assembling ballasts for florescent lamps.  Rebeca applied for work at MagneTek in November 1995.  She was obliged to undergo a pregnancy exam after her three-month "probationary" period was up, as a condition of being offered a permanent position at the factory.  Rebeca worked for Nova/Link^[62] in Matamoros for a year in 1992, putting elastic in Fruit of the Loom undergarments.  She had to undergo a pregnancy exam as a part of the application process for work at Nova/Link.^[63]

C                     Graciela, now twenty-seven years old, started working for the Sanyo plant in Tijuana in March 1995.  When she was interviewed for the position of line worker, the manager asked her if she was pregnant.  That same day, a nurse gave her a pregnancy exam.^[64]

C                     Elisabeta, now twenty-four years old, worked at Johnson Controls-owned Controles de Reynosa,  assembling computer boards in Reynosa in 1993.  She was sent to a private clinic to be given  a pregnancy exam before she was hired.^[65]

C                     Orfilia is thirty-three years old.  She began working for the General Motors-owned plant Delnosa in Reynosa in March 1995.  On the day that she applied for a position as a line worker, she and approximately thirty other women applicants had to undergo pregnancy and blood tests.^[66]

C                     Julieta, twenty-five years old, works for a General Electric-owned Sociedad de Motores Domésticos plant in Reynosa.  This is her first time working in a maquiladora.  Julieta had to take a pregnancy exam in order to get a job there.  She told us Sociedad has started testing applicants for pregnancy only in the last two or three years, because of the high number of women who were entering pregnant.^[67] 

C                     Mirabel is a thirty-year-old.  She worked at a TRW plant in Reynosa for five months in 1994 and 1995, assembling seat belts.  She had to take a pregnancy exam in order to get  an assembly position there.^[68]

C                     Lidia, a twenty-one-year-old, is one of four children in her family. She did not complete primary school because her father could no longer afford the school fees.  She worked at Buena Ventura Auto Partes (bapsa) in Chihuahua beginning in 1994 for one year covering electrical cables.^[69]  She had to submit to a pregnancy exam, as a part of a larger general exam, to get a job there doing assembly work.^[70]

C                     Sonia, thirty-three years old, began working for Industrias de Américas in Chihuahua in 1986 assembling electrical cables for cars, at which time she had to take a pregnancy exam in order to be considered for a job.^[71]

C                     Carmen, thirty-three years old, started working at the TRW plant in Reynosa in April of 1992.  As a part of the application process, she had to go to a private clinic in Reynosa to undergo a number of tests, including one for pregnancy.^[72]

C                     Laura, twenty-four years old, assembles controls for electric blankets at the Sunbeam-Oster plant in Matamoros.  When she began working there in 1993, she had to answer a question on the Sunbeam-Oster application about whether she was pregnant; later, during an interview, a personnel officer asked her if she was pregnant; and the next day she had to give a urine sample for a pregnancy test.^[73]

C                     Alina, thirty-one years old, has worked for Trico Componentes^[74] in Matamoros since 1992 assembling windshield wipers.  The nurse at the factory gave her a pregnancy exam during the hiring process.^[75]

C                     Liona, a forty-year-old, works for Ensambles de Precisión de las Californias in Tijuana, assembling extension chords and electric cable.^[76]  During her interview, a maquiladora manager asked her if she was pregnant and whether she was willing to take a pregnancy exam.  She was required to take a pregnancy exam later that day, before she was offered a position.  Liona worked at Nellcor de Mexicanos as a line worker for approximately one year in 1990.  She had to undergo a pregnancy exam as a part of the application process there.^[77]  In 1987 her first job at a maquiladora was as an assembler with Administración de Maquiladoras, where she assembled oxygen masks.  Liona did not have to undergo a pregnancy exam when she applied for a position with Administración de Maquiladoras as the other women applicants did because she was breast feeding.  However, on Administración de Maquiladoras' application was a question regarding the applicant's pregnancy status.  Liona worked there two years.

C                     Estela, eighteen years old, began working at a Zenith plant in Matamoros in March 1994.  As a part of the hiring process, Zenith sent her, and other women applicants, to a private clinic in Matamoros to be tested for pregnancy.  During her interview with a Zenith manager, Estela was asked if she was sexually active.  She found out about the position at Zenith through a local union office.^[78]

C                     Monze is twenty-nine years old.  For eight months she worked at W.R. Grace-owned Erika in Reynosa, where she assembled medical kits.^[79]  Upon applying for a job there in 1990, she was asked by the nurse who worked for the factory if she was pregnant.  The nurse went on to warn her that if her pregnancy test came back positive she would not be hired.  Monze quit after eight months because the chemicals with which she worked gave her headaches on a daily basis.  She also felt that her short-term memory was being impaired and, after losing her way home one day after getting off the bus after work, decided to quit.^[80]

C                     Angelina, twenty-four years old, works at W.R. Grace-owned Erika in Reynosa.  Before she was offered a job there in July 1994, a maquiladora administrator warned her that she should not get pregnant during her two-month probationary period or she would be fired.^[81]

C                     Eva, twenty-four years old, worked for the Carlisle Plastics-owned Plásticos Bajacal factory in Tijuana for almost two years starting in 1990, assembling hangers.  When she applied for a job there the manager asked if she was pregnant and warned her that if she were she would not be hired, and that if she became pregnant she would be fired.  In 1989 Eva worked for nine months at Maquiladora de Accesorios para Mascotas in Tijuana, sewing dog collars by machine.  In order to obtain a job there, she had to undergo a pregnancy exam. In addition, during her interview for the position, maquiladora personnel asked her whether she was pregnant and she had to reveal her pregnancy status on the job application.^[82]

C                     Alma, nineteen years old, is one of eight children in her family. She began working at a Zenith plant in Matamoros in November 1994.  When she applied to work as an assembler, she was sent to a private clinic in Matamoros to be tested for pregnancy.  She was explicitly told by Zenith maquiladora personnel that if her pregnancy test came back positive she would not be hired.^[83]

C                     In the early 1980s Rosa, now forty-six years old, worked at Dalila de México in Tijuana as a seamstress.  During the interview process, maquiladora personnel asked Rosa whether she was pregnant and whether she was willing to submit to a pregnancy exam. She told them that she was not pregnant and they did not administer her a pregnancy exam.  She also had to reveal her pregnancy status on her application.  She responded that she was not pregnant.^[84]

C                     Rafa, twenty-three years old, worked at American United Global-owned Exportadora de Mano de Obra^[85] in the early 1990s.  When she started working there, the application she filled out contained the question "are you pregnant?"^[86]

C                     Cristina, twenty-one years old, works for Zenith in Reynosa, assembling television sets.  She began working with them in 1989.  Before being hired, she was sent to the infirmary for a vision exam, at which time the nurse warned her that she should not get pregnant within the first year or she would be fired.^[87]

C                     Clarissa, eighteen years old, worked at Texitron^[88] in Matamoros for three months at the end of 1994.  When she applied for a position as an assembler there, her interviewer asked her whether she was pregnant, sexually active, and when she last menstruated.^[89]  

C                     When Josefina, twenty-three years old, applied for an assembly position with the AT&T-owned factory Attel Fábrica in Reynosa in 1993, she was menstruating and therefore did not have to undergo a pregnancy exam. However, all the other approximately twelve women who were applying for positions that day had to give urine samples at the infirmary.^[90]

C                     Pamela, now eighteen years old, began working at a Zenith plant in Reynosa in February 1994.  A nurse there asked her if she was pregnant as a part of the hiring process.^[91]

C                     Dalia, now twenty-three years old, assembled toys at Afi de México in Tijuana in 1989 when she was fifteen years old.^[92]  She had to take a pregnancy exam, in the form of a urine sample, in order to secure her job.^[93]

C                     Gina, now thirty-two years old, started working at the TRW plant in Reynosa in 1990, after a truck went through her neighborhood announcing that TRW needed operators to work its first shift.  The announcer said the work was for women only.  The following day, Gina went to the TRW plant to apply for a position as a line worker.  She was given both a urine and a blood test.  The woman administering the tests, whom Gina thought was a nurse, told her that they would test to see if she was pregnant.  Gina waited for the results of her tests, at which time she was told to return the following day to begin her training to learn to make seatbelts.^[94]

C                     Dorotea, twenty-four years old, makes venetian blinds at the Jen-O-Mex^[95] factory in Reynosa.  She began working there in February 1995.  Before she was offered her position, she, and all the other married women applying for positions that day, had to go to the company infirmary to take a pregnancy exam.^[96]

C                     Marina, now nineteen years old, worked at a Zenith plant in Reynosa in 1992, when she was sixteen years old.  Zenith had sent a truck to her neighborhood to announce that well-paid assembly jobs were available for women only.  When Marina applied for her position at Zenith a nurse there asked her if she was pregnant.  She was also given a vision exam.  Marina did not wonder why the nurse asked her if she was pregnant because she knew that pregnant women were not hired in the maquiladoras.  Now Marina works for General Motors-owned Delnosa in Reynosa. In order to apply for the position at Delnosa as a line worker, she had to undergo pregnancy exam as a part of a general physical examination.^[97]

C                     Melissia, now thirty-one years old, has worked at Trico Componente^[98] in Matamoros for six years.  When she first started there, in 1990, she had to take a pregnancy exam as a part of the hiring process.  During her interview with a maquiladora manager, she was warned that she would be tested for pregnancy and if the results were positive she would not be hired.  She was sent to a private clinic in Matamoros for her exam.^[99]

C                     Marta, twenty-one years old, painted picture frames at Chappel in Tijuana for a year in 1993.  She had to answer a question on Chappel's employment application regarding her pregnancy status.  Later in an interview with a maquiladora manager, she was asked whether she was pregnant.  She worked for Intercombustion,^[100] also in Tijuana, in early 1994.  She was given a pregnancy test before she was hired, and warned by the doctor that if she were pregnant she would not be hired. At the end of 1994 Marta began working at Temco, where she had to respond to a question on the employment application about her pregnancy status.  Although she responded that she was not pregnant, she knew she was. While Marta was not given a pregnancy test at Temco, she was warned by a secretary there not to tell anyone she was pregnant or she would not be hired.^[101]

Post-Hire Discrimination and the Punitive Use of Working Conditions

Once hired, if a woman worker in a maquiladora becomes pregnant, our interviews indicate that her ability to retain her job may depend very much on the attitude of the supervisor.  We documented cases where pregnant women were forced to resign and where they were harassed and mistreated for becoming pregnant.

Women workers told us of abusive practices and unreasonable conditions that they themselves experienced or that they saw other women colleagues subjected to because they were pregnant, but about which they were afraid or reluctant to complain, for fear of losing their jobs.