Employmentweb_low

EmpLoymEnT, work, And HEALTH inEquALiTiES - a global perspective
Case Study 12. What are the origins and consequences of maquilas - maría menéndez and Joan benach
Maquilas is the short form of maquiladoras, a term originally associated with the process of milling and which later became
common parlance (together with the term sweatshop) to mean the industrial plants built by multinational corporations in poor
countries in order to take advantage of the much lower cost of doing business there. currently, millions of clothes, car stereos,
shoes, and children's toys are produced in these plants. this phenomenon started in the mid-1960s, when about 185,000
mexicans returned to mexico after the united states ended permits for "guest workers" (braceros) to work as farm workers. this
scenario facilitated the creation of a so-called free trade zone, where u.s. firms set up assembly plants on the mexican side of
the border (the border industrialization program). these factories were thus allowed to import components and raw materials
duty-free and re-export the finished product to the united states (Williams & homedes, 2001). during the 1980s, maquilas
spread out in central america, mainly in nicaragua, honduras, guatemala, el salvador, dominican republic, and in the 1990s
in the south-east of asia and the north of morocco, to cover the u.s. and the european markets, respectively. today, in mexico,
honduras, and nicaragua, about 1.5 million workers are employed in maquilas. local governments and multinationals claim that
these factories are a source of wealth and economic development in the country, promoting the creation of jobs, technological
advances, and workers' training, which all contribute to the improvement of peoples’ living conditions. the reality, however, is
quite different. While company management enjoys exceptional legislative and economic conditions, those employed in maquilas
are not paid enough to support their families with dignity, as they face dangerous and exploitative conditions and often suffer
from exposure to poor health and safety hazards, lack of benefits, arbitrary discipline, and sexual and moral harassment. in the
life of a standard maquila worker in a "tax-free" area, work never ends. it likely starts at 4 a.m. with housework, continuing on
to the bus stop at 5 a.m. to go to the factory to work in a production chain with only twenty minutes to rest during the lunch break,
and it is often prolonged even after arriving home at 9 p.m. low wages, long hours, unpaid overtime, and the lack of
environmental or labour regulations are clear examples of labour rights violations, which are reinforced by the infringement of
workers' basic human rights to form independent trade unions. unionised workers and their leaders are intimidated and
repressed in what have sometimes been called "enterprises free of syndicalism." in this context of absolute domination over
labour and the absence of control of the state and worker's organisations, employers are not concerned with the dependence
on healthy worker's labour of obtaining surplus value, because the socioeconomic context allows them to have worker turnover.
the human right to health does not exist in these workplaces. as in most regions, occupational health in central america is not
a governmental priority, and work-related health problems are almost always underreported, misdiagnosed, and not recognised
as such (Wesseling et al., 2002). Furthermore, there is a lack of research on the situation of maquilas owing to the extreme
difficulty of investigating often miserable employment and working conditions within non-democratically accountable firms.
References
Wesseling, c., aragon, a., morgado, h., elgstrand, K., hogstedt, c., & partanen, t. (2002). occupational health in central
america. International Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health, 8, 125-136.
Williams, d. m., & homedes, n. (2001). the impact of the maquiladoras on health and health policy along the u.s.-mexico
border. Journal of Public Health Policy, 22, 320-337.
Case study 13. Labour moves to rich countries while companies profit from migrant remittances to poor countries. -
Joan benach and carles muntaner
over the last few decades, capitalist globalisation has expanded economic migration, transforming the lives of hundreds of millions of
people around the globe. millions of individuals are moving from villages to towns or from poor to rich countries in search of ways to provide
for their families and escape from unemployment, poverty, war, or their lost land property. Workers migrate away from their families and
communities to serve as a labour force in rich countries and send capital in the form of remittances back to impoverished communities
around the world. globally, it is estimated that migrants from poor countries send home more than us$300 billion a year, more than three
times the world's official foreign aid combined, making remittances the main source of outside money flowing to the developing world. about
10 per cent of the planet's population directly benefit from money sent home by migrants working in other countries (deparle, 2007a). most
of this money is spent on food, clothing, housing, education and basic supplies. in 38 countries, remittances account for more than 10 per
cent of gdp, and in countries such as guinea-bissau, eritrea, taykistan or laos, percentages account for 35 per cent or more (international
Fund for agricultural development, united nations and inter-american development bank). in mexico, inflows from mexicans living abroad
represent the country's second largest source of foreign income behind oil exports.
an important problem faced by immigrant communities is the high fees associated with remittance transactions. being
forced to spend billions in transfer fees to send money back home for food, urgent medical care, and education is a major
economic security issue for immigrants. With five times as many locations worldwide as mcdonald's, starbucks, burger
King and Wal-mart combined, Western union is the lone behemoth among hundreds of money transfer companies, with
earnings from global migration accounting for nearly $1 billion a year, and critics complaining about its high fees, which can
run from 4 to 20 per cent or more. the company's lobbying for immigrant-friendly laws has raised the ire of groups who say
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