LABOR/MEXICO/NAFTA: “Emma Palacios started working in factories in this city on the Texas border in 1994, the year the North American Free Trade Agreement came into effect. Ever since, she says, it has been easy to find work at the scores of U.S.-owned factories that opened here. What’s proved harder to find is decent pay.
After 11 years with a major automotive supplier, Ms. Palacios was earning just $1 an hour plus benefits last year. She and dozens of co-workers staged a walkout to demand a six-cent-an-hour bump in pay. She ended up losing her job, and is now at another factory—for even less pay…
Mexico has reaped enormous benefits in industrial development and jobs from the 23-year-old pact, which U.S., Canadian and Mexican officials started renegotiating this month and will discuss again at a second round in Mexico City beginning Friday [8-25-17]. What it hasn’t achieved are significantly better—or often even livable—wages for Ms. Palacios and millions of other workers.
Labor advocates from all three countries say Mexico’s stubbornly low pay—the minimum wage here is $4.50 a day, and $100 a week is considered among the best factory-floor wages—create unfair competition for U.S. and Canadian workers and hobble Mexico’s economic growth.
Now, U.S. and Canadian trade officials and labor advocates want to use the Nafta renegotiation to prod Mexico into raising its wages.”
-Dudley Althaus, “Nafta Talks Target Stubbornly Low Mexican Wages,” The Wall Street Journal online, Aug. 29, 2017 05:30am