Maquilapolis: city of factories notes PDF

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summary and notes of assigned documentary "Maquilapolis: city of factories"
Dr. Larocco...

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Maquiladora o started in 1960s o Started to pay better wages than most of Mexico o That’s why people migrated to cities to work in a maquiladora. o Treaty with US and Mexico in 1960s to manufacture imported materials then exported to US consumers o Foreign companies go there for tax breaks and cheap labor o Women represented 80% of the industry’s labor force because of their fragile and delicate hands  Most women are single mothers o In maquila work, employees make about US $11 a day o Unions are considered as “ghost unions” because nobody knows they exist  These unions don’t live off dues paid by the workers they live off money that the employer pays them  Basically, the union protects the employer not the employees  Some factories fire any employee that tries to start a union o Mexican federal labor law is a good law that’s intended to protect workers, but the authorities don’t implement that law at all o Since the 70s, the IMF and the World Bank made a series of loans to the Mexican govt but they came with SAPs (conditions)  The Mexican govt promised the IMF that the Mexican workers’ salaries would not go up  These IFIs basically force Mexico to break their own (labor) laws because their conditionalities protect the TNCs

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Carmen assembles “flybacks” (a tv component) in Sanyo o Harassed pressured exposed to harsh chemicals o Nose bleeds and kidney trouble o Wouldn’t let them drink water or go to the bathroom o The product they were manufacturing was then moved to Indonesia because the labor was even cheaper o Companies were supposed to pay severance when they moved, but Sanyo didn’t want to pay their employees severance o “they depart with their hands full and leave ours empty” o Carmen and co-workers filed a claim asking them to pay their severance as the law requires  Their govt is supposed to provide them with legal counsel it is typical for them to get lawyers who favor the instead.  Sanyo and Sony set the example of how things will work in Tijuana  TNCs try to drag these claims out until the ones filing complaints get tired and give up

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Sanyo is willing to pay carmen $860 USD but her severance total was US$2,400 so she is asking them for US$1,800 Carmen won the negotiation and Sanyo paid her US$2,500 which she used to put a floor in her house

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1994 NAFTA trade agreement made tijuana even more loaded with factories o By the end of the 1990s there were more than 4000 factories with 1 million workers

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Lourdes Lujan o Lives in Chilpancingo in poverty o There is a river there that used to be clean but the factories over time polluted it to where its black, green and foamy o She used to bathe in the river and swim and camp o The factories destroyed the river

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“industrial city” o Up on a hill o Everyone else lives below o All their chemicals end up in their neighborhood and have been impacting residents’ health causing sores on their legs and feet, getting them sick, causing them to have breathing trouble, spots on their skin that are brown and itchy

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The women workers are tired of these conditions and are activists or “promotoras” o Worked in the factories and learned about their rights as women and as workers o Through this knowledge, they make changes in their daily lives, communities, workplaces and within themselves o It’s a big responsibility to be a “promotora” because they are dedicated to spreading knowledge, education and awareness about workers rights and conditions

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Industrial park at Otay Mesa o People migrant to work here (Tijuana) from rural spaces because there is no work in their home city

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Panasonic o Carmen now makes 68 USD a week and is generally happy o But there is lead contamination o Panasonic, Sanyo and other TNCs don’t disclose that workers are putting themselves at risk of being exposed to toxic chemicals in the factory o Carmen is at risk for lukemia now according to her doctor o Carmen kept getting sick too often from Panasonic’s toxic chemical exposure and they fired her after working there for only 6 months because she kept getting sick

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Living conditions o Basically a dirt shack o No running water or proper electricity  Electricity is homemade and has exposed tangled wires everywhere which is a severe hazard  If someone steps on the exposed wires they could be electrocuted o Cooks over a home made fire and washes clothes with buckets of water o They have to BUY jugs of water (to buy one jug of water, you have to work approximately one hour) o To buy a gallon of milk you need to work a little more than two hours o Maquila salary isn’t enough to cover basic needs like milk, tortillas, eggs, water and other basic needs o Women being exposed to toxic chemicals in the factories causes them to give birth to babies with birth defects o Birth defects are prominent throughout entire communities affecting even those who don’t work in maquilas because of the pollution from the factories, especially from one abandoned lead recycling plant that left behind toxics to become exposed into the communities like sulfuric acid, cadmium, plastic and lead. o Wind and rain bring the abandoned toxic chemicals into the communities o Essentially the whole community looks like an abandoned toxic wasteland o As soon as it starts to rain, the factories release their waste water o Carmen built her own house out of garage doors from the US that they threw away, put a roof on and lives inside of it with a dirt floor  Many houses in her community are built from garage doors  There is a severe lack of sewage lines in her community causing the water to become contaminated o Government supposedly collects taxes and keeps raising them to pay for public services (electricity, sewage lines, water) but they never deliver  At election time they make the promises, after election they dissappear

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Metales y Derivados o Abandoned lead recycling plant in Mexico that was ordered shut by the government in the 1990s o Owner fled and left the plant without cleaning up, exposing toxic chemicals into communities every day o Has arrest warrant in Mexico but lives in San Diego and he cant be extradited o Owner reports over a million dollars USD a year in profits (Jose Kahn) o To clean up the factory would costs millions of dollars and the Mexican government doesn’t have the money to do it o The US Environmental Protection Agency gave protestoras us$85,000 to begin clean-up of metales y derivados

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Globalization o These TNCs can go anywhere in the world but as they make their profits, they are impacting the environment and people’s health o The way that TNCs from developed, wealthy countries exploits and extracts everything they can from those people in poverty is an apparent example of how they need global inequality to remain the way it is because if everyone was equal, they wouldn’t be making any money. o The rich get richer and the poor get poorer o Powerful poem by Sor Juana Inez de la Cruz “Whose sin is worse: the one who sins for pay, or the one who pays to sin?”  Who is more at fault for violating Mexico’s labor law, the government that is corrupted or the IFIs that pay Mexico to break their laws that are supposed to protect their people? o IFIs keep people in poverty and make TNCs richer with SAPs o “Within globalization, a woman factory worker is like a commodity, and if that commodity is not productive, she’s not attractive for globalization because when she starts to defend her rights, then they look for that commodity elsewhere”  Maquila women are worried because they are literally only seen as objects of labor and not as human beings o Globalization turns tijuana into a city of cheap labor by exploiting workers that seems to be a never ending, inescapable cycle

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San Diego environmental health coalition came to inspect conditions via a US-Mexico collaboration Promotoras protest outside of PROFEPAs office to demand some type of change, but they responded by saying that the only office with the power to pursue environmental crimes is the federal attorney general (of Mexico) o Which they can’t pursue the environmental crimes of TNCs’ factories per SAPs Promotoras also sent letters to Mexican President Fox demanding that the govt take accountability but he responded by saying that communities aren’t being affected because the factories are so concealed

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Global economic crisis of 2001 o Availability of cheaper labor in Asia caused a multitude of factories in tijuana to close leaving 350,000 people unemployed and struggling to find any type of work o Tijuana was no longer desirable, Asia was now.

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Mexican govt has been asked if they provide reasonable working and living conditions for their employees but they say its nearly impossible because the population is growing faster than they can keep up with public services

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Baja California

o Many people are there illegally but migrated to find work and better living conditions from Mexico o People resort to informal work because they legally cannot get jobs -

Officials are trying to hide the work and living conditions of their poverty situation by telling the developed world that everything is fine A lot of TNCs will manufacture somewhere for a short period of time and then leave to avoid paying taxes...