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- From: rich@pencil.cs.missouri.edu (Rich Winkel)
- Subject: MM: Labor Suppression in Mexico
- Message-ID: <1992Dec15.091509.19783@mont.cs.missouri.edu>
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- Organization: PACH
- Date: Tue, 15 Dec 1992 09:15:09 GMT
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- Lines: 133
-
- [Taken from the November 1992 Multinational Monitor. Subscription info below]
-
- Mask of Democracy:
- Labor Suppression in Mexico Today
- By Dan La Botz
- Boston: South End Press, 1992
- 190 pages
-
- ON AUGUST 12, President Bush, Mexican President Salinas and Canadian
- Prime Minister Mulroney announced the conclusion of negotiations over
- the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) to encompass Canada,
- Mexico and the United States. In early October, presidential
- candidate Bill Clinton expressed reserved support for NAFTA, yet
- stipulated that he will only endorse an agreement that guarantees
- protection of U.S. jobs. In the United States, much of the debate over
- the agreement has focused on NAFTA's threat to U.S. workers. Economists
- and labor leaders argue that the current version of NAFTA will
- inevitably result in an enormous loss of U.S. jobs as corporations
- relocate to Mexico to take advantage of lower wages and lax enforcement
- of standards. Both the AFL-CIO and the Washington, D.C.-based Economic
- Policy Institute estimate that approximately 500,000 U.S. workers will
- lose their jobs to lower-paid Mexican workers if the agreement goes
- through.
-
- Less frequently discussed north of the U.S./Mexican border are the
- grave implications of this agreement for Mexican workers. Over the past
- 20 years, multinational corporations have relocated to Mexico to take
- advantage of the country's maquiladora system, which provides
- non-Mexican corporations incentives to export into the United States.
- Wages, as well as environmental and labor standards, are notoriously
- low in the maquilas. In light of the proposed agreement which will
- expand the maquila system throughout the country, Dan La Botz's
- disturbing book on labor rights in Mexico becomes all the more urgent.
-
- Mask of Democracy: Labor Suppression in Mexico Today examines the
- history of the labor movement in Mexico, focusing on the country's legal
- system which sanctions and promotes labor repression and on the effects
- of privatization and export-driven development on Mexican workers and
- unions.
-
- La Botz outlines the working and living conditions faced by Mexicans
- today. Wages are half of what they were 10 years ago; the unemployment
- rate hovers at 25 to 30 percent, not accounting for the underemployed;
- safety and health conditions, already low, are deteriorating. Working
- conditions are tougher for Mexican women who work both in the formal
- economy and in the informal sector as street vendors, domestic workers
- or home workers and earn even lower wages than their male counterparts.
- Few have access to daycare, severe sexual harassment in the workplace is
- rampant and women's role in the labor movement is severely restricted.
- Mask of Democracy also notes that millions of Mexican children work
- illegally, often in hazardous jobs.
-
- La Botz argues that employers, the corrupt leadership of "official
- unions" and the repressive Mexican government use brutal methods to
- squash attempts by workers to protest these conditions or advocate for
- change. "Employers and union officials have ... threatened, beaten,
- kidnapped or even murdered labor activists. Those responsible for the
- violence are seldom brought to justice. The government repeatedly and
- continually uses massive police and military force to keep workers and
- unions under the control of [Salinas's ruling Institutional
- Revolutionary Party] the PRI," he writes.
-
- The book makes the case that the Mexican legal system is designed to
- deny workers' rights. La Botz writes, "The Mexican institutions which
- deal with labor are organized to ensure control by the official party
- and its unions, in an embrace that strangles all initiative or freedom.
- Mexican labor law and the institutions which administer it
- systematically deny workers their fundamental rights to free
- association, to labor union organization, to internal union democracy,
- and to carry out their own programs."
-
- Most union members have been forced to join unions affiliated with the
- PRI, many as a condition of employment. Both the Boards of
- Conciliation and Arbitration and the Secretary of Labor regularly refuse
- to grant labor union charters to independent unions, with the exception
- of "white," or company-controlled, unions, which are routinely
- chartered. State labor authorities routinely deny workers the right
- to strike by declaring their strikes illegal or nonexistent on the
- basis of technicalities. Rank-and-file union members have little or no
- control over union policies or leadership--dissident workers can be
- expelled from the union by an exclusion clause which also allows
- employers to fire them.
-
- La Botz examines several private sector strikes and concludes that the
- Salinas administration's push toward privatization and free trade pose
- significant threats to Mexican labor. "[Workers] demanding their
- rights be respected in the private sector," he writes, "are an even
- greater detriment to Mexico's 'modernization' program based on a
- cheap-wage force and production for export than are public sector
- workers, and are therefore at greater risk." Workers at the Modelo
- Brewery, the Tornel Rubber Company and Ford Motor Company were all
- deprived of basic labor rights including the right to bargain
- collectively and to strike. Workers at all three companies met with
- physical and legal abrogations of their rights when they attempted to
- organize.
-
- Perhaps most significant in light of the move toward NAFTA is La Botz's
- examination of the maquiladora system as Mexico's chosen model of
- development. Wages have plunged in the maquilas, from an average U.S.
- $1.38 per hour in 1982 to an estimated $.51 per hour in 1991. Exposure
- to toxics and environmental contamination along the U.S./Mexico border
- where the maquilas are located pose grave threats to workers' health.
- Workers in the maquilas receive little help from their unions, the
- majority of which are affiliated with the PRI.
-
- Mask of Democracy is a thorough and well-researched examination of the
- origin and current state of labor repression in Mexico, based on
- compelling interviews with Mexican workers and activists. It is
- particularly vital reading at a time when free trade is being strongly
- advocated by industrialized nations. The book is written with a deep
- understanding of what the corporate push for global economic integration
- will mean for labor standards and the lives of workers throughout the
- world. La Botz writes, "Mexican workers and their labor movement have
- already felt the impact of freeing trade for an entire decade. As they
- have been required to shape themselves into a cheap labor force with no
- rights, in order to make themselves more appealing to potential
- investors, they have lost their human dignity inch by inch."
-
- -- Holley Knaus
-
- ---------
- Multinational Monitor was founded by Ralph Nader and is published 11 times a
- year by Essential Information, Inc. All rights reserved.
- Reproduction for non-commercial use is allowed with proper credit to MM.
-
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