Deference and defiance in Monterrey: Workers, paternalism and revolution in Mexico, 1890-1942

The dissertation examines how the Mexican Revolution recast labor relations and working-class culture in Monterrey, Nuevo Leon. Focusing on the steel, brewing, glass, and smelting industries, the comparative study investigates how workers and employers in Mexico's preeminent industrial city responded to the revolutionary process through practices of accommodation and resistance. The 1910 revolution transformed working-class consciousness, at once fostering a militant struggle for industrial democracy while kindling a collective aspiration for social security. Their desire to quell labor unrest and instill company loyalty prompted Monterrey's industrialists to develop systems of paternalism that offered workers non-wage benefits like company housing, schools, and leisure activities. During the 1920s, industrial paternalism ameliorated class conflict by building upon working-class traditions of mutual aid while promising workers and their families a modicum of security. The study examines how the cultural practices of paternalism both constructed and resonated with the workers' regional, gender, and occupational identities. The social construction of identity explains the workers' subsequent perceptions of their employers, unions, and the post-revolutionary state.;The dissertation then examine why paternalism endured or succumbed to the challenges posed by Mexico's tumultuous 1930s--years of economic crisis and government-sponsored union drives. The issue of unionism polarized Monterrey, pitting industrialists against the state and workers against one another. Monterrey's elite mobilized popular resistance to state interventionism by portraying their movement as a defense of regional culture and values. Some workers resisted unionization and embraced the security of company paternalism. Paternalism appealed mightily to female brewery operatives, for whom it offered cultural diversions and economic opportunities unavailable to women of their class. Factory-level studies document how workplace grievances undermined the benevolent promises of paternalism, leading the metal and glass workers to embrace unionism and its promises of industrial democracy. The story concludes by exploring union hall culture and politics, revealing how unionism replicated the practices of paternalism and why Monterrey's workers resisted government attempts to coopt their political loyalties. By weaving social, legal, political, and cultural history into a single fabric, the comparative study enriches our understanding of labor relations during this decisive period in Mexican history.