Learning to Work in an Industrial Mexican City in Transition (1990–2000)

Abstract

W. T. Pink and G. W. Noblit (Eds.), International Handbook of Urban Education, 727–746. © 2007 Springer. In contemporary Mexican cities, as in many other Latin American cities, unequal working conditions are visible everywhere. In what might be labeled a “street corner economy,” the coexistence of formal and informal economic sectors and labor markets can be observed any day of the week, during business hours and beyond, on most main streets or at any given intersection. Modern international banks or luxurious commercial centers are accompanied by street venders who sell breakfast juice, coffee, and traditional Mexican food to business people minutes before opening hours, or at lunch time. Flowers, magazines, toys imported from China, cutlery, soft drinks, candies, chewing gum, or whatever else comes to one’s imagination are offered to passers-by walking down the streets or drivers stuck in traffic. In larger cities these convenience workers have completely taken control of the some areas of the urban space. Formal unemployment rates are very low according to national statistics (2.6% in 2004) as compared to those of developed countries. But it has taken many years for the informal labor market to be officially recognized, and it continues to be measured only in terms of some of its differences with the formal sector: differences based mainly on the size of the enterprise, its’ income, the presence or lack of social security, and fringe benefits. Official accounts still ignore the nature and origin of the many precarious conditions that are characteristic of this informal sector. Originally conceptualized as an explanation of the under employment and precarious productivity of many occupations in the International Labor Organization’s (ILO) report on Kenya (1972), many Latin American authors have thoroughly developed the concept as one of the major explanations of the countries inequality and poverty. Micro economic establishments have an important place in the growth of the informal sector and the interactions between formal and informal sectors (Gallart, 2004; Labarca, 1999; Tokman, 2004).1 In Mexico, only 3% of the businesses, factories and services, accounting for 48% of the industrial and services labor force, formally comply with the basic legal requirements for employment. Some of them have undergone important modernization processes and have even been awarded international standards certifications,2 but the 38