100 



lABOR 



Conversely, the local Indians hire themselves to 

 employers outside their own community (i. e., 

 Ladinos) for a great deal more time. Besides the 

 17 landless famihes, who worked about 4,350 days 

 for Ladinos,'' other Indians of families without 

 much land worked occasionally in the fields of 

 outsiders, to bring the total to about 7,500 days 

 (table 25) chiefly in truck gardens where the local 

 Indians have over most others the advantage of 

 skill. (The truck-gardening Jorgenos generally 

 hire other Jorgeuos to help them.) 



Rosales \\Tites (and the Indians frequently say) 

 that "the local Indians do not like to work as 

 laborers for Ladinos, and few of them do. They 

 work in the fields for Ladinos only in 'deals' 

 involving work-for-rent. The poor Indians prefer 

 to look for work among richer Indians. Other 

 Indians speak iU of those who have Ladino 

 patrons." This is a meaningful statement of the 

 Indian attitude, but the statement of fact is 

 exaggerated. In 1937 three of the four families 

 with whom we had closest contact worked more or 

 less regularly for Ladinos. All three are very 

 poor, and probably not exceptional among people 

 of their economic level who work, in general, for 

 anybody who asks them, Ladino or Indian. 

 Another poor Indian who in 1941 supplied infor- 



Table 25. — Local Indian labor in Ladino fields 



' Since the Ladinos almost never work their own fields, the chief problem 

 involved in this calculation is how much they actually depend upou Indian 

 laborers from outside towns, and how much the local Indians do. On their 

 151 acres of hill milpa, 156 acres of coffee, and 26 acres of truck (on which last 

 they grew 14.6 acres of corn, 2 of onions, 0.2 of onion seed, 3 of garlic, 1 of vine 

 beans, and l.G of shrub beans), the number of man-days required, according 

 to calculations based on Indian agriculture, were: 



Hill milpa 7,555 



Delta milpa 526 



Truck '" 4,041 



Coflee 8,689 



Total _ 20,811 



Since without much doubt Ladinos are justified in their frequent plaint that 

 Indians work more slowly and poorly for Ladinos, the total was probably 

 nearer to 25,000 man-days. Using that figure, and a breakdown by crops, 

 and knowing that a minimum of some 4,350 man-days were done by resident 

 Indians, it is not too diflicult to calculate, with some degree of security, how 

 many more than that minimum must have been done by local Indians. 



" Based on a family-by-famlly analysis, using as a basis that "full time" 

 means 300 days a year. The figure includes work in the fields, not in domestic 

 tasks, difficult as the distinction sometimes is with a full-time employee who 

 runs errands and all kinds of work. It includes the work of one woman, 

 but not of an Indian "overseer" on Ladino land, since the actual labor was 

 done by others. 



mation on the work he had done during the 

 previous year (which I never got straight!) worked 

 as much for Ladinos as for other Indians. Never- 

 theless, the Ladinos do tend to hire Indians from 

 other towns, especially in milpas and coffee groves, 

 partly because of a shortage of local labor which 

 comes because Indians do prefer to work for other 

 Indians. 



L.\BOR PRACTICES AND WAGES 



Wage-work hours are normally from 7 to 12 

 a. m. and from 1 to 5 p. m., a 9-hour day which 

 was the legal day during the period of study." 

 The Indians usually take their lunch to the fields 

 or have it sent by a child of the house. When 

 working for an Indian employer the laborei-s are 

 generally given food in his house, if close to the 

 fields, or else brought to or cooked in the field 

 itself. A laborer attached to a Ladino patron 

 sometimes complains that he is worked more than 

 9 hours (in one case from 5 a. m. to 7 p. m., an 

 Indian said after he had changed employers) . 



When working in their own fields, hours are 

 more irregular. Sometimes the Indians water 

 their gardens by moonlight. They frequently 

 rise at dawn to do some of their own work before 

 breakfast and before beginning work for an em- 

 ployer. They rise very early to begin a journey 

 to a market, and frequently work late the night 

 before to prepare their loads. On the other hand, 

 when working for themselves they not infre- 

 quently idle part of the day. But on the average, 

 they probably work the same 9 hours a day that 

 is customary when working for others. 



The work week is 6 days. Laborers are rarely 

 hired for Sunday work. In 1936 we needed labor 

 for the experimental milpa that we were planting, 

 and tried to hire men for Sunday; we found men 

 who were willing to come on Monday, but none 

 accepted for Sunday; as reasons they gave that 

 (1) they needed rest and (2) it is a sin to work on 

 Sunday: "those who do so are very niggardly and 

 miserly and do not want to set aside even 1 day for 

 their God." Actually, Indians do a lot of work 

 for themselves, if not for others, on Sunday. It is 

 the day generally devoted to the cutting of fire- 

 wood for the family, and gardens that need 



" It is sometimes said that working hoiu-s are from sunrise to sunset with a 

 rest period of one-half or three-quarter hour at lunch time. During short 

 winter days this may be close to the 7-to-5 schedule generally followed. The 

 lunch period may be shorter than I hour, however, depending upon where 

 and how it Is taken. 



