Maquilladoras, Mexico

"Most worked eight to twelve hour days, doing difficult or dangerous manual labor, and still find it a great hardship to afford the tuition, uniforms, and supplies their children needed to go to school.  The women estimated that only twenty percent of the children in their settlement finish high school, most choosing instead to go to work.  Many deal every day with chemicals or dangerous machinery, and are provided little to no protective gear."

" The Maquiladoras in Mexico are taking part in what has become a common practice among transnational corporations around the world: the global assembly line.  This is the concept that regardless of where a company is rooted, it will move its production to the country with the cheapest labor and the most relaxed environmental laws.  If the wages are raised or the environmental standards begin to rise to expensive levels, they will just pick up and leave.  This makes the raising of wages very difficult.  These companies give a little bit of work to a desperate country, but the jobs they give do not lead to promotions as jobs in the U.S. do.  They are not stepping stones.  The poor are staying poor no matter how hard they work, which means that they have no money to put into the economy, and no way to build a middle class.  If the Maquiladora workers fight for wage increases are successful, it may mean the retreating of these companies from Mexico.  But if they do not demand a living wage now, where will their children find themselves?"

source:
Amanda Flore
April, 2010
amandafiore.com/articles

maquilladoras

The presentation at University of Toronto talks about the rise and fall of Maquilladoras on the Mexican side of the U.S. - Mexico border twin cities. The Maquilladoras are a result of NAFTA agreement. US and European companies essentially exploit the cheap labor in Mexico similarly to FDI (foreign direct investment) strategies. The only value added on the price of the products assembled in Mexico is the labor cost. In early 2000s the Maquilladoras could not compete with even cheaper labor in Asia and companies relocated their assemblies there. These days the presentation says we are seeing a reversal of the trend with higher shipping prices.
Hallelujah.
zero oil will save us one day.
 


source:
Juan Robles
http://infranetlab.org/blog/border-economies-maquiladora-export-landscape

Maquilladoras

"Over 11,500 Maquiladoras, Spanish for U.S.-owned and -operated assembly factories in Mexico, are located along the 2,100 mile border with the United States. Tijuana, at the western end of the U.S.-Mexican border, alone has 4,000Maquiladoras, employing nearly 1 million workers and producing goods whose value-added was over $7 billion a year in 1998. The importance of these products  -- almost half consisted of textiles and consumer electronics -- were only second to oil in the Mexican economy."

"Many factories (over 300 in just two years, 2002-2003) that located in Mexico during the 1980s and 1990s for low wages are in 2003 relocating to Asia. An entry-level machine operator in Juarez makes $8 a day while the same job in a Chinese factory fetches only $2. And in China there are no unions, whereas there are in Mexico. The World Trade Organization regulates global trade but only as it affects the interests of investors and manufactures, not of workers and the environment."


source:
http://www.uwec.edu/geography/ivogeler/w188/border/maquil.htm