Some NAFTA facts

[FarLeftRage]

NAFTA shifted hundreds of factories to Mexico, providing low-paying jobs there but taking away more than 750,000 jobs in the U.S.

These factories produce for the Fortune 500 companies and hundreds of multi-national corpoRATions such as ALCOA, GE and FORD.

Most pay out $4 a day to their workers.

Cheap labor has increased CorpoRATe profits.

Companies that moved to Mexico, have cut workers' wages by more than half.

The economic zones offer multinationals extensive tax breaks, little protection for unions and few environmental and or job safety regulations.

NAFTA's elimination of trade tariffs allowed the U.S. to dump low-cost food staples into Mexico at the expense of the indigeneous farmers, who cannot compete and are being forced off their farm lands.

From Maryknoll magazine - September, 2003

[DK666]

1. Please

Quote your source. I will be speaking in Washington DC at the end of the month about Manufacturing in America. I would like to quote your source Please Advise.

[FarLeftRage]

2. The source is now in...

I have edited this post.

[kcwayne]

3. Your figures are certainly off

In 1979, I helped GE set up a plant in Mexico. At that time, workers were paid about 1.25 per hour.

The $4 per day figure is more representative of what is going on in China. Mexico has a 10 to 1 labor disadvantage to China, and are now experiencing the same export of manufacturing jobs from their country as we are.

The entire US wood furniture industry has moved to China. Most industries have a "China strategy" more than a Mexico strategy.

The issue is the same as what you are raising, but the problem goes beyond NAFTA and Mexico. China is currently destabilizing the entire world with their slave labor gulags, product dumping, and lack of labor, environmental, and regulatory controls that have CEO's all over the world rushing to eliminate their labor costs and replacing it with Chinese manufacturing.

[FarLeftRage]

4. I don't think that missionaries would be mistaken

They are the ones that deal with this on a daily basis.

Perhaps, at one time wages were $1.25 an hour...

But times and conditions change.

[kcwayne]

5. Well they are.

I am doing work for a multinational now that has plants in Mexico and China. Their near and long term plans are to move all manufacturing to China.

They have closed most of their US based plants already. As soon as they complete the US closings, they will start on Mexico. There are no expansions of Mexican operations planned.

They would not do this if the labor differential were not so compelling. As it stands now, they lose money on the products that are manufactured in Mexico, because they are competing against Chinese products. That is how rediculously cheap Chinese imports have become in several industries. (This multi-national is in consumer electronics)