Workers See Asian Crisis as Vague Shadow From Afar

For Felix Paredes and fiancee Irma Baminez, the financial turmoil churning through Asia seems far away and unimportant.

In a few weeks they plan to marry and start a new life together in a small hillside shack where they will have no running water or other amenities of modern life, but an abundance of hope for the future.

“Maybe later I’ll get worried, but for now, I’m not worried,” the 18-year-old Baminez said on a recent evening after her last day as an employee at Samsung Electro-Mechanics.

Her outlook was similar to those of other workers interviewed at Samsung’s gleaming manufacturing complex about 10 miles southeast of Tijuana’s downtown.

For the last three decades, maquiladoras such as Samsung’s have been a growing source of employment for the region. Near the plant, on the edge of pastoral countryside, small homes and condominiums are springing up to house an emerging middle class of Mexican engineers, managers and skilled workers drawn to increasingly sophisticated plants.

In his work as an assistant bricklayer, Paredes, 27, helps build such homes, but he’s hardly in a position to buy one. In their new life together, money will be tight for Paredes and his bride-to-be, both from the west Mexico state of Sinaloa.

He earns about $50 per week finding day work with local construction crews. She made $25 a week helping assemble television tuners at Samsung, but is giving it up to become a homemaker in the small wood dwelling that Paredes built a few miles south of the Samsung plant.

Samsung does not offer health insurance to rank-and-file workers, but gives them a variety of perks that have kept turnover at the plant about 3% to 4% a year, about half the industry average.

From Samsung, Baminez received free transportation to and from work and a week’s paid vacation. At the end of each full year of employment, she and other workers receive small gifts, such as a camera or an article of clothing, to encourage loyalty.

At her new home, she’ll have electricity, thanks to an illegal tap Paredes placed on a nearby power line, but few appliances. To bring power to his home, Paredes used a power cord with a bare metal hook--a diablito or “little devil”--on one end. The hook is tossed up toward a high voltage line. When it catches the line, the other end is connected to the house--a crude but common technique to bring power to poor neighborhoods.

Getting clean water is more costly. A truck will deliver about 50 gallons of water, not fit to drink but acceptable for bathing and washing clothes, to the house for about 10 pesos, or $1 at present exchange rates. The water must be boiled for drinking. Or the couple can buy purified water for between 60 cents and $1 a gallon at local stores.

Paredes has shunned maquiladora work, preferring the independence and potential for higher wages in construction work.

“With factories like this, there’s a lot of need for workers,” he said. “But I feel that I can make more on my own than working for a maquiladora.”

Indeed, the “help wanted” signs were out at maquiladoras near Samsung and in the windows of restaurants and stores along nearby Insurgentes Boulevard.

Government figures place unemployment in Tijuana at .9%, the second lowest in the country. Ciudad Juarez, another foreign manufacturing center across the border from El Paso, Texas, is the lowest in the country at .6%, said John H. Christman, an economist with Ciemex-Wefa Inc. in Mexico City.

Life is a little easier for Carlos Ramirez, 27, and his new girlfriend, Gabrielle Sanchez, 22, both employed by Samsung.

Sanchez, originally from Guadalajara, earns $47 per week assembling components for televisions, and saves money on rent by living with her brother.

Ramirez makes more, about $68 per week, supervising a custodial crew.

Samsung is a good place to work because the company pays well and the Korean executives respect Mexican traditions, said Ramirez, a native of Mexico City.

Ramirez is aware of the financial crisis in Asia but said he is optimistic about the company’s future. The Tijuana plant has remained busy, suggesting that people are buying its products, he said.