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A Socialist Project e-bulletin .... No. 225 .... June 11, 2009

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Are Mexican Workers 'stealing our jobs'?

The Crisis in the Mexican Auto Sector

Maquila Solidarity Network

When the last truck rolled off the assembly line at the General Motors (GM)

plant in Oshawa, Ontario on May 14, some workers arrived at the "closure

ceremony" wearing sombreros to protest the loss of 1,500 Canadian jobs and

the announcement of the opening of new GM plants in Mexico.

"It's not right. They just put the plants in places where people are

willing to work for slave wages," one worker was quoted as saying in the

Globe and Mail.

Clearly, Canadian auto workers are being unfairly victimized by an economic

crisis that they had no role in creating, but the perception that Mexico

workers are gaining because of the crisis would appear to be mistaken.

The devastation of the North American auto industry is also being felt in

Mexico, a country heavily dependent on exports to the U.S., and where the

auto sector employs some 600,000 workers.

Mexican Job Losses

While Mexico's share of the total North American auto production rose

between 3-4 percent in 2008, exports from Mexico's auto sector actually

dropped by almost 57 percent between January 2008 and January 2009. This

has meant dramatic job losses in many communities in states that are highly

dependent on the auto sector, such as Puebla, Coahuila and the State of

Mexico.

Temporary closures or production slow-downs -- called paros tecnicos --

have become the norm. For example, GM's Guanajuato plant recently began an

eight-week paro tecnico which will affect some 10,000 workers. Paros

tecnicos are also underway at GM's three other Mexico plants, affecting

over 6,600 workers. The crisis is of course not restricted to production

for the big three U.S. auto makers. In January, Volkswagen laid off 900

temporary workers at its Puebla production facility, a factory with a

strong independent union.

Mexican auto parts companies that supply the large manufacturers are also

feeling the impact of the crisis. For example, last month Delphi, one of

GM's main parts providers, announced the closure of its Matamoros factory,

leaving 1,700 workers unemployed.

And, like their North American counterparts, Mexican workers are being

pushed to give up hard-won gains.

Impact on Workers' Rights

According to Blanca Velazquez of the Worker Support Centre (CAT) in Puebla,

employers in the auto sector and the state and federal governments are

using the uncertainty caused by the economic crisis to undermine Mexican

workers' rights.

"Companies and governments are using the threat of job loss to legalize

so-called flexible employment in order to weaken job security and labour

protections," says Velazquez. She points to proposed regressive changes in

the Federal Labour Law as well as recent reforms to the Social Security

Law.

She also notes that the terms and conditions of paros tecnicos being

negotiated by unelected leaders of "official unions" linked to the Puebla

State Government are undercutting workers' legal entitlements and in some

cases are being used to undermine worker organizing.

For example, at the Johnson Controls Finsa plant in Puebla, where the CAT

has been supporting a coalition of workers, the company has been

disproportionately targeting members of the coalition in layoffs and then

replacing them with temporary, casual workers contracted through an

employment agency.

While announcements of new investments in auto production facilities in

Mexico could offset some of the job losses, it is not yet clear whether

there will be an overall employment gain for Mexican auto workers, or

whether Mexican workers will continue to be discarded by the industry as

readily as their Canadian counterparts. •

This was first published in Maquila Solidarity Update.