Children of NAFTA: Labor Wars on the US/Mexican Border
David Bacon's Children of NAFTA: Labor Wars on the US/Mexican Border offers a wide view of labor issues on both sides of the US-Mexican border and a deep view of the plight of involved unions and individuals. It is likely to appeal to multiple audiences, including policymakers, academics, union leaders, and the general public.
Although economic integration was occurring long before the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was implemented in 1994, that agreement brought important substantive and symbolic changes to the economies, populations, and cultures of the United States and Mexico. Using his long experience working on the border, his extensive interviews with those affected by these changes, and his 20 years of experience as a union organizer, Bacon provides a rich understanding of the effects of NAFTA. The author also provides much contextual information regarding: cross-border union relations, border issues, cultural changes, the difficulties of unions in organizing in both the pre- and post-NAFTA periods, Mexico's political system, land reform in Mexico, corporatism, poverty, and US politics.
Bacon is critical of NAFTA in particular and of free trade and privatization in general; policies that have driven wages down and cost jobs on both sides of the border. The first chapter focuses on the plight of agricultural workers in the United States who lost their jobs to cheaper production in Mexico, and the poverty and mistreatment of workers in Mexico. His documentation of the extensive use of child labor is particularly poignant. According to Bacon, "the free market, it appears, is the goal-not feeding the hungry or enabling people to stay on the land."
Bacon argues that, at least for Mexico, a renewed focus on the domestic market is necessary because producing for export will continue the wage depression. Mexico, however, has tried this strategy before. Import-substituting industrialization helped to generate economic growth for several decades, but it was abandoned by the 1980s, after being perceived to have run its course. The rapid export-oriented growth of Asian tiger economies like South Korea and Taiwan provided a new model. Bacon joins many others in examining the failure of this model for many Latin American nations, but his focus on the impacts upon union organization makes his criticisms novel. The well-recognized challenge for the developing world, therefore, has been to find a new model that produces economic growth and reduces poverty. Bacon concludes Children of NAFTA by warning that mounting pressures and devaluation of the lives of workers "have combined to place workers in a pressure cooker, closing off any alternative order than radical social movements to challenge the status quo."
Cross-border alliances among workers are a constant theme in the book. Bacon observes that the double threat to US workers of immigrant labor and plant closures is a "recipe for racist hysteria." But the conditions fostered by NAFTA also put pressure on workers in Mexico. Thus both sides of the border have built strategic alliances that have gained support by many activist groups. He argues that these cross-border alliances have advanced workers' ability to fight severe health and safety violations.
Bacon addresses the obstacles to effective labor organization in the maquiladoras (the Mexican border manufacturing plants that capitalize on their location with low-wage production for export). Since workers must state their union choices openly, Bacon explains, they face threats of firing and violence if they vote for independent unionisation. He also documents gross irregularities in union voting, arguing that the Mexican government has been compilit in these practices. In chapter four, Bacon focuses on the 1998 Han Young strikes in Tijuana, which gained US headlines and played a decisive role in derailing US President Bill Clinton's hope for renewed fast-track authority. That case also highlights the ineffectiveness of NAFTA's labor side agreements.
Bacon is highly critical of the role played by Mexican politicians, namely those in the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which remained in power from the 1920s to 2000 (though it lost control of the legislature in 1997). In 2000, Vicente Fox won the presidency for the rightist National Action Party, but Bacon argues his policies have also failed to support workers. The only alternative the author sees for the improvement of workers' rights is the leftist Democratic Revolution Party (PRD). The Han Young controversy and the increased travails of poor communities helped the PRD grow and attract support. Bacon explains that the Frente Indigena Oaxaquena Binacional, a growing cross-border organization, backs the PRD, but that the PRD coalition is too fractious to fully capitalize on this potential support.
Towards the end of the book, Bacon examines how immigration affects the strength of the labor movement in the United States. He focuses on the meat-packing industry, arguing that immigrants have revived the industry's labor movement as a result of their organizational experience and expectations for better working conditions; demonstrating that labor groups on both sides of the border are converging to create and reinforce new social justice movements.
The final chapter of Children of NAFTA summarizes the book, starting with a discussion about a secret high-level meeting that was more focused on "dumping" labor and safety complaints than resolving them. Bacon expresses his frustration with current political leaders, claiming that appointees of US President George W. Bush have no pretense in arguing that "any effort to restrain trade and investment was politically wrongheaded ... [and] Fox's functionaries in Mexico exhibited the same basic hostility to the process that their predecessors had shown." Still, the author sees some important changes, most importantly the cross-border labor alliances and the rise of independent unions in Mexico that are much more able to fight privatization than the long-dominant official labor confederations. Furthermore, Bacon argues that with the end of the Cold War, there is more space for cross-border and international labor "solidarity." The book's epilogue, however, reiterates the warning that current policies and politicians are putting unsustainable pressure on workers that could lead labor to an explosive response.
Bacon puts a human face on the effects of globalization in the context of managers who are unconcerned with workers' health and rights, and governments that seem at best unresponsive and at worst repressive. He provokes tine reader to reconsider the high costs of NAFTA and to realise that a new development strategy must be created: one recognizing that strengthening democratic institutions, representative government, and cross-border links amongst workers is crucial to the success of any economic model.Harvard International Review:
