Country Biography

History

Mexico was under Spanish rule for three centuries before achieving independence in the early 1800's.1 A devaluation of the peso in 1994 started the worst recession in Mexico in over 50 years. Mexico is recovering from the recession and continues to make a speedy recovery. In 2000, the elections were held and the opposition party (PAN) won for the first time since 1910.2

Political Stability

Mexico is a fairly politically stable country with one party dominating the elections for the best part of the twentieth century. The one recent event was in 1994 when the Zapatista Army of National Liberation had armed clashes.3They wanted to promote the rights of the country's indigenous people. They also wanted to overthrow the federal government. It ended two weeks later with the government winning using a policy of low - intensity warfare.

How Mexico is Run

Mexico is a federal republic with 31 states. Their legal system is a mix of US constitutional theory and civil law system.4 The head of government and chief of state is currently President Vincent Fox Quesada.5 The president is both the head of government and chief of state.

Environmental Issues

The current environmental issues are a lack of hazardous waste disposal places. Rural to urban migration is also an issue as they deal with urban sprawl. There is also a lack of fresh water and the water that is in the north is very polluted. Mexico is dealing with raw sewage and industrial waste being dumped into rivers and also deforestation. There is also widespread erosion and desertification. Agricultural lands are rapidly disappearing and there is serious air pollution especially in and around Mexico City.

A Mexican Textile Worker

Mexico is a fairly cheap place for labour, and with it being so close to the US, many clothes companies set up factories so that they can clothes made cheaply and as close to the US as possible.

Factory Life

Since the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1994, many factories were built in Mexico close to the US border. These factories are known as maquiladora's.6 Wages and working conditions are most often terrible, as seen at a factory in Tehuacan. The working hours are from 8:30am to 8:30pm and they are required to complete a set number of clothes in the day. If they do not meet the requirement at the end of the day, then the workers must work, unpaid, until they are finished the required number. The workers are only paid between $30 to $50 a week, which is barely enough to cover living expenses considering a living wage is $65.7 Girls as young as 12 or 13 work in the factory and when all the workers leave, they are checked to make sure they haven't stolen anything. When women are hired they are subject to a pregnancy test. If they are pregnant, then they are fired. Arriving 15 minutes late for work at this factory will cost them three days' pay.

There was one case at the factory in Tehuacan where a man was sick for a day and he did not get paid for the week. Working in the sweatshop is also dangerous since the women do not have any goggles to protect their eyes from needles breaking and flying into their face. The working conditions are also very unhealthy and many workers suffer from back problems, migraines, asthma, lung diseases, and allergies.

At another textile factory in Mexico, workers had to sew together thousands of jeans a day with wages of only about $18 an hour. Sometimes they were forced to work from 8am on Friday morning to 4am in the morning on Saturday. At that factory, women were also forced to have pregnancy tests and other invasions of privacy. The global competition (especially China) is causing factories in Mexico to try to compete with the Chinese by lowering as many costs as possible so that stores will want to buy the garments from Mexico. This trickles down to severer working conditions of workers, who must bare the brunt of the cost cutting.

False Legal Protection

In general, the labour laws in Mexico are good, but many factories violate these laws because of lack of enforcement. The textile industry in Mexico is expected to remain strong, but unfortunately most of the money is going to wealthy business men instead of paying decent wages to the workers of the 40% of Mexican's who live below the poverty line.

~Malcolm