Maquiladoras Tour Reveals a Different Picture

I recently spent two full days in many of the maquiladoras cited in the National Interfaith Committee for Worker Justice report [“Garment-Textile Boom Brings Wrenching Change to Mexico,” Sept. 27].

Unlike the committee’s representatives, not only was I given access to the factories, I arrived unannounced and unexpected, accompanied by a large U.S. apparel firm representative. The factory was taken off-guard by our visit; the manager was out to lunch and had to be called back to the facility.

While the minimum wages cited in The Times’ article are, more or less, accurate, they don’t include bonuses for work exceeding production capacity norms. Also, as Raul Hinojosa noted, garment workers in the interior fare better than their border counterparts, given the disparity in costs of living.

I have yet to gain access to “second tier,” or Mexican subcontracting facilities, and I suspect that the working conditions are far worse in these smaller, less-frequently monitored operations. However, I roamed the three large buildings constituting one of Guess Inc.’s largest Mexican contractors.

I spent up to 30 minutes hidden behind 10-foot stacks of Guess jeans, watching for signs of worker abuse. To my surprise, I observed the opposite. There seemed to be a general spirit of cooperation between line supervisors and low-management and those workers who sew and cut the garments.

The U.S. firm representative (not from Guess) thoroughly toured the facilities and scoured the written records with an eagle eye, looking for any signs of inconsistencies with Mexican labor law. This enormous factory produces for many firms other than Guess.

But given that UNITE (the push behind the “Cross Border Blues” publication) is obsessed with decimating Guess (admittedly not a sterling example of worker-related humanity), as opposed to following a more realistic, broad-based approach in dealing with the plethora of problems confronting global apparel production, I was not surprised to read a report such as “Cross Border Blues” that is based solely on workers’ testimonies, without independent confirmation through factory visits.

I am not a spokesperson for the apparel industry. I am a sociologist who is committed to objective documentation, based on my own observations. If the Los Angeles Times’ aim is to produce objective stories, perhaps the journalists should consult those who have been “on the other side.”

I don’t fault the New York committee for attempting to rid the industry of abuse and injustice. I do fault them for shoddy reports which lack firsthand confirmation of their allegations. This will only serve to diminish their credibility when credible organizations fighting worker abuse are sorely needed.

JUDI A. KESSLER

Sociology Department

UC Santa Barbara

* If the purpose of public policy in the area of economic activity is improving the lot of ordinary working people, then NAFTA-inspired maquiladora textile plants are failures on both sides of the U.S.-Mexican border.

In their quest for an even cheaper work force deeper in the interior of Mexico, U.S. firms have debased the social and economic fabric of that rural society. And the 1 million maquiladora jobs that have moved south thus far have left in their wake devastated families and communities in this country.

Exchanging $9.60-an-hour U.S. jobs for 50-cents-to-$1-an-hour jobs, some held by 13- to 15-year-olds in Tehuacan, may make the corporate bottom line look good. But it falls off the morality chart. If patriotism is putting the interest of average American wage earners first, then the executives at Guess are modern-day Benedict Arnolds.

RICARDO F. ICAZA

President, UFCW Local 770

President, Los Angeles County

Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO