Sharp Decline in "Maquiladoras" Conditions

by Diego Cevallos

Irregular wages, violations of labor rights and environmental standards, and sexual harassment are everyday realities that are getting worse and worse in the export assembly plants, Bertha Lujan, coordinator of the Authentic Labor Front (FAT), told IPS.

FAT, which says it represents 30,000 workers and peasant farmers, is a member of the Coalition for Justice in the Maquiladoras, made up of trade unions and other non-governmental organizations (NGOs) from Canada, the United States and Mexico, the three members of NAFTA.

While the government of Pres. Ernesto Zedillo congratulates itself for the growth of the sector, which it touts as a steady source of jobs, FAT protests that conditions in most of the export assembly plants are exploitative.

The "maquila" is a form of international subcontracting in which a country -- generally an industrialized one -- provides the capital, technology and infrastructure to set up a factory in a developing country, which provides the cheap labor.

Lujan said the FAT labor offices, installed in areas along the U.S. border, where 61.5 percent of the assembly plants are located, received an average of between 12 and 13 complaints a day in 1999, up from 10 the year before. The reports filed mainly involved gender discrimination, sexual harassment and unjustified dismissals.

The maquila sector, which mainly produces televisions, computers and apparel, accounts for around 40 percent of Mexico's total exports.

Unemployment rates in the cities where the assembly plants are located are among the lowest in Mexico. While "open unemployment" -- which does not take into account under-employment or people active in the informal sector -- stood at 3.3 percent in the capital, Ciudad Juarez, along the U.S. border, posted a 1.5 percent rate.

The government maintains that the maquiladoras -- which are supervised by federal authorities, and where most of the unions are controlled by the Confederation of Mexican Workers (CTM), affiliated with the long-ruling Revolutionary Institutional Party (PRI) -- comply with labor and environmental standards.

Workers in a number of assembly plants have tried to set up independent trade unions in the past few years, but their attempts have failed due to pressure from employers and the government itself, complained FAT in a new report released on Feb. 25.

Keen on further capitalising on the maquiladora phenomenon, the government launched a program in 1997 to develop local suppliers of raw materials and inputs.

But little has changed. The latest figures from the National Institute of Geographical Statistics and Informatics indicate that 97.4 percent of inputs used by the maquiladora plants in assembling products for export are still imported.

The New York-based Human Rights Watch has documented discrimination against female workers in Mexico's maquiladora industry and pressure to keep workers from organizing.

The international rights watchdog reports that the owners of maquiladora plants rake in their profits at the cost of the physical and mental well-being of thousands of poor women, while the government tolerates the exploitative labor conditions in the sector.

The international environmental watchdog Greenpeace, meanwhile, reports that the maquiladoras release untreated toxic waste into the air and rivers.