The Militant - February 26, 2001 -- U.S. companies expand investments in Mexico plants

Vol.65/No.8 February 26, 2001

U.S. companies expand investments in Mexico plants

BY BRIAN WILLIAMS
About 800 workers at Kukdong International, a Korean-owned company in Mexico's central Puebla state, conducted a three-day strike starting January 9 to protest wages of $30 for a 45-hour workweek, rotten food, unsafe working conditions, physical mistreatment, and in support of their right to join an independent union--the National Workers Union. After several unionists were fired, the workers then occupied the plant. This factory, which makes clothing for Nike, supplies sweatshirts to at least 14 U.S. universities. Three days later police in full riot gear attacked the 300 workers who were on guard duty at the plant together with their family members. Fifteen injured workers were hospitalized.

Since 1994 when the North American Free Trade Agreement was signed, U.S. companies have nearly doubled the number of assembly plants they own and operate on the Mexican side of the U.S. border. These maquiladoras where pay is low, working conditions poor, and profits high, are able to re-export their products to the United States virtually tax- and tariff-free. In addition, any excess production can also be shipped off to 31 other countries, including the European Union, with which the Mexican government recently signed a trade agreement.

Currently there are 3,700 such plants in Mexico, 60 percent of them on the border, and the number is growing. For example, car production in Mexico--80 percent of which is exported to the United States--has more than doubled in the last five years. Mexico has now surpassed Japan as the second largest auto parts supplier to U.S. auto companies.

At the end of January, Motorola announced it was cutting 2,500 U.S. jobs and moving all its cellular phone production to its plant in Mexico's Chihuahua state; Xerox said that its production of digital office equipment would be moved to its plant in central Mexico; and Guilford Mills, a U.S. textile company, is investing $100 million to transfer production of its cotton and lycra knitwear to a new plant in northern Mexico.

Living conditions in the cities and towns where these plants are located are abysmal. A February 11 New York Times feature article entitled "Chasing Mexico's Dream Puts Workers in Squalor and Borderland in Chaos," states, "All along the border, the land, the water and the air are thick with industrial and human waste. The National Water Commission reports that the towns and cities, strapped for funds, can adequately treat less than 35 percent of the sewage generated daily. About 12 percent of the people living on the border have no reliable access to clean water. Nearly a third live in homes that are not connected to sewage systems. Only about half the streets are paved."

Related article:
Mexican president probes shift in energy and land ownership

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