Class Segmentation and Divided Labor: Asian Workers in the Gulf of Mexico Seafood Industry

Abstract

The growth of refugee and immigrant enclaves in the United States despite pressures for assimilation highlights the persistence of ethnic identity over other loyalties. Because ethnically distinct immigrants are often concentrated (whether by choice or discrimination) in particular labor markets, researchh among refugee populations provides an opportunity to evaluate theories of class and ethnicity in the work place. This article examines the class segmentation mode of ethnicity with respect to the seafood processing industry in Bayou La Batre, Alabama, a small coastal community located on the northern Gulf of Mexico. Since the mid-1970s, Bayou La Batre has witnessed an influx of Vietnamese, Cambodian, and Laotian immigrants, most of whom have been incorporated, albeit unevenly, in the work force of the seafood processing industry. The article assesses the extent to which the changing ethnic composition of the work force has affected processors' hiring practices, and whether employment patterns conform to the predictions of class segmentation theory. Examination of hiring practices in the seafood industry will suggest some important modifications of the model; notably, that employers' decisions are not governed soley by the imperative of controlling the work force, but are also constrained by preexisting cultural perceptions of ethnically distinct workers. CLASS SEGMENTATION THEORY A good deal of research affirms that ethnic identity is usually far stronger than class ideology in most industrial capitalist societies (Smith 1981; Horowitz 1985; Williams 1989). This fact defies the assumptions of both classical economists and early Marxists, who postulated an increasingly homogenous industrial labor force. Asserting that business utilizes labor most efficiently when hired on the basis of cost, skill, and demand rather than noneconomic factors, neoclassical economists argue that work force segregation raises the costs of production. For this reason, Friedman (1962:108) and others contend that discrimination in the work place would be eliminated under conditions of market competition. For their part, Marx and Engels (1977a:228) initially concurred that ethnic or national ideologies would disappear as workers of different backgrounds experienced similar conditions in the work place.(1) Yet in most advanced capitalist societies, ethnicity continues to take precedence over class identification. It is within the putatively homogenous working class that such loyalties are at their strongest, and occasionally most virulent. The comparative weakness of class identity in the United States, and the fact taht the working class is often divided by exclusivist ethnic sentiments, are frequently cited for the failure of coherent working class politics in the U.S. (Flacks 1988:111). To account for the persistence of ethnic divisions within the labor force, neo-Marxists have advanced a class segmentation theory of industrial relations (Reich et a. 1981). Contrary to the assumptions of early political economy and neoclassical economics, the class segmentation model does not hold that hiring practices are governed merely by the supply and demand for labor. Far from being color blind, firms utilize racial and ethnic distinctions within the work force to accentuate their control over the labor process. To prevent unionization, strikes, or other political challenges to class relations, employers promote divisions within the work place thaht impede workers' identification of common interests. While alternative loyalties may assume different forms (employer paternalism being one such variant [see Burawoy 1979; Gartman 1986]), divisive ethnic loyalties within a work force often preclude common action against employers. When employers maintain a dual wage structure for similar kinds of work, utilize ethnically distinct workers as strikebreakers, or accentuate communication barriers between workers, collective resistance is significantly lessened within the work force. …