Around 1965, pressured by the devaluation of the peso, México started a “maquiladora” program with the objective of bringing jobs and prosperity to the northern region of México.  This program allowed foreign companies to temporarily import their raw materials, or parts, duty-free to México. (A maquiladora itself is a national or foreign company, but in this article it will be refer to foreign companies).

At these maquiladora companies, Mexican workers assemble and manufacture goods which would remain duty-free as long as they returned to the point of origin. But in 2001, under NAFTA, this regulation was changed and all products and resulting wastes were allowed to stay in México duty-free.

According to a recent Cittac report, there are currently 2,183 maquiladoras and 1,110,000 maquiladora workers in México. Most of the maquiladoras are located in Baja California. Tijuana alone is responsible for 576 maquiladoras and 156,000 maquiladora workers. Sony operates the largest maquiladora, with 9,000 workers.
 

“When I started working for a maquiladora I was living in a shanty home,” said one maquiladora worker, who spoke on condition of anonymity.  “My husband and I would shower at the factory, eat in the streets and do laundry at a Laundromat until I made friends who hosted us.”

There are also maquiladora home-workers: women who take the maquiladora product home and make sweets, piñatas and decorative signs.  The material is not always given to them for free, instead, as is the case of a piñata, they purchase the material and the maquiladora company buys the finished product for $1.44 dollars, $2.88 at the most.  These piñatas are then sold to American party supply stores for $12 to $16.

“Fortunately when we need to get more material we do not have to pay for transportation anymore because an employee of the company comes to our house bringing what we need,” said Julia, a maquiladora worker.

Contrary to the primary goal of the maquiladora program, Mexicans say that working for these foreign companies usually involves verbal, physical (including sexual) and mental abuse, discrimination, exploitation (forcing the workers to work extra hours without compensation and paying low wages), and constant pollution of the environment through the irresponsible dumping of company trash.

Connie Garcia, a member of Colectiva Feminista Binacional, said that most of the foreign maquiladoras in México do not act fairly or by the law, instead they exploit people and the environment.

So, why work for these companies? According to various maquiladora workers, they are allured by the offer of social security and various bonuses, or because they are in need, or because there is no better offer, or nothing at all.  Sometimes workers are led to believe they will eventually get better pay.  Sometimes they came to Tijuana to attempt crossing the border and when that did not work out they decided to stay and try to get a job.

“I came to Tijuana, almost 14 years ago from the State of México, to try crossing the border.  It did not work out so I stayed because I did not want to go back in embarrassment,” said another worker.

Furthermore the companies motivate or pressure the employees to work harder, faster or to stay longer by, for example, threatening that somebody else waiting outside for a job would take their place. They also tell the workers that if they do not miss a day of work they will receive a bonus, but according to Sandra, a maquiladora worker, it is minimal: “The bonus they give us is like 10 to 12 pesos (around 1 dollar).”

In addition, there is no regard for the worker safety.  In an initially Australian-owned maquiladora, now German, named Optica Sola, many accidents occurred due to the lack of safety procedures or a clean environment.  For example, a worker had slipped and fallen due to a sodium hydroxide spill on the floor, suffering spinal injuries and skin burns.

Moreover, many companies require workers to put in extra time daily, for a total of 10 to 12 hours, which is illegal according to Mexican law which prohibits working more than three overtime hours per day for three consecutive days.

According to Jaime Cotta, legal representative for the workers at the Cittac (Centro de Informaci’on para trabajadoras y trabajadores, A.C.), most of the employees do not know the actual working conditions at the companies before they apply. Also, they do not know what their rights are, and a union usually doesn’t support or represent them.

For example, a group of workers at the maquiladora company Industria Fronteriza (IFSA) were fired after they attempted to establish a profit sharing program. The workers filed a legal complaint against the IFSA but the union who represented the workers, Sindicato Siete de Enero (January Seventh union), colluded with the company.  Cittac reported in November, 2002, that the IFSA company shut down, leaving around 200 workers unemployed.  Instead of declaring bankruptcy, the company ordered the Sindicato Siete de Enero to go on a strike. According to the Mexican labor law, a company is required to suspend any activity if a union starts a legal strike.

“Since 1982 México has been governed in accordance to the interest of the trans-nationals,” said Cotta. “México signed a Letter of Intention with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), with which it received loans in exchange of keeping low wages and for protecting the maquiladoras as a place where labor laws do not have to be followed.”

“We have suffered a lot of injustices,” said Aida, a maquiladora worker. “If you are pregnant they will not hire you, or the companies will not give you information about the different toxic chemicals that the workers will be handling.”

In an article in the Washington Foreign Service (February 16, 2003), Kevin Sullivan wrote that the habitants of colonia of Chilpancingo, a worker’s village of 10,000 people, were suffering rare illnesses and birth defects due to environmental pollution.

The colonia is located just below a hill topped by Metales y Derivados, originally owned by US citizen, Jose Kahn. It initially brought car and boat batteries to the site in order to extract the lead and melt it into bricks. But the plant shut down in 1994 and was subsequently abandoned by Khan, along with 8,500 tons of toxins.  In 1990, a Mexican study “found levels of lead 3,000 times higher and levels of cadmium 1,000 times higher than US standards in a stream that runs through the community of Chilpancingo. A 1999 report called the Metales y Derivados site “a major risk”. 

Now, every time the wind blows or the rain falls into a creek from the direction of Metales y Derivados, the people of Chilpancingo unknowingly consume toxins such as arsenic, cadmium, and antimony.  According to officials at the Environmental Health Coalition, a study of some of Chilpancingo’s children revealed significant and potentially dangerous levels of lead in their bloodstreams.

A local Mexican physician reports that he constantly treats patients with suspicious diseases – from leukemia to unusual throat swelling.

On November of 2000, a woman delivered a baby who suffered from anencephaly (a fatal defect in which babies are born with little or no skull). The baby survived for only two months. Another woman, named Lupita, has been suffering for the last few years from massive hair loss and bleeding from her nose and throat.

The news of these atrocities spread until socially and environmentally conscious organizations became aware of the problem.  After continuous protests, time and money, they were able to push for a clean up process that started on June 2004 by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Cheap labor around the globe is and has been a given. Agreements like NAFTA do not necessarily help all people, as evidenced in the middle and lower classes in México, or even the country as a whole.  But it may be a matter of those in power needing to make more responsible choices and decisions that will prioritize the needs of their country, before acquiescing to the demands of foreign companies.  At the same time, countries making international policies need to be more aware of the effects of such agreements on the poor and working people, and act accordingly – with responsibility.