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MAQUILADORAS
Lead batteries exported from the United States for "recycling." Hazardous waste piled in heaps and abandoned. Unexplained childhood illness. Polluted surf pounding the shores of Imperial Beach, CA. This new circle of poison is being propelled by the many U.S. and other foreign owned companies operating in Tijuana under the maquiladora system.
FREE TRADE
WHAT IS A MAQUILADORA?
Occupational Health and Safety for
Maquiladora Workers
Globalization at the Crossroads - A Bilingual Report
MAQUILAPOLIS [city of factories] - Upcoming Film Screenings
Even though the United States and Mexico are separated by a corrugated steel fence, polluted air and water are traded freely along with the manufactured goods. The U.S./Mexico border stretches across 2,000 miles from end to end, but the 10-mile section bordering Tijuana and San Diego is one of the most heavily industrialized, populated and polluted.
Just 30 some years ago when Mexico began its maquiladora program to attract foreign manufacturers, Tijuana was a tourist town with a population of around 200,000. Since then its valleys, mesas, and hills have become crowded with makeshift housing and industrial parks. It is now home to nearly one million people.
While business has boomed, the maquiladoras (foreign owned companies operating with special tariff concessions in Mexico) are burdening the environment and damaging the public’s health with industrial pollutants. Hazardous waste sites dot the border area like cancerous warts. Heavy metals, acids, solvents, and other industrial poisons pour out of company pipes and air stacks and into the surrounding communities.
Encouraged by the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), and the devaluation of the peso in the mid 1990s, even more industries are rushing to take advantage of the cheap labor and lax enforcement of environmental regulations in the Mexican border region.
WHAT IS A
MAQUILADORA?
Life as we now know it in many Mexican border towns began in 1965 when Mexico started its
maquiladora program. This program allowed foreign companies to bring parts or raw
materials into Mexico duty-free for assembling and manufacturing, so long as the goods and
wastes were returned to their country of origin. But under NAFTA, by the year 2001 all
goods will be able to stay in Mexico duty-free - as well as the wastes.
The maquiladora program was designed to bring jobs and prosperity to northern cities, while at the same time providing cheap labor for foreign owned manufacturers. Although the program has produced jobs, the work typically involves low wages (the average worker earns about $4.80 a day), few benefits, little job security, and high exposure to toxics. In 1997 the maquiladoras employed more than 900,000 people working at more than 3,000 plants, mainly along the border.
Heavy exposure to toxics is not limited to workers. The maquiladoras produced large quantities of hazardous waste, little of which finds it way back to the country of origin for proper disposal. In addition, the air and water of local residential communities is fouled by toxic emissions in the air and untreated industrial waste.
Baja California has the largest number of maquiladoras and is the fastest growing region. From 1996 to 1997, more than 250 new maquiladoras opened their doors in Tijuana. Plants range from low-tech woodworking shops to high-tech electronics firms, from companies employing only a handful of workers to those employing thousands. The four largest manufacturing sectors are also the four heaviest users of toxic chemicals.
The toxic chemicals in use in Tijuana’s maquiladora industry include heavy metals, solvents, and acids. The lack of an adequate infrastructure - sewage treatment system, roads, fire and other emergency services - makes regulations and pollution prevention critical.
Occupational Health and Safety for Maquiladora
Workers
The typical maquiladora worker is a woman in her prime reproductive years - between the
ages of 16 and 28. Her constant exposure to toxic pollutants risks her own health and that
of her children - born and unborn.
Over and over we see women’s health being put at risk - the women are blamed and punished for poor health due to chemical exposure and the companies which expose the women to toxic chemicals go free.
These same women also endure discriminatory hiring practices, sexual harassment and illegal firings.