Nogales, Mexico
February 23, 2005
by: Maria Beteran
On our trip to Nogales, Sonora Mexico many things impressed me; some that I
was aware of but some that I was not aware of. It was interesting to see how
people in border towns live life, with the high cost of living, low wages and all the
injustices that they face. But the main thing that caught my attention was
the
maquiladora industry in town.
The maquiladora industry was established during the 1960’s as a result of the Bracero Program that did not have much success in the US. When NAFTA was established and implemented many workers in Mexico were extremely affected up to the point of losing their jobs, mainly in agriculture, and forcing them to migrate from the interior of the country to up north, either to a border town and work at these maquilas or to cross to the US illegally and find employment to sustain their families. Even the Mexican government admits the loss of more than a million jobs in 1995 alone[1] as a result of NAFTA.
The maquiladora
industry in the area of Nogales is one of the main factors of
employment. Currently, they employ between 36,000 to 38,000 persons in a
town where the population is approximately 400,000 persons. The main
competitors of these industries in Mexico are US and Chinese companies.
The maquila that we visited, Curtis de Mexico, is a US owned
company based out of Milwaukee, WI and involved in the production of
electronic parts such as voltage regulators and frequency filters. This
is a small maquila
compared
to others currently employing 100 workers. But, eventually, the
maquila will increase the amount of workers since it will be
producing 98% of the total production by June 2005, which will decrease
the production of the factory located in Milwaukee to 15%. In Nogales,
the average earning of a single employee is the equivalent to $10 US
dollars a day for a shift of nine hours. Employees who have been there
longer, fifteen years, with the company make an average of $14 US
dollars a day (bonuses included). We were informed that these wages are
good compared to the wages of other maquilas in town. Also, the
company’s spoke person informed us that they are currently under-staffed
and she could not explain why.
It’s both an advantage
and disadvantage to the residents of Nogales to have these maquilas
in town. They are good because they provide another source of employment
to many residents of Nogales, even though the wages are not the best and
the company doesn’t seem to provide and/or take in consideration the
implementation of safety measures in the work area. Mexico’s
maquiladoras
not only generate toxic byproducts but often times
employ workers in unsafe conditions.[2]
It is a disadvantage because
maquiladoras do not contribute to local taxes.[3]
Furthermore, they are not giving any money to the community, money that
is needed to improve the different problems that Nogales is facing such
as the unpaved streets and the lack of water distribution to the
different areas of the city. We were told that many residents don’t have
running water and that these unpaved streets turn into rivers when it
rains a lot. Also, maquiladora owners are not concerned with the
environmental problems that are created with the hazardous waste.
Current law mandates that maquiladoras return all hazardous
wastes to their country of origin[4]
but instead many send it to other parts of Mexico particularly to the
state of Chihuahua. The local government seems to be ignoring this
problem; apparently the economic growth has triumph over environmental
protection.[5]
Nogales being so far
from Mexico City is lacking the economic support of the national
government that
apparently
is only focused with the problems in the interior of the country,
leaving border towns aside. It’s a shame because once again the
residents of the northern parts of Mexico, especially border towns, are
being left behind just like it happened during the US-Mexico war. Being
from the interior of Mexico, Guadalajara, I had not realized that border
towns, in particular Nogales, were facing so many problems.
[1] Unions without Borders, David Bacon,
[2] Environmental/public health issues in the borderlands
[3] The Maquiladora Industry, Maria Guadalupe Torres
[4] Hazardous Waste Management on the Border, Cyrus Reed
[5] Faith and the Borderlands, Rick Ufford-Chase