With the implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1994, it suddenly became easier for companies to move their plant operations southward to Mexico. As foreign— primarily American— companies were establishing maquiladoras (cross-border plants) in Mexico, they overtly began violating the rights of their Mexican employees. Consequently, in their struggle against the maquiladoras, many maquila workers have sought cross-border alliances to deal with the blatant labor violations of transnational corporations. By exerting both political and economic/market pressure on transnational corporations, cross-border activism has been increasingly successful at helping Mexican workers confront the maquiladoras. 

Cross-border activists have used NAFTA’s labor side agreement to exert political pressure on Mexico’s government to enforce its labor laws and prevent gross violations of workers’ rights in the maquiladoras. The labor side agreement of NAFTA is an instrument whereby one country may file a formal complaint with the National Administrative Office (NAO) (an arm of the US Department of Labor) against another country, if that country fails to enforce its own labor laws. With such an instrument, US labor activists have initiated numerous NAO complaints against the Mexican government for its reluctance to enforce its labor laws, as outlined in the Constitution of 1917. For instance, in 1997, the workers at Hyundai’s Han Young plant (an automobile parts plant) in Tijuana protested low wages, unsafe and unhealthy working conditions, and their inability to organize independent unions. Eventually, their numerous protests resulted in management conceding to hold union elections. However, after union elections were finally held and the independent union known by its acronym STIMAHCS won, Han Young’s management denounced the election and the city’s labor board refused to certify the results. As the conditions for the Han Young plant continued to deteriorate, activists from the San Diego Support Committee for Maquiladora Workers began to get actively involved (Bacon 88-106).

Working in collaboration with the Mexican workers, the San Diego Support Committee began placing pressure on Han Young’s management to alter its policies. After many futile attempts, the Support Committee, led by Mary Tong, filed an NAO complaint against the Mexican government for not certifying the union election results and for not enforcing its very own safety and health laws. In the Han Young case, the NAO sided with labor and issued two decisions: the first held that the Mexican government had allowed violations of normal union election procedures; the second, that the occupational safety and health laws were not being enforced. However, because the NAO cannot offer specific penalties to punish countries for not enforcing their laws, the Mexican government could not be punished in the Han Young case.

Although they lack enforcement mechanisms, NAO rulings are still important because they exert political pressure on nations to abide by the NAO’s decision. Thus, while its decisions could not be enforced, the NAO told the Mexican government that it would be “monitoring developments very closely” (Bacon 101). And so, under intense pressure from the hearings and also risking a political fallout with the US, the Mexican government certified the election results and gave the independent union at Han Young the right to bargain (the titularidad). In addition, the Mexican government forced the managers at Han Young to establish a Health and Safety Committee as required by Mexican law.  As this example well illustrates, the political pressure created by an NAO complaint can be quite successful at prompting the Mexican government to protect workers’ rights. Nonetheless, the NAO complaint failed in many respects; the Mexican government did not officially punish Han Young or other such maquiladoras, thereby enabling such unfortunate violations to continue within Mexico (Bacon 88-106).

 By far, the most successful and effective cross-border strategy against the maquiladoras has been the use of market pressure. This strategy simply mobilizes consumers to punish those maquiladoras that violate the rights of maquila workers by boycotting their products. The effect of market pressure is further intensified by the fact that the maquiladoras rely heavily on sales from American and Canadian consumers, without which their economic fortunes would stagnate or decline. Nothing illustrates this point better than the events encompassing the Kuk-Dong clothing factory in the Mexican state of Puebla. Similar to many other maquiladoras, the Kuk-Dong plant offered low wages, few benefits, and harmful (if not dangerous) working conditions. Moreover, the plant repressed workers that attempted to organize an independent union through firings, blacklistings, beatings, and threats. Nonetheless, the head of the Workers Support Center in Mexico contacted the United Students Against Sweatshops (USAS)— a student-run organization dedicated to ending sweatshop labor— and notified them of the conditions in the Kuk-Dong factory. The USAS quickly responded by using market pressure, specifically boycotts, to bring about the desired change (Bacon 210-214).

Although Kuk-Dong was not a part of any major corporation, it was a subcontractor for Nike; Nike was the primary customer for the garments produced at Kuk-Dong. Consequently, USAS concentrated its campaign on Nike, forcing university administrations all across North America to boycott any clothing from this corporation.  Although this boycott initially started only on college campuses, the USAS raised public awareness to such an extent that the boycott was soon extended to all clothing stores, resulting in devastating losses for Nike. Succumbing to this pressure, Nike asked Kuk-Dong’s managers to increase pay and negotiate better working conditions. Moreover, Nike pressed the Pueblo state labor board to hold union elections for the Kuk-Dong plant, which resulted in the successful election of the Independent Union of Workers at Mex Mode or SITEMEX (the factory was re-named Mex Mode in 2002). After months of bargaining, the independent union and the company signed a contract, making it one of only a handful of collective bargaining agreements ever signed by an independent union in a maquiladora. By using the leverage of the market, the students undoubtedly helped change the conditions within Kuk-Dong, demonstrating the ability of cross-border activism in helping Mexican workers confront powerful transnational corporations (Bacon 210-214).

Thus, both political and economic/market pressure are cross-border strategies that have been and probably will continue to be successful at helping Mexican workers in their labor disputes with the maquiladoras. However, a precondition for the success of the aforementioned strategies is continued cross-border activism and the empathy of Americans and Canadians. For, according to the renowned political theorist and philosopher Edmund Burke, “the only thing necessary for injustice to triumph is for good men to sit and do nothing.”

References

Bacon, David. The Children of NAFTA: Labor Wars on the US/Mexico Border. Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2004. 

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