Workplace harassment of women in the maquiladoras, myth or reality?

Abstract

The aim of this research was to explore the experience of mobbing that a group of female workers in Mexico from a maquiladora factory that assemblies car safety bags in Baja California is perceiving. Data was collected using the questionnaire Ten-mobbing of IVAPT-PANDO, by Pando, et al. (2006) and Trujillo et al. (2007). This questionnaire has five dimensions described as following: victime behavior, social groups mobbing behavior on the victime, witnesses feelings, organization of work and organizational behavior, psychological violence presence and agression source. One of the objectives of this research is to analize if there is a direct correlation between the two scales applied and the observed violence in females working for this company. Results show that there is a high presence of mobbing in the participating females. The main behaviors found in the study were described as work undervalue, lack of respect for their work, ignoring of work successes, interruption when trying to speak, verbal attack and severe criticism for their work, no acknowledgment for their working skills, and growing opportunities blockage.