Friday 28 September, 2001
Workers on the move
Every year, thousands of Mexicans try to cross the barbed wire fence that separates their country from the US to find work.
Workers Without Frontiers reports from the Mexico-US border, a place where millions of people are on the move.
El Paso, in the American state of Texas, and Ciudad Juarez in Mexico are two places in the world that really show the opportunities and the threats globalisation presents to workers.
El Paso
El Paso was once a textile manufacturing centre. Companies moved into the area because wages were low.
However, in 1994, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), increased the flow of trade with Mexico. | | | | Implemented in 1994, NAFTA commits the US, Mexico and Canada to eliminate tariff barriers completely over several years, and, in theory, allows for a virtually uninterrupted flow of goods and services across the border. |
Factories in El Paso closed down and relocated to Mexico where they were able to hire new workers for an even lower wage.
As a result, many Spanish-speaking textile workers in El Paso – paid the US minimum wage - were left unemployed.
At a meeting of unemployed border workers in El Paso, NAFTA and globalisation, were repeatedly cited as the cause of much misery. In Esteban Santiago’s words:
| ‘I feel I’m a victim of globalisation… I’ve not been able to get a new job, partly because I’m in my 40s, but also because I don’t speak English and don’t have a certificate of secondary education. Mexico is exploiting its workers... They pay workers $40 a week and that’s exploitation.’ | |
The US side of the border is one of the most economically depressed areas in America because low cost labour is so plentiful across the border.
Ciudad Juarez
Mexicans will work for one week for about the same money that an American worker expects to be paid per hour.
In the ’90s, US corporations opened 300 factories in Ciudad Juarez, taking advantage of low-cost labour and special export tariff concessions.
In a decade, the factories (officially called maquiladoras) have swollen the city’s population to 1.25 million.
Every day, 28 million components cross the Rio Grande, along the border between Texas and Mexico, for assembly and processing at one of these factories. Then they get shipped back to America.
Sachil Dias, a manager for the car manufacturing giant Delphi, thinks such companies offer people new opportunities without the risks attached to being an illegal migrant. She says:
‘They’re looking for a better way of life. They watch TV and they see the advertisement of the American dream… they find better wages than in their places of origin… ’
For some workers, however, the exploitation they endure in their homeland working for maquiladoras outweighs the risk of an illegal crossing.
One former worker, Marie (not her real name), ran away from her job at an electronics factory and crossed the border to the US. She recalls:
| ‘I had the workload of five people. Most of the workers there were women, perhaps because they (the bosses) felt we'd be easier to push around. The bosses promised us better salaries in exchange for sexual favours… I just had to get away… ’ | |
She is now one of the estimated 4.5 million unrecorded Mexicans that US President George W Bush has acknowledged ought to be given some status.
Risk involved
The new industries have done little to stop thousands of Mexicans from sneaking across the river or the desert to the US, to join those already working there illegally.
These people put their lives at risk as the border is heavily patrolled by US officials. Lucinda Vargez, a senior economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, in El Paso, explains:
| ‘There have been unfortunate situations where the border patrols have had to shoot and kill people if they see that their lives have been threatened, if they see a particular person did not heed their call... to stop… ’ | |
Maria Ramirez lives in the town of Ureria, in the centre of Guanajuato, home state of Mexican President Vicente Fox. In Ureria, most men of working age have left the town.
Ramirez, 29, has five sons. The first has already followed his father to the US.
‘The worst anguish is the lack of legal papers. The men risk their lives every time they go and they may not get back. All my son can do is call me on the phone.’
To get her son into America, Maria had to pay $250 to a coyote - a people-smuggler. Mexicans are taken to remote crossing points in the desert, where they are given false entry documents. It’s extremely dangerous - if the border guards don't catch you, you can become disorientated under the scorching sun and die in the heat of the day.
Torn families
Soledad Gonzalez Gomez, a dentist, works at a small clinic in Ureria. Her voice breaks with emotion as she explains how family and town life is being destroyed because of the complete lack of work:
| ‘One of the worst problems is that many men just forget their families. They go to the US and find new partners, often leaving eight, nine or ten children behind. That leaves the women and children here to work the land. That in turn means the children don’t go to school.’ | |
So is there any hope for families torn apart by illegal job migration?
Nigel Harris, emeritus professor at University College London, explains if existing illegal migrants were allowed to register officially in some kind of amnesty, as President Fox is demanding, they would at least be free to return home more easily.
‘Governments sooner or later have got a number of options. They either expel them… or remove the controls, let people come and go as they wish according to which jobs are available. The Mexicans are famous for moving into the US on a seasonal basis.’
‘It is the controls which force people to settle… they would prefer to go home for three or six months a year to their families.’
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| Border patrol |
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The US has strengthened border patrols with Mexico in an attempt to prevent more deaths of illegal Mexicans migrants.
Every year, hundreds of migrants are found by the US border patrol suffering from the effects of extreme heat; many left for dead by smugglers.
Under the new measures, more aircraft will be deployed along the border.
Recently, Juan Hernandez, the head of the government's Office for Mexicans Abroad, unveiled a video campaign which is being shown on buses travelling towards the border.
Hernandez said the illegal crossing was very dangerous and the government wanted to do everything it could to save lives. Most of the videos carry one message - stay.
In the year 2000, almost 500 Mexicans died trying to make it to the US.
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| In Ciudad Juarez |
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Rocio Gallegos, business editor of the Diario de Juarez newspaper, says Ciudad Juarez is trying to cope with the population boom.
‘Crime is the biggest worry. At least a third of the population of over a million are working in the factories.’
‘These people are usually the victims. It’s easy to rob someone if they live in a house made of cardboard and corrugated iron… jobs are starting to disappear.’
‘Many, for instance, are assembling parts for Ford and the big car companies - one in five have already been sent home with just a month’s pay.’
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