Following Mexicos Worker Strikes, the US Steps in to Keep Border Factories Open
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- Published on Sunday, 17 May 2020 23:28
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A Socialist Project e-bulletin ... No. 2095 ... May 18, 2020
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Following Mexico’s Worker Strikes, the US Steps in to Keep Border Factories Open
David Bacon
In Washington, D.C., President Donald Trump is trying his best to reopen closed meatpacking plants, as packinghouse workers catch the COVID-19 virus and die. In Tijuana, Mexico, where workers are dying in mostly US-owned factories (known as maquiladoras) that produce and export goods to the US, the Baja California state governor, a former California Republican Party stalwart, is doing the same thing.
Jaime Bonilla Valdez rode into the governorship in 2018 on the coattails of Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador. And at first, as a leading member of López Obrador’s MORENA Party, he was a strong voice calling for the factories on the border to suspend production.
López Obrador himself was criticized for not acting rapidly enough against the pandemic. But in late March, in the face of Mexico’s rising COVID-19 death toll, he finally declared a State of Health Emergency. Nonessential businesses were ordered to shut their doors, and to continue paying workers’ wages until April... 30.
Bonilla’s Labor Secretary Sergio Martinez applied the federal government’s rule to the foreign-owned factories on the border, producing goods for the US market. Again, only essential businesses would be excepted.
When news spread that many factories were defying the order to close, Bonilla condemned them. "The employers don’t want to stop earning money," he said at a news conference in mid-April. "They are basically looking to sacrifice their employees." But now, a month later, he is allowing many non-essential factories to reopen.
Explaining the about-face are two competing pressures. At first, workers in the factories took action to shut them down, a move widely supported in border cities. But as the owners themselves resisted, they got the help of the US government. The Trump administration put enormous pressure on the Mexican government and economy, vulnerable because of its dependence on the US market. Now as the factories are opening again, the deaths are still rising.
