Susana Pimiento: Lessons on Organizing, Courtesy of Mexican Working Women Susana Pimiento - Fellowship of Reconciliation
go to original February 7, 2014

Many of us drive every day, giving little thought to how our cars are made, what are they made of, who makes the different components, under what labor conditions, and what struggles the workers wage.

The fist weekend of 2014, I went to Piedras Negras, Mexico, just across the Rio Grande, as part of a delegation organized by Austin Tan Cerca de la Frontera (Austin So Close to the Border). There, I got a glimpse of the struggles of women working at factories that make electrical wiring harnesses for major car companies, and on the amazing organizing and empowering efforts they are undertaking which could serve as inspiration for organizing by low-wage workers here in the United States.

Our host in Mexico, and the grassroots group behind the workers’ amazing organizing, is the Border Committee of Workers (Comite Froterizo Obrero or CFO). CFO supports the rights of women working at maquiladoras or maquilas, a term that refers to manufacturing operations in a free trade zone, where factories assemble or manufacture goods with duty-free imported raw materials, then export the final products.

Maquilas, often linked to free trade agreements, have operated along the US-Mexico border for almost five decades. CFO began its organizing work in the 1970s, two decades before the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA ) came into effect. CFO knew, from the onset of NAFTA, that the gains in terms of wages, benefits and safety standards they had fought so hard for would evaporate once the trade agreement came into effect. As CFO’s director Julia Quiñonez explained to the delegation:

“In 1994, when NAFTA was enacteded the maquila companies began migrating to other parts of Mexico, so the border workers were the most impacted. People in other parts of Mexico were excited about the transnational investment arriving in their towns, and we were telling them it is a mirage. When NAFTA started, we had trade unions, and the companies that paid US$150 per week relocated just three hours south and paid US$30 per week. We knew we would be losing our jobs not to workers in China, Guatemala and other parts of Central America, but to other parts of our country.”

Read the rest at Susana Pimiento's blog at Fellowship of Reconciliation

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