Trump’s Got Plans For America. Thanks to NAFTA, Conditions for Mexican Factory Workers Like Rosa Moreno Are Getting Worse. It was Saturday night, and, as usual, Rosa Moreno was getting ready to work the night shift at the factory. On this night, Feb. But she needed the money. It was the final shift in her six- day workweek, and if she missed a day, the factory would dock her 3. She couldn’t afford to lose that kind of money. Her family already struggled to survive on the 1,3. Trump’s Rollback of EPA Overreach: What No One is Talking About March 29th, 2017 by Roy W.![]() Unable to shake the bad feeling, she’d already missed her bus, and now she’d have to pay for a taxi. But the thought of losing 3. ![]() Washington And The World. The Trade Deal We Just Threw Overboard. Donald Trump wants to rewrite NAFTA, but someone else already did. Here’s how it went down. America's Trade Policy is the blog of the Washington International Trade Association. WASHINGTON: What are China’s intentions in the South China Sea? It’s a question intelligence analysts, diplomats and the senior leadership of the United States. Rosa kissed her six children goodnight and set out across town. In the Mexican border city of Reynosa, the hundreds of maquiladoras that produce everything from car parts to flat- screen televisions run day and night—3. Rosa worked from 1. Like the 9. 0,0. 00 or more workers in Reynosa, the 3. Rosa depended on these factories for her livelihood. In the 1. 1 years since she moved to the city, she had welded circuitry for Asian and European cell phone companies, assembled tubing for medical IV units to be shipped over the border to the United States, and worked on a production line assembling air conditioners for General Motors. This was her second month at HD Electronics, a South Korean firm that had moved to Reynosa in 2. South Korean firm, LG Electronics—a $4. LG also has a plant in Reynosa and could scarcely keep up with the North American demand for its plasma and LCD televisions. At HD Electronics, Rosa operated a 2. Every night, six days a week, she fed the massive machine thin aluminum sheets. The machine ran all day, every day. Each time the press closed it sounded like a giant hammer striking metal: thwack, thwack, thwack. The metal sheets emerged pierced and molded into shape for each model and size of television. At the factory, 2. Rosa, worked the presses to make the pieces for the smaller televisions. Nearby were 1. 0 larger presses, each of which took two men to operate, to make backings for the giant- screen models. Rosa was glad to have the work, but it was exhausting. Her husband was serving a five- year sentence in prison. She wouldn’t talk about what had put him there. Whatever happened, she was on her own. ![]()
Thankfully, her two oldest were already grown and married. But she had six children still at home to clothe and feed. She especially worried about her youngest—9- year- old twins Rosita and Lencho. They had scarcely spent time with their father before he’d gone away. And now she was always at work, or tired or stressed about money. At the plant, the line leader urged the workers to move faster. And your feet start to ache and your back hurts because you’re standing in the same position the whole time.”Complaining wouldn’t do any good. There was always another worker who would take her place. The modest labor and safety protections that workers had fought for in the 1. North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), had been lost after the maquila industry was battered by the automotive crisis that began in 2. Multinational corporations competing in the global economy wanted cheap, compliant labor that they could hire and fire at will. The Mexican government and the business community, not wanting to lose an important sector of the economy, did everything they could to abide by industry demands. Rosa had to comply or be replaced. At 1 a. m., the women in her section were excused for their 3. Rosa had brought tamales to share. She wasn’t happy about being moved to machine 1. Another worker had been moving too slowly, so the line leader had moved Rosa to machine 1. She rolled her gray woolen gloves up to her elbows to prevent cuts from the thin metal sheets she fed into the massive press. After an hour, the line leader came by to ask Rosa how many pieces she had produced. You had to push the piece in with both hands and make sure it was perfectly centered.” After that, she would press two buttons, one with each hand, to lower the press. At approximately 2: 3. Rosa was centering a piece of metal in the machine when she heard something metallic give way. Rosa’s friend Cira Mesa was working on another machine a few feet away. The machine had fallen on her hands.”The difficult, often dangerous working conditions that Rosa and at least 1. Mexican workers endure in the maquiladora industry were supposed to get better. That’s what political leaders on both sides of the border had pledged in 1. NAFTA, it was promised, would drive up workers’ wages, improve working conditions and spur job growth, creating hundreds of thousands of new middle- class citizens on both sides of the border. The seeds of NAFTA were cultivated in Texas during numerous discussions between Mexico’s young Harvard- trained President Carlos Salinas and President George H. W. In 1. 99. 2, at a historic meeting in San Antonio, Salinas, Bush and Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney posed for a photo while their top negotiators ceremoniously signed the agreement at the Plaza San Antonio Hotel. The maquiladora industry was instrumental to NAFTA. Multinational corporations from developed countries like the United States and Canada could import raw materials to be assembled and manufactured at maquiladoras in free- trade zones along Mexico’s northern border. Mexico would provide the corporations with low- wage workers and charge minimal tariffs. Maquiladoras had been Mexico’s primary economic development strategy since the late 1. Under the repressive one- party rule of the Revolutionary Institutional Party, or PRI, the labor unions had been largely coopted to favor the business sector. By the early 1. 99. Mexican President Salinas, a member of the PRI, had become an unabashed cheerleader for NAFTA, telling Fortune magazine the agreement would “Create additional jobs and make wages grow. Mexico, with its lax pollution regulations and labor enforcement, would become a magnet for multinational corporations looking to cut costs, critics argued. The debate polarized both countries. During a 1. 99. 2 presidential debate, independent candidate and billionaire Ross Perot struck a chord with many critics when he described U. S. Again Texas played a crucial role. A frustrated President Salinas, who had spent three years negotiating the agreement with Bush, hastily requested a meeting with the president- elect, according to Maxwell A. Cameron and Brian Tomlin in their book The Making of NAFTA: How the Deal Was Done. With the help of Texas Gov. Ann Richards, they met in Austin to discuss changes to NAFTA that would include more protections for workers. NAFTA was ratified in 1. President Clinton praised the agreement’s benefits for workers. They’ll have more disposable income to buy more American products, and there will be less illegal immigration because more Mexicans will be able to support their children by staying home.”Clinton estimated NAFTA would produce 2. United States within the first two years. Salinas had similar glowing predictions. There were some positive economic indicators. Foreign direct investment in Mexico surged, and the country’s exports tripled. Meanwhile, Americans found they could buy imported goods more cheaply. But for workers on both sides of the border, especially those without a college degree, NAFTA was a devastating blow. The great “sucking sound to the south,” as Perot had so bluntly put it, had begun. Between 1. 99. 4 and 2. U. S. Workers from the higher- paid manufacturing sectors in the U. S. Meanwhile, cheap U. S.- subsidized corn flooded the Mexican market, putting small farmers out of business and forcing them to leave their towns for larger urban centers in search of work. Mexico’s economy grew at a sluggish annual per capita rate of just 1. Latin America, according to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Very little of the wealth generated by the maquiladoras was invested into Mexican society to alleviate poverty. The global economy favored a few. In 2. 01. 0 Forbes magazine named its first Mexican citizen, Carlos Slim, as the world’s richest man. Yet 4. 5 percent of the Mexican population lived in poverty, according to government figures. Like many, Rosa was struggling to put food on the table. Working six days a week she took home 5,2. To make a little extra money, she also sold cosmetics and face creams. In Reynosa, like other border cities, the cost of living wasn’t cheap. Food in the supermarkets cost as much as it did in the United States. The public elementary school in Rosa’s poor, working- class neighborhood was so overcrowded it divided the school day into two shifts. Her 9- year- old twins Rosita and Lencho waited until the morning shift was over so they could attend school in the afternoon. Rosa and other parents were expected to pay a registration fee, and for books and uniforms. The mortgage on her tiny two- bedroom home wasn’t cheap, either. Every month she paid 2,5. At the same time, life in Reynosa was becoming more dangerous. In 2. 00. 6, the government launched a military campaign against drug cartels and violence exploded, especially in working- class neighborhoods like Rosa’s. It wasn’t unusual for cartel gunmen to hijack the buses taking workers to the factories and use them to blockade the roads during gun battles with the military or a rival cartel. Workers were sometimes killed in the crossfire. Working night shifts was especially dangerous because the gunmen were most active at night. Foreign owners and upper- level managers of the maquiladoras curtailed their own travel to the city, holding management meetings across the river in Texas, where many of them lived. The inequality gap now had a new dimension involving personal safety: Upper management stayed on the U. S. She knew it was dangerous to leave for work late at night to take a bus across the city. But she always felt safe once she reached the factory. Jose Olmos was working one of the large stamping presses when he heard the screams. By the time he got to Rosa, “some of the women had fainted,” he said. I imagine she was in shock.
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