Dissenting workers and social control: A case study of the hotel industry in Huatulco, Oaxaca

This article utilizes a microlevel analysis to understand employee social relations within the hotel industry in the burgeoning tourism zone of Huatulco, Oaxaca, Mexico. Participant observation and semistructured interviews revealed a series of tensions that were exacerbated by a union/non-union division among workers. In this case workers in non-unionized jobs fared significantly better, both economically and socially, than did their unionized co-workers. The study demonstrates the cyclical patterns of employment which impose union control on workers in less stable and more physically rigorous jobs. Union employees discuss at length their dissatisfaction with the union and reveal the workplace subtleties which hegemonically maintain them in disadvantaged positions. Finally, the article addresses how workers adapt, accommodate and resist-both directly and indirectly-behavioral and ideological workplace pressures.