Free Trade & Illegal Immigration
October 19th 2007 04:15
This is the first part of two part series on U.S. illegal immigration.
Undocumented immigrants perform important jobs around the country. It is hard to get a definite estimate for the number of undocumented workers in America, namely because out of fear of deportation, undocumented workers usually do not respond to census requests.
Depending on the source, estimate range from seven to twenty million.
A great number of undocumented workers are concentrated in California, with many of them working in agricultural fields in the San Joaquin Valley of California, where I was born and raised. The San Joaquin Valley is considered to be the ‘agriculture center of the world.’ Many of the fruits, vegetable, and grains America eats come from the San Joaquin Valley.
Over 60 years ago, John Steinbeck declared that California farming, with its need for a “peon class” was “economically unsound under a democracy.” The sad truth is that his assessment is as true today as it was then. Anyone who has spent time in California’s San Joaquin Valley during harvest time knows that farming there is still labor intensive.
Mexican immigrants are the laborers, and they have fled their homeland looking to escape the trap of poverty. The justification for labor intensive farming is that Mexican farm workers are making much more money here than they would in Mexico, thus their quality of life is enhanced by working in the fields. However, the question remains to be answered whether it is ethical to maintain farming that is labor intensive.
North American Free Trade Agreement
NAFTA is an acronym which should be mentioned every time the mainstream media reports on the illegal immigration issue. It stands for the North American Free Trade Agreement which established a free-trade zone in North America. Signed by the United States, Canada, and Mexico in 1992, it took effect on January 1, 1994, but immediately lifted tariffs on the majority of goods produced by the three participating nations, and called for the gradual elimination of most trade barriers over a 15-year period.
Touted as a means to lift Mexico out of poverty, NAFTA has actually driven it further into poverty. According to a 2001 report by the Economic Policy Institute, “Mexican wages have decreased 27 percent since NAFTA, while hourly income from labor is down 40 percent.”
The 2001 report by the Economic Policy Institute also found that when Mexico began NAFTA negotiations it had “noncompetitive production costs… due to higher prices for inputs such as diesel and electricity, higher financial costs, and higher marketing costs (due to deficient infrastructure in highways and warehouse storage…among other factors).”
A World Bank Report from March 2006 states that the poorest 10 percent of the population earns only 1.5% of the total Mexican income, but the richest 10 percent earn 42.8 percent. “The distribution of wealth, which would be very hard to measure, is believed to be much worse.” The World Bank report also claimed that since NAFTA the amount of Mexican people that live below the poverty line is “62 percent of the economically active population.” The minimum wage has fallen by 40.7 percent. The Mexican government sets the poverty line at two daily minimum wages for a family with five members, or 80 pesos, about seven dollars.
Between 1993 and 2000 the disparity between Mexican and American manufacturing wages has increased from $9.6 to $12.1 per hour. Reports by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) state that wages in Mexico have dropped by 10 percent since 1995 while labor production increased by 45 percent. Work hours have increased from eight to twelve hours a day during the same time period. The number of people working more than 48 hours per week has increased since 1988 from 2.3 million to 9.3 million.
Economists at the National University in Mexico City wrote a study that cited 13.3 million workers in 2000 earned less than around $3.93 a day. The study also mentions that labor production’s part of the Gross Domestic Product has decreased from 34.16 percent to 30.66percent
.
Child labor is a huge problem in Mexico. Although the Mexican constitution prohibits children under 14 to work, UNICEF reports that five million Mexican children are working.
Farming has suffered greatly under NAFTA. The majority of Mexican immigrants in the U.S. were farmers with small plots of land without the access to subsidies and technology of their American counterparts. NAFTA has brought a flood of lower costing American goods to Mexico, making it impossible for Mexican farmers to compete. In a book titled, Stolen Harvest, author Shiva Vandana believes trade agreements import more food (and also export it) without first being allowed to meet the needs of the people, then local farmers are often undersold and driven out of business and national currencies earned do not get to circulate within that society. Hunger increases as a result.”
Thousands of contracts in Mexico are “arrangements of mutual convenience among corrupt unions, the government and foreign investors who own the factories,” according to Jesús Campos Linas, the dean of Mexican labor lawyers. Big payments are regularly made under NAFTA contracts to union leaders. Wages in manufacturing have significantly decreased. For example, automotive workers in Mexico earned one-twelfth of what American automotive workers made in 2000, but in 1980 they earned one-third of American automotive worker’s wages.
Undocumented immigrants perform important jobs around the country. It is hard to get a definite estimate for the number of undocumented workers in America, namely because out of fear of deportation, undocumented workers usually do not respond to census requests.
Depending on the source, estimate range from seven to twenty million.
A great number of undocumented workers are concentrated in California, with many of them working in agricultural fields in the San Joaquin Valley of California, where I was born and raised. The San Joaquin Valley is considered to be the ‘agriculture center of the world.’ Many of the fruits, vegetable, and grains America eats come from the San Joaquin Valley.
Over 60 years ago, John Steinbeck declared that California farming, with its need for a “peon class” was “economically unsound under a democracy.” The sad truth is that his assessment is as true today as it was then. Anyone who has spent time in California’s San Joaquin Valley during harvest time knows that farming there is still labor intensive.
Mexican immigrants are the laborers, and they have fled their homeland looking to escape the trap of poverty. The justification for labor intensive farming is that Mexican farm workers are making much more money here than they would in Mexico, thus their quality of life is enhanced by working in the fields. However, the question remains to be answered whether it is ethical to maintain farming that is labor intensive.
North American Free Trade Agreement
NAFTA is an acronym which should be mentioned every time the mainstream media reports on the illegal immigration issue. It stands for the North American Free Trade Agreement which established a free-trade zone in North America. Signed by the United States, Canada, and Mexico in 1992, it took effect on January 1, 1994, but immediately lifted tariffs on the majority of goods produced by the three participating nations, and called for the gradual elimination of most trade barriers over a 15-year period.
Touted as a means to lift Mexico out of poverty, NAFTA has actually driven it further into poverty. According to a 2001 report by the Economic Policy Institute, “Mexican wages have decreased 27 percent since NAFTA, while hourly income from labor is down 40 percent.”
The 2001 report by the Economic Policy Institute also found that when Mexico began NAFTA negotiations it had “noncompetitive production costs… due to higher prices for inputs such as diesel and electricity, higher financial costs, and higher marketing costs (due to deficient infrastructure in highways and warehouse storage…among other factors).”
A World Bank Report from March 2006 states that the poorest 10 percent of the population earns only 1.5% of the total Mexican income, but the richest 10 percent earn 42.8 percent. “The distribution of wealth, which would be very hard to measure, is believed to be much worse.” The World Bank report also claimed that since NAFTA the amount of Mexican people that live below the poverty line is “62 percent of the economically active population.” The minimum wage has fallen by 40.7 percent. The Mexican government sets the poverty line at two daily minimum wages for a family with five members, or 80 pesos, about seven dollars.
Between 1993 and 2000 the disparity between Mexican and American manufacturing wages has increased from $9.6 to $12.1 per hour. Reports by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) state that wages in Mexico have dropped by 10 percent since 1995 while labor production increased by 45 percent. Work hours have increased from eight to twelve hours a day during the same time period. The number of people working more than 48 hours per week has increased since 1988 from 2.3 million to 9.3 million.
Economists at the National University in Mexico City wrote a study that cited 13.3 million workers in 2000 earned less than around $3.93 a day. The study also mentions that labor production’s part of the Gross Domestic Product has decreased from 34.16 percent to 30.66percent
.
Child labor is a huge problem in Mexico. Although the Mexican constitution prohibits children under 14 to work, UNICEF reports that five million Mexican children are working.
Farming has suffered greatly under NAFTA. The majority of Mexican immigrants in the U.S. were farmers with small plots of land without the access to subsidies and technology of their American counterparts. NAFTA has brought a flood of lower costing American goods to Mexico, making it impossible for Mexican farmers to compete. In a book titled, Stolen Harvest, author Shiva Vandana believes trade agreements import more food (and also export it) without first being allowed to meet the needs of the people, then local farmers are often undersold and driven out of business and national currencies earned do not get to circulate within that society. Hunger increases as a result.”
Thousands of contracts in Mexico are “arrangements of mutual convenience among corrupt unions, the government and foreign investors who own the factories,” according to Jesús Campos Linas, the dean of Mexican labor lawyers. Big payments are regularly made under NAFTA contracts to union leaders. Wages in manufacturing have significantly decreased. For example, automotive workers in Mexico earned one-twelfth of what American automotive workers made in 2000, but in 1980 they earned one-third of American automotive worker’s wages.
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