The chicken trail : following workers, migrants, and corporations across the Americas / Kathleen C. Schwartzman.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Schwartzman, Kathleen Crowley, 1948-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Chicken industry--United States.

Chicken industry.

Chicken industry--Mexico.

Foreign workers, Mexican--United States.

Foreign workers, Mexican.

Unemployment--United States.

Unemployment.

Unemployment--Mexico.

United States--Emigration and immigration.

United States.

Mexico--Emigration and immigration.

Mexico.

United States--Commerce--Mexico.

Mexico--Commerce--United States.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (225 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Ithaca : ILR Press, 2013.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

In The Chicken Trail, Kathleen C. Schwartzman examines the impact of globalization-and of NAFTA in particular-on the North American poultry industry, focusing on the displacement of African American workers in the southeast United States and workers in Mexico. Schwartzman documents how the transformation of U.S. poultry production in the 1980's increased its export capacity and changed the nature and consequences of labor conflict. She documents how globalization-and NAFTA in particular-forced Mexico to open its commodity and capital markets, and eliminate state support of corporations and rural smallholders. As a consequence, many Mexicans were forced to abandon their no longer sustainable small farms, with some seeking work in industrialized poultry factories north of the border. By following this chicken trail, Schwartzman breaks through the deadlocked immigration debate, highlighting the broader economic and political contexts of immigration flows. The narrative that undocumented worker take jobs that Americans don't want to do is too simplistic. Schwartzman argues instead that illegal immigration is better understood as a labor story in which the hiring of undocumented workers is part of a management response to the crises of profit making and labor-management conflict. By placing the poultry industry at the center of a constellation of competing individual, corporate, and national interests and such factors as national debt, free trade, economic development, industrial restructuring, and African American unemployment, The Chicken Trail makes a significant contribution to our understanding of the implications of globalization for labor and how the externalities of free trade and neoliberalism become the social problems of nations and the tragedies of individuals.

Contents:

Why follow chickens?

Ethnic succession in the south

Where have all the workers gone?

Taylorism invades the hen house

Solving industry crises : pollos y polleros

Squeezing out Mexican chicken

Voice : squawking at globalization

Exit Mexico : si muero lejos de ti

The global dilemma : summary and reflections.

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9780801468049

0801468043

9780801451164

0801451167

9780801468056

0801468051

OCLC:

829387577