Garment factory workers in the city of Fez

Middle East Journal

Volumn 53, Issue 1, 1999, Pages 27-39

  Cairoli, M Laetitia ^a  

^a MONTCLAIR STATE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

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EID: 0033475421     PISSN: 00263141     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Article

References (31)

1. Morocco, Ministry of Commerce, Industry, and Privatization, Situation des Industries de Transformation (Situation of the Industries in Transformation) (Rabat: Délégation du Commerce et de l'Industrie, 1994). It is likely that the actual number of workers in the garment industry is underestimated. It is widely understood in Morocco that many industrial operations are unregistered and "hidden." Many industrialists prefer to keep their operations unnoticed by the government to avoid financial and legal burdens, and thus workers go uncounted.
2. Researchers have noted that women's role in the reproductive realm is integrally linked to their role in production. See Diane Elson and Ruth Pierson, "The Subordination of Women and the Internationalisation of Factory Production," in Kate Young, ed., Of Marriage and the Market: Women's Subordination in International Perspective (London: CSE Books, 1981), pp. 18-40.
3. Brendan Horton, Morocco: Analysis and Reform of Economic Policy, Economic Development Policy Case Series No. 4 (Washington, DC: The World Bank, 1990), pp. 3-20; Ahmed Rhazaoui, "Recent Economic Trends: Managing the Indebtedness," in I. William Zartman, ed., The Political Economy of Morocco (New York: Praeger, 1987), pp. 146-58; and Serge Leymarie and Jean Tripier, Maroc: le prochain dragon? (Morocco: The Next Dragon?) (Casablanca: Editions Eddif Maroc, 1992), pp. 55-67.
4. Brendan Horton, Morocco: Analysis and Reform of Economic Policy, Economic Development Policy Case Series No. 4 (Washington, DC: The World Bank, 1990), pp. 3-20; Ahmed Rhazaoui, "Recent Economic Trends: Managing the Indebtedness," in I. William Zartman, ed., The Political Economy of Morocco (New York: Praeger, 1987), pp. 146-58; and Serge Leymarie and Jean Tripier, Maroc: le prochain dragon? (Morocco: The Next Dragon?) (Casablanca: Editions Eddif Maroc, 1992), pp. 55-67.
5. Brendan Horton, Morocco: Analysis and Reform of Economic Policy, Economic Development Policy Case Series No. 4 (Washington, DC: The World Bank, 1990), pp. 3-20; Ahmed Rhazaoui, "Recent Economic Trends: Managing the Indebtedness," in I. William Zartman, ed., The Political Economy of Morocco (New York: Praeger, 1987), pp. 146-58; and Serge Leymarie and Jean Tripier, Maroc: le prochain dragon? (Morocco: The Next Dragon?) (Casablanca: Editions Eddif Maroc, 1992), pp. 55-67.
6. Leymarie and Tripier, Maroc: le prochain dragon? p. 66.
7. Much of the discussion of the evolution of the Moroccan garment industry is informed by the research of Leymarie and Tripier, Maroc: le prochain dragon?
8. Susan Joekes, "The Multifibre Arrangement and Outward Processing: The Case of Morocco and Tunisia," in C. Stevens, ed., EEC and the Third World (London: Hodder and Toughton, 1982), pp. 102-112; and Susan Joekes, Female-led Industrialization and Women's Jobs in Third World Export Manufacturing: The Case of the Moroccan Clothing Industry (Brighton: Institute of Development Studies Research Reports No. 15, 1982), pp. 28-34.
9. Susan Joekes, "The Multifibre Arrangement and Outward Processing: The Case of Morocco and Tunisia," in C. Stevens, ed., EEC and the Third World (London: Hodder and Toughton, 1982), pp. 102-112; and Susan Joekes, Female-led Industrialization and Women's Jobs in Third World Export Manufacturing: The Case of the Moroccan Clothing Industry (Brighton: Institute of Development Studies Research Reports No. 15, 1982), pp. 28-34.
10. Richard Pomfret, "Morocco's International Economic Relations," in Zartman, ed., The Political Economy of Morocco, pp. 172-87.
11. Leymarie and Tripier, Maroc: le prochain dragon? pp. 95-114.
12. Leymarie and Tripier. Maroc: le prochain dragon? pp. 99-101.
13. Susan Joekes, "Working for Lipstick? Male and Female Labour in the Clothing Industry in Morocco," in Haleh Afshar, ed., Women, Work and Ideology in the Third World (London: Tavistock Publications, 1985), pp. 183-214.
14. Joekes, "Working for Lipstick," pp. 183-88; and Joekes, Female-led Industrialization, pp. 10-21.
15. Joekes, "Working for Lipstick," pp. 183-88; and Joekes, Female-led Industrialization, pp. 10-21.
16. The phenomenon of female participation on the assembly lines of global factories is well documented. Aiwa Ong provides a review in "The Gender and Labor Politics of Postmodernity," Annual Review of Anthropology 20 (1991), pp. 279-309.
17. Leymarie and Tripier, Maroc: le prochain dragon? pp. 108-109.
18. Ibid., pp. 98-99. It is important to note, for comparative purposes, that Morocco nonetheless does not rank as a primary supplier for France.
19. Ali Fejjal, "Industrie et industrialisation à Fès" (Industry and Industrialization in Fez), Revue de géographie marocaine, vol. 11, nouvelle série, no. 2 (1987), pp. 55-70.
20. Morocco, Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Crafts, "D.P.C.I. au service de l'investisseur," (D.P.C.I, at the Service of the Investor) ( Fez: Délégation du Commerce et de l'Industrie, 1995).
21. Fejjal, "Industrie et industrialisation à Fès," pp. 60-65.
22. Morocco, Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Crafts, "D.P.C.I. au service de l'investisseur"; and Morocco, Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Crafts, "1995 Guide de l'investisseur," (1995 Guide for the Investor) (Fez: Délégation du Commerce et de l'Industrie, 1995).
23. Primary school teachers and lower-level government bureaucrats earned approximately this sum at the time of my research. Several factory owners reported that this was the wage their workers received, but the workers I encountered did not claim to earn this sum.
24. I was unable to secure a definitive list of factories in operation before December 1990. Several lists of factories operating in Fez at the time of my research were made available to me through government offices, but these proved to be inaccurate. Factory owners, workers and Fez locals alike, however, reported a massive movement of factories out of Fez after the 1990 strike.
25. My surveys revealed that in factory households, one of every two persons is working. A Moroccan government study found that one person supports three in Fez households: Centre d'Etudes et de Recherches Démographiques, Direction de la Statistique, Famille à Fès: Changements ou Continuité? (Family in Fez: Changes or Continuity) (Rabat: Les Editions Guessous, 1991), p. 172.
26. This discussion of notions of gender is shaped by many sources, including the following: Lila Abu-Lughod, Veiled Sentiments: Honor and Poetry in a Bedouin Society (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986); M.E. Combs-Schilling, Sacred Performances: Islam, Sexuality and Sacrifice (New York: Columbia University Press, 1989); and Daisy Dwyer, Images and Self-Images: Male and Female in Morocco (New York: Columbia University Press, 1978).
27. This discussion of notions of gender is shaped by many sources, including the following: Lila Abu-Lughod, Veiled Sentiments: Honor and Poetry in a Bedouin Society (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986); M.E. Combs-Schilling, Sacred Performances: Islam, Sexuality and Sacrifice (New York: Columbia University Press, 1989); and Daisy Dwyer, Images and Self-Images: Male and Female in Morocco (New York: Columbia University Press, 1978).
28. This discussion of notions of gender is shaped by many sources, including the following: Lila Abu-Lughod, Veiled Sentiments: Honor and Poetry in a Bedouin Society (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986); M.E. Combs-Schilling, Sacred Performances: Islam, Sexuality and Sacrifice (New York: Columbia University Press, 1989); and Daisy Dwyer, Images and Self-Images: Male and Female in Morocco (New York: Columbia University Press, 1978).
29. Centre d'Etudes et de Recherches Démographiques, Direction de la Statistique, Famille à Fès: Changements ou Continuité? pp. 118-30.
30. Most frequently workers reported giving the cash to their mothers, a fact corroborated in Joekes' study of garment workers in Casablanca; Joekes, Female-led Industrialization, pp. 77-81.
31. This statement was often made to illustrate the typical garment worker's lack of honor.