Maquila bosses put profit over workers’ health

CHIHUAHUA, MEXICO, April 29—Throughout Northern Mexico workers organized, protested, demanded safety, and refused to continue producing profits for U.S. companies as their class brothers and sisters died. As Covid-19 continues to spread internationally, capitalism has forced bosses to choose between making money and workers’ lives. But in an effort to take back control of their health and safety some of the most super-exploited workers have ignited a wave of protests.
Since sweeping shutdowns were instituted in March stores, factories, and businesses have been closing and either furloughing workers, or where doable ordering work-from-home stipulations. At thousands of Maquiladoras, foreign-owned factories along the Mexican-U.S. border, however, workers continue to churn out electronics, medical supplies, and car parts huddled next to one another with no safety precautions (LATimes 4/20).
As fatal Covid-19 outbreaks began to erupt workers said no to being sacrificed for bosses’ profits. Just this week rallying cries from workers resulted in 14 maquiladoras being shut down for violating health restrictions. “The Labor Ministry closed down the factories in Juarez, Chihuahua City, Cuauhtémoc, and Parral (Border Report 4/21).” And weeks earlier nearly 130 maquiladoras in Tijuana were deemed as “non-essential” and ordered to cease operation (Border Report 4/10).
Maquiladoras were created in 1994 after the North American Free Trade Agreement was signed. And then saw a boom in the 2000s under the administration of Vicente Fox, when the United States and Canada signed a free trade deal called Plan Puebla Panama or PPP [Private Plans for Profit] which created a road of duty-free factories at the border between Mexico and the U.S.
Because finished products are for export-only this road of cheap labor benefits U.S. companies looking for unregulated slave-labor. The Mexican labor department has no jurisdiction over working conditions in these factories leaving already vulnerable and super-exploited workers even more at risk (CorpWatch 9/02). (See letter, page 6)
Although some of the factories have been shut down many are not and workers are forced to continue to be exposed to inhumane conditions: working without the respective sanitary conditions, quarantined with little to no pay. At minimum workers have been given disinfectant gel, gloves, masks, and have their temperatures checked upon arrival. But these bare minimum attempts are all in the name of production not health.
“Mexico has 7,497 confirmed coronavirus cases and 650 deaths, including 138 in states along the northern border. The real numbers are almost certainly much higher, because Mexico has conducted fewer than 50,000 tests, compared with 3.2 million in the U.S. Top health officials have acknowledged there may be more than 56,000 infections (LATimes 4/20).”
The irony of the situation is that many of these maquiladora workers are producing medical equipment that could save their lives, just to see them shipped to the U.S. “Baja California is home to a large number of factories that produce medical supplies — a business deemed essential by Mexican authorities. Several major suppliers in Tijuana have helped make Mexico the top source of medical equipment to the United States (LATimes 4/20).”
Progressive Labor Party (PLP) is fighting for communist revolution and stands with the workers who demanded better working conditions and factory shut-downs until they could be provided. But we also understand that capitalism has left these workers with a double-edged sword, die working or die unemployed.
Workers' lives are paramount and under communism we would ensure that when a pandemic of this nature hits that all workers would be able to safely isolate, without fear of losing shelter, food, and basic human needs. Under capitalism, that is not the case, as we have seen with Covid-19; profits trump workers’ lives anytime.
The reason these companies won’t stop production is because their priority is profit. You can’t stop production in the capitalist system, it has to keep going even if workers’ lives are at risk. The only thing these companies care about is maintaining the means of production in the name of profit by any means necessary.
But under a communist society, run by an international working class we will protect and fight for each other’s safety and health. Join PLP!