The icy wind that seeps in from outside shakes the flame beneath a pot of boiling beans. Gregoria Medina, 34, has stopped washing the dishes she used for breakfast and has placed them on a plastic tray at the opposite end of the stove. "Many years ago they stopped seeing us as people to instead see us as robots," she said, referring to her bosses.

It's been two months since Gregoria and 75 other workers at the printer giant Lexmark were fired and threatened with legal action after waging a strike to demand a daily wage increase of 9 pesos — about 50 cents — that had been promised to them over the summer.

Gregoria's house consists of a kitchen without tap water and another wider and colder room where she has only two beds. At night the room is shared by her elderly parents, an older brother who is mentally challenged, her 14-year-old daughter and two boys aged 17 and 8, along with her husband, who is a worker in another maquila. Her parents came here in search of the promised land when Gregoria was 4 years old, just as Juárez experienced its first industrial boom, thanks to a disastrous devaluation of the peso against the dollar and a plan concocted with the International Monetary Fund to reorient the city’s production toward attracting foreign investment in order to avoid a financial downfall.

That goal was achieved. Multinational firms poured in and unemployment dipped below 3 percent. In return, however, the city witnessed the sizeable growth of laborers who earn less than $9 daily. Wanting to change that condition, Gregoria and her colleagues sought protection under a law that permits the formation of independent unions. But it wasn't possible. Besides better compensation — still under $10 a day — they wanted dignity. That’s what they seek now, since they took a stand in front of the Lexmark plant that dismissed them on Dec. 9. Here they have erected a shelter made of wood and cardboard, of about three square meters, which has become a symbol of their resistance.