102 



LABOR 



the wage usually is little different whether it is 

 paid all in money or part in food. However, some 

 employers are known to feed their workers well 

 and so either pay less in cash or have a better labor 

 supply. Thus the biggest Indian employer pays 

 only 8 cents a day and food , but he feeds the men 

 well "because" (according to a man who frequently 

 works for him) "he wants them to have strength for 

 the hard work." 



Although the local Indians are frequently paid 

 with food, which appears to be a method preferred 

 by the laborers, Indians from other towns are often 

 refused work except for cash. Rosales writes 

 (September 7, 1937) that "People have been 

 coming from other towns like Santa Lucia Utatlan 

 for a long time looking for work here. Thej^ want 

 work with meals because food is what they are 

 after. People here do not like to give it." Twice 

 he writes that Sololatecos came looking for work, 

 payment to be made partly in food, but it was 

 refused because Sololatecos are notoriously big 

 eaters. (Rosales adds that he has observed the 

 same.) Probably no more than .300 of the 730 

 man-days of outsiders are paid with food. 



Workers at the corn harvest usually earn more 

 than usual in food. A fiesta spirit prevails, and 

 not only is the work lightened with gaiety (an 

 employer laughingly described the day's harvest 

 so: "We had a good time working all day, shouting 

 back and forth; one laborer stumbled and somer- 

 saulted twice down the hill with a bag of corn on 

 his backl"), but the food is better than usual. 

 Meat is frequently included, as well as beans, 

 bread, and coffee. Or some employers (includmg 

 the richest Indian and one other that I Itnow of) 

 serve ordinary food; but after the harvest serve 

 atole, or send it to the homes of the harvesters. 

 Even when laborers are paid entirely in cash, they 

 are served atole of the new-harvested corn at noon. 

 During one coffee harvest a neighbor family who 

 had been working in the fields of the richest Indian 

 brought home quantities of food and explained 

 that this employer does not require that they eat 

 it there. 



The following is a description, by one of his 

 laborers, of this richest Indian's treatment of his 

 employees. This employer is not only wealthy, 

 but the first man of the community politically; he 

 tends to be an old-fashioned Indian, wearing the 

 most conservative clothing and insisting that his 

 sons do, too. 



Miguel advances money to those he knows comply and 

 they work it off when he needs help. When they do not 

 comply, he just never gives them money again when they 

 need it. (So I never let him down.) He warns the mozos 

 when he advances the money that they must not disappoint 

 him when he needs them. He alternates his mozos, calling 

 some one week and others the next, giving them time to get 

 their own work done. He calls them only when he has 

 much work: otherwise only he and his sons do the work. 



He gives plenty of food for lunch so that the mozos have 

 strength to work and says it is so they will have strength 

 to work. He tells them to eat slowly and enjoy their food. 



He doesn't let them work fast because then it would be 

 done poorly. His motto is: Do little and do it well. 

 When they are picking coffee, he keeps telling the men to 

 do it well and slowly and without breaking the branches. 

 If one does break a branch, Miguel reprimands him a little 

 and in a moment is again pleasant. Often he tells them 

 funny things, so they are always happy working. He 

 himself and his sons work along with the mozos — and he 

 jokes and tells them old things that he knows. 



His sons don't talk when he speaks, but laugh at his 

 jokes; and when they talk he listens and laughs; when they 

 finish he can start again. Sometimes the mozos talk too. 



Miguel has the old way of talking — saying opposites; 

 if a field is good, he says it is no good and he will lose 

 money, etc.; if an animal is rapidly growing and fattening, 

 he says it is not growing and he will lose the money in- 

 vested in it. So also he tells the mozos that their work 

 is very bad and he will never give them more money; so 

 he talks to me, but always gives me more money. But 

 if a mozo doesn't understand he becomes confused and 

 doesn't come back. On the other hand when the work is 

 bad, he compliments the mozo and tells him he will never 

 lose him; but when the man asks for money Miguel says 

 he has none. 



The question of wages is complicated by the 

 fact that piece-work arrangements are frequently 

 made. Except for work in the milpa and occasion- 

 ally the making of (ablones Indians pay exclusively 

 by the day; but Ladinos often make other arrange- 

 ments with Indian laborers. The unit of work, 

 called the tarea, differs with different jobs. A 

 tarea of firewood is a pile 2 varas high and 2 varus 

 wide (the pieces of firewood are from a half vara 

 to a vara in length — but this is immaterial because 

 the labor is the same) ; a tarea of stones is a cone 

 with its base 2 varas in diameter and its height 

 the same. In the milpa — and in general with the 

 hoe and pickax — the tarea is a cuerda, 32 varas 

 square. The making of a tablon 32X3 varas is a 

 tarea. In coffee picking, a tarea is 105 pounds of 

 berries, and there are baskets holding that much 

 and also half that much, so that the baskets 

 themselves are units. In the corn harvest 3 

 bagfuls picked and carried home is the tarea. 



