Mexican Ford Fiesta Workers Get $2.25 an Hour

Robert Farago
by Robert Farago

NAFTA eh? Turns out that America's trade policy with its southern neighbor didn't quite work out as planned. ""The pressure has not been to raise the Mexican wages up, it's been to push the U.S. wages down," Ben Davis, the director of the AFL-CIO Solidarity office in Mexico City tells The Detroit News. True dat. "Mexican auto unions are taking a cue from U.S. labor leaders by offering two-tier hiring systems and salary cuts that bring already low wages down to near-Chinese levels." Taking a cue? Or, dare I say it, taking pay-offs? "Wage concessions were apparently key to convincing Ford Motor Co. to direct many of the 4,500 new jobs involved in building Fiestas to the Ford plant in Cuautitlan. Union leaders at the plant told the Associated Press they had agreed to cut wages for new hires to about half of the current wage of $4.50 per hour." $2.25 an hour? Yes. Under NAFTA, Mexico is only obliged to pay workers the national minimum wage: $5 a day. ""We need to be more competitive," said Ford union leader Juan Jose Sosa Arreola. "That's the truth. That's a reality." Once again, the truth hurts. Oh, and five Ford execs banked $60m last year. And Bill Ford's deferred millions await the fruit of Mexican labor.

Robert Farago
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  • Menno Menno on Jun 05, 2008

    powerglide said: "For a very long time the U.S. had very steep import tariffs INSTEAD of an income tax." True, that. The Constitution Party is the only party (other than perhaps the Libertarian Party?) which would ABOLISH the IRS and Federal Income Taxes, and place some small amounts of tariffs to replace them (because fewer overall taxes would be needed, if we keep the size of government down to Constitutionally correct and legally sanctioned size by limiting government to what it was intended to be and do). Imagine, keeping maybe 95% of what you earn. What a novel idea! Of course, private charity would replace public charity. Am I wrong when I say Americans can be extremely generous? Surely I'm not wrong. Especially when we don't have 50% of our pay stolen.... "So we could pay for our government by restoring this condition." True again. In fact, it is the recommended method as found best by our founding fathers. "Certainly it stinks when someone’s allowed to sneak in ahead of someone who’s been waiting for years, decades ! But why were they having to wait ? Because there are only so many slots open each year for legal immigrants, because there is an annual quota. Why is there a quota ? I think history shows it was imposed in the 1920s for basically racist reasons, or because too many of the people coming in had the ‘wrong’ (i.e. non-WASP) religion. I think upon some reflection, and fully accepting menno’s arguments based on national sovereignty, we may find that the biggest impetus to keep foreign goods, people out is motivated as much or more by a politically leftist ideology, a Malthusian, anti-growth, anti-business, anti-life ideology. menno, what think ye ?" I think you have some very valid points. But may I add one more little factoid? Speaking of anti-life, what about the lives of babies? Such cultural decisions made by certain powerful groups are even happening currently. How many of you understand the concept that ABORTION was pushed into legality primarily by eugenicists and racists, specifically the founder of Planned Parenthood? How many of you are aware that RIGHT NOW Planned Parenthood has been caught encouraging more black women posing as potential "customers" than white? There are a lot of ways that humanity is evil to one another. Well, folks, I have had a really tough day. My wife and family, our friends and our congregation just buried our pastor who died while on vacation. So I'm going to sign off, friends, and see you all tomorrow.

  • Punkviper Punkviper on Jun 05, 2008
    I’m Constitutionalist (and was Libertarian until they went off the rails and declared there should be legalized drugs of all manner) "Off the rails"??? An opposition stance to the "War On Drugs" has been a Libertarian plank for quite some time. One might say that train would not run if not for that particular rail. Nothing typifies needless gov't waste better than spending billions to lock up non-violent drug-offenders. And you mistakenly assume "should" when a better word might be "can."
  • Windswords Windswords on Jun 06, 2008

    Orian: "The UN has done the world a lot of good (and has dropped the ball a few times too). It just seems funny that in the last 8 years all of a sudden the UN is an issue with the United States." I can recommend a good book on this subject: Tower of Babel, by Dore Gold. I'm afraid the UN has droped the ball more than a few times.

  • Menno Menno on Jun 06, 2008

    Hi plankviper. I don't recall the Libertarian plank having the drug freedom gig in 1980 and 1984 when I last voted for them. Yeah, they've been around longer than that... As for drugs themselves, while I can see the point in your (and the Libertarian) stance that it's a huge waste of time and effort, I also know from 1/2 a century of life on planet earth, that if you don't have "something like standards to live by" then all hell breaks loose. Put another way, when I was a dad to a young toddler, I'd try my best to keep him from toddling over to the stove and reaching up, putting his hand on the hot burner. That's a short description of what a civilized society does for citizens by way of consensus; it's pretty well agreed that illicit drugs are not-a-good-thing, and that plenty of lives are wrecked by them. So it's best to try to discourage their use and that's done by making it illegal (which entails punishment for lawbreaking). Having been a Stephen Minister (look it up) I can tell you I've seen some really ruined lives and families directly attributable to illicit drug use, and it's not pretty. As for how society would be better off to not jail people caught dealing illicit drugs, I can't help you there. I can't see any way it'd be better. Certainly looking at nations, like Holland, where pretty much anything goes, tells me that it isn't working out so well for them, either. Likewise, I've seen ruined lives from alcohol, too; and I know the USA tried to ban alcohol and it didn't work out well at all (the law of unintended consequences left us with the mafia). So if the Libertarians win, and empty the prisons, and make drug dealing legal - will things get worse or better for the USA? I strongly suspect worse - but looking at the prior model as seen by alcohol and Prohibition, I can understand other people's opinions that it may not be worse, but better.

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