Class Notes

11.06.02

• by: kat sabine
  
  Global Assembly Line
  Daily wages from minimum wage in the US can buy 19 chickens compared to daily wages in the Philippines which can purchase 3/4 of one chicken.
• Calculation of wages in:
  US = $5.00 per hour // Mexico = $4.00 per day // Phillipines = .70¢ per hour
• US corporate policy: if more than 50% of costs inthe manufacturing industry goes to labor, automate or get out.
• US corporations moved into over 50 countries creating Exported Processing Zones for offshore assembly of US goods under US customs control thereby creating jobs for local workers who labor without US employee protections and enable those corporations to avoid paying "duty" taxes on goods made in these zones. Local agricultural, mining and fishing industrustries were displaced in order to create US controlled EPZ's.
• Countries like Mexico participate in offshore assembly keeping US management teams in the US and utilizing unskilled labor. In 1965 there were 12 Maquilladora plants in Mexico in 1983 there were 629 plants. 1965 marked the end of the Brassiero Program in the US whereby agriculterer laborers from Mexico migrated to the US to provide cheap labor for US farming businesses.
• Maquilladora plants were expected to hire the newly returned male migrant workers released fromteh Brassiero Program, but the management at these US corporation chose to hire women instead at a rate of 65%.
  Corporate idealogy for hiring women are/were:
  • women are viewed as more willing to learn the skills of modern industrial production compared to their male counterparts
  • women are more dextererious and more able to work on intricate projects
  • women are seen as willing to work harder for less money; corporate managers acknowledge the "good" work of their female laborers, but refuse to pay them more
  • the women are percieved to be "young and able to take the abuse"
• Women themeselves say that their factory work is repetitive and similiar to housework. However, they do find that working with other women helps to build community and avoid marginalization. Also, no other jobs are available in these regions, so that illegal migration for their male counterparts and the Maquilladoras are the only places to find work. Young women leave their families for factory work in order to gain independence and so as not to burden their families.
  • many of these women work at least 12 hours and act as the only wage earner in their homes
  • women agree to fulfill management quotas for for work production so as not to lose their jobs create instability in their families economic circumstances
• Union organizers or collective bargaining strategies by employees are frustrated by corporations who pick up and leave one country's EPZ to begin production in another country, with a "fresh" labor pool. Single corporate management of production in all parts of an industry allows the company to slow production, lay off workers, and set production quotas. There is no guarantee of workers rights.
• Corporations specifically target regions where unemployment is very high. The US government helps to maintain and facilitate negotions with other countries with the promise of jobs and and industry in order to pressure those country's governments to work with the US in politically stabalizing that region.