The Source for Trucking News, Opinions and Trucking Jobs | NAFTA’s bad for everyone

In more than a few posts I’ve said I’m against Mexican trucks in the US. That has nothing to do with people trying to get better jobs to support their families. It’s about companies taking advantage of people for cheap labor.

BTA: News From The Border: August 2004 Archives

Study: Many affected negatively from NAFTA

August 17, 2004
Victoria Hirschberg
The Monitor

McALLEN — In the 10 years since its inception, the North American Free Trade Agreement may have been good for business, but that has not been the case for workers who have felt its impact, according to a newly released study.

Workers from Mexico, Canada and the United States have been losers in the game of free trade, the study conducted by the Labor Council for Latin American Advancement contends.

It’s not just about Mexican workers replacing American workers, it’s about companies not paying a fair wage even in Mexico.

Wages have decreased for workers in Mexico in the 10 years since NAFTA took effect and there has been a displacement of workers on both sides of the border, maintains the study report released Monday.

This report comes out less than one year after the 10 th anniversary of NAFTA and on the eve of CAFTA, a new trade agreement between several Central American nations and the United States.

“The North American Free Trade Agreement was made into law where three countries … agreed to abide by this agreement,” said Jaime Martinez, president of Texas LCLAA at a news conference Monday in Corpus Christi. “What happened was this agreement was one-sided.”

He said the agreement that aimed to foster free trade among Mexico, Canada and the United States protects only big corporations, not workers.

The report contends that the U.S. manufacturing sector has lost more than 2 million jobs since NAFTA’s implementation. Most of those jobs were lost by Latino workers at industries in United States’ western and border regions.

It’s not even about race. Hispanics in America were hurt.

The closure of many U.S. apparel plants has caused a displacement of many workers throughout the county since NAFTA began Jan. 1, 1994, the reports says.

In the Valley, textile companies like Levi Strauss & Co. and Haggar have closed all plants, leaving thousands of area workers without jobs. Many textile plants closed in the U.S. to take advantage of cheap labor in other countries like Mexico.

The report contends that NAFTA has caused Mexican workers to migrate to large industrial cities — such as Reynosa — and has led to a decline in wages.

The Mexican maquiladoras located in cities along the U.S.-Mexico border employ millions of workers, often at lower wages, according to the LCLAA.

“They were making wages that were inferior to workers who lost their jobs in the United States,” Martinez said. “I disagree that economic conditions that those workers are facing today … they have not improved.”

However, the issue of maquilas is more complex than looking at the pay scale, said John Sargent, associate professor of International Business at the University of Texas-Pan American in Edinburg.

“They actually do pay a lot for professional and technical positions,” he said. Sargent pointed at that in many cases a bilingual Mexican engineer who went to a good school could be making the same as a U.S. engineer after 10 years working for a maquila.

Although the wages for maquila workers are less than U.S. minimum wage, Sargent said jobs at the border provide good opportunities for farm workers or workers in cities like Veracruz that are deeper south in Mexico.

“I don’t think you can really say maquilas are a bad thing,” he said. “We have lower class people in Veracruz that think they could better themselves.”

Veracruzano workers make up a significant part of the Reynosa work force, thus necessitating a union specifically for Veracruz workers, said Dr. Patricio Mora Dominguez, president of the union.

Overall, NAFTA has been good for Mexico although changes are needed to make the 10-year-old agreement applicable to presentday Mexico, Mora said,.

He said government and economic officials should recruit higher-end maquilas that pay more and perhaps offer housing benefits. He said while China, which has begun wooing plants away from Mexico, might support low wages and cheap labor, Mexico is working to better itself.

Mexico might be trying to better itself, now big corporations are pulling the rug out from underneath them to go to China for even cheaper labor.

All this cheap labor, has anyone seen the price of jeans? It’s not because of shipping or labor costs!

“I think there are with any trade agreement … winners and losers,” Sargent said.

As long as big business is the winner, who cares about anyone else.

Martinez of LCLAA said his organization, which advocates Latino workers achieving the American Dream, is for free trade but fair trade.

“We do not want NAFTA to expand to CAFTA,” Martinez said. “We are not against trade, but there needs to be fair trade.”
Posted by Colby J Bower at 11:35 AM

Just not fair trade with Latin America. Is that what he just said? I don’t know if NAFTA can be fixed at this point or if anyone wants to fix it. It probably shouldn’t be expanded until it’s fixed though. Since everyone moved their plants to China, Central America will probably be left out in the cold anyway.