Hegemony and Hamburger: Migration Narratives and Democratic Unionism among Mexican Meatpackers in the U.S. West

Abstract

This essay considers how the narrated experiences of immigrant workers in the United States could help promote organized labor’s participation in a transnational movement to democratize globalization processes. I draw on interviews with immigrant meatpackers working for the Tyson Corporation, who since the late 1990s have mounted an impressive and unusual effort to democratize their workplace and union as well as to improve worker safety and dignity. Although the union has elaborated an effective discourse concerning injustice in the workplace and the need for action to remedy these problems, it has not developed any comparable interpretation of workers’ migration experiences. Workers’ migration narratives often reinforce the liberal assumptions guiding the union’s campaigns as well as the U.S. labor movement in general. They occasionally intimate, however, how migration processes can aid in the formation of counter-hegemonic subjectivities, developing these workers’ practical orientations toward resisting mistreatment both individually and in solidarity with others. Thus, creating more institutionalized spaces for workers to communicate about their migration experiences not only could help unions achieve their organizational goals—it also could help shift the political orientation of the labor movement toward a more transnational, social-democratic approach to regulating immigration and capitalist production alike.