From Labor's Champion
September 15-30, 1989
Maquiladora Plants on the Border
U.S. monopolies have built 1400 assembly plants along the Mexican border, known as the maquiladoras. These plants have become a major means of super-exploiting the Mexican workers. They import almost all their components from the U.S., duty-free, and then export the assembled products back to the U.S., paying only a minimal export tax on the value added by the labor of the Mexican workers. Most of the workers are paid about $4.00 a day. Some of the major U.S. monopoly capitalists, such as General Motors, Zenith, General Electric/RCA and Colgate-Palmolive own maquiladoras.
Super-Exploitation
Under capitalism, all workers are exploited, because the value that they create by their labor is more than the wages that they are paid for their labor-power - the difference forming the capitalists' profit. But in the U.S., the capitalists must pay at least the paltry minimum wage of $3.35 per hour, while in Mexico the capitalists must pay only about $3.85 per day. Even taking into account the difference in the cost of living in the U.S. compared to Mexico, the real wages of Mexican workers are many times lower than those of workers in the U.S.
In 1987, the U.S. companies operating in Mexico were saving $8.31 per hour per worker in labor cost. This amounts to over $15,000 savings per worker per year for the U.S. capitalists. Thus U.S. capitalists make enormous super-profits off of the Mexican workers. This is super-exploitation.
Because they have been largely successful in keeping the workers in the maquiladoras from enjoying union rights, the U.S. capitalists actually pay the workers in these plants only about half of the average industrial wage in Mexico.
There has been a rapid growth in the number of maquiladoras in recent years. In 1982, there were 585 assembly plants, employing 127,000 workers. By the end of 1988 there were 1,400 plants employing 400,000 workers, and these numbers are expected to double in the next 7 or 8 years. The growth in the maquiladoras was fueled by a sharp decline in the wages of Mexican workers. The real wages of Mexico's working people have fallen about 50% in the past 6 years. This is largely a result of the growing debt crisis. Mexico owes over $100 billion in debt to the U.S. banks and U.S.-dominated international lending agencies. The austerity programs imposed on Mexico's working people to pay the debt have caused their wages to plummet.
Maquiladoras were first set up in the early '60s, when the Mexican government set up its Border Industrialization Program. It dropped all restrictions on investment by foreign capital in the border region. These plants now play a major role in the economy of many of the major border cities, especially Ciudad Juarez, across from El Paso, and Tijuana, across from San Diego.
Women make up the majority, about 65%, of the labor force of the maquiladoras. Most are young, between the ages of 17 and 26. The capitalists have imposed severe labor discipline in the plants: workers are fired after four latenesses or absences. The maquiladoras have a high rate of labor turnover. As one means to reduce turnover, the U.S. capitalists and the Mexican government distribute birth control pills to the workers to prevent the work being disrupted by pregnancies.
Though 80% of the maquiladoras are currently along Mexico's border with the U.S., the U.S. capitalists and the Mexican government are pushing to increase their development in the rest of the country. One area of recent growth is the Yucatan, Mexico's large peninsula in the Caribbean. Yucatan government officials boast that wages in the area are even lower than in the border region. This area is being exploited by companies that assemble light-weight goods that can be cheaply flown to the U.S.
The Mexican government is spending the money on developing the infrastructure that will make it easier for maquiladoras to be set up outside the border region. For example, it is spending $30 million to improve the main port in the Yucatan, Progreso, to facilitate maquiladora exports. This is, of course, at no cost to the U.S. capitalists, who will benefit from it. Similarly, the U.S. government is pushing for the improvement of highways from the interior of Mexico to the border, again to make it easier to develop maquiladoras in the interior. And in the border cities, there are new bridges continually being built across the Rio Grande, to speed up the traffic between the maquiladoras and the U.S. Once again we see that Mexico's "development" is directed for the benefit of the U.S. capitalists.
The maquiladoras frequently impose dangerous working conditions for their employees, and also pollute the environment in the border area. There have been frequent cases of deformed or retarded children born to women working in maquiladoras who are exposed to toxic chemicals. And much of the hazardous wastes from the plants are poured into the sewage systems that go into the Rio Grande area. Air pollution from incinerators and toxic fumes is also notorious.
The tremendous growth of the cities in the border areas, especially Ciudad Juarez, have strained the most basic social services there. There is a severe shortage of housing, drinking water, sewage disposal and transportation facilities, not to mention schools. Of course, again, whatever minimal amounts are spent on these services are provided by the Mexican government (from taxes on the Mexican working people), not the U.S. capitalists who benefit from the labor of the workers in the border area.
The U.S. capitalists have developed similar assembly plants around the world and especially in East Asia. But because wages in Mexico are lower than in East Asia (workers in Taiwan and South Korea average about $2 per hour) and because Mexico is closer to the U.S., it has become the largest exporter of assembled goods to the U.S. The U.S. bourgeoisie sees the maquiladoras as paving the way to ending all restrictions on U.S. capital penetration of Mexico. The ultra-reactionary Heritage Foundation called the maquiladoras an example of the future "free market" (i.e. one with no tariff restrictions) between Mexico and the U.S.
Treachery of the AFL-CIO
The trade union bureaucrats in the U.S. frequently criticize the maquiladora program. They cry crocodile tears over the exploitation of the Mexican workers. But of course their main point is to blame the maquiladoras for increasing unemployment in the U.S. An article in the March 1989 issue of AFL-CIO News was headlined "Maquiladoras drain jobs from U.S...." This is simply a more sophisticated version of the chauvinist line that "Mexican workers are stealing our jobs." Owen Bieber, the UAW President, last year called on the U.S. government to impose custom duties on auto parts imported from Mexico.
The union bureaucrats refuse to point the blame at the capitalist system for causing unemployment. They will not point out that capital will always seek out the highest profits, that is, it will always go where labor is most inexpensive. And they have done nothing to organize joint struggle of U.S. and Mexican workers against the U.S. monopoly capitalists.
Proletarian International Unity
The U.S. capitalists use the difference in wages and conditions of life on both sides of the border to divide the U.S. and Mexican workers. The AFL-CIO participates in this dirty work by disrupting efforts of the Mexican workers to build class struggle unions of their own choice to fight the U.S. monopolies.
It is in the vital interests of both U.S. and Mexican workers to overcome this split by undertaking a common struggle against capitalist exploitation and the special yoke placed on the Mexican workers. It is the duty of U.S. and Mexican workers to organize joint mass actions (strikes, demonstrations, etc.) on both sides of the border as the main means for developing this unity. U.S. workers must especially aid those revolutionary unionists in Mexico who are fighting for a substantial raise in the wages of Mexican workers. A narrowing of the wage differences between Mexican and U.S. workers is a necessary objective condition for building a firm and fundamental unity between workers on both sides of the border.
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