south-america / Mexico
Mapping in Mexico has been done by X, a women’s organisation, based in Tijuana, a town on the border with the USA. Tijuana is dominated by maquila industries - large assembly plants making goods for export to North America. X has a history of training women maquila workers as leaders and has extended their work to include homebased workers in the city.
Factor X has contacted many women and men homebased workers, doing both dependent and subcontracted work. They set up a small team including organisers, ex-maquila workers and homebased workers. Many women and some men were sewing garments. The most common form of work for women was food-processing. Other work included labelling and packing, metalwork, making plaster figures, woodwork, leather and ceramics.
Following initial contacts and interviews with homebased workers, Factor X was able to offer a range of advice and services to the women. They have also traced the production chains of products made by homeworkers, some of which are exported to the USA. An informal group of homebased workers has been established.