A newly formed Labor and Study Center in Juarez, Chi. is working to create a movement to unionize the 173,000 maquiladora workers in Juarez. Only 3,000 of them belong to a union today. The Labor Center is run by the Mexico-based Authentic Labor Front, which is affiliated with an independent union that has about 40,000 members. Traditionally, unions in Mexico have been dominated by the government. For example, the Mexican Worker's Confederation, (CTM) which has 35,000 members in Juarez and millions throughout the Republic and is affiliated with the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), has been accused of being so close to the government that it serves more to keep workers quiet rather than to better workers' conditions.
The new Center is funded in part with donations from U.S.-based unions such as the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and the United Electrical Workers. The support is seen as a step in uniting workers on both sides of the border, much as the North American Free Trade Agreement links the two countries' economies. Indeed one of the goals of the new Center is to persuade the estimated 10,000 to 30,000 Juarez residents who work in El Paso of the value of joining a union at their U.S. jobs, making it easier for U.S. unions to win better contracts. In order to improve cooperation, union organizers say they will have to overcome the negative attitudes from workers on each side about each other. Workers in the U.S. see lower paid Mexican workers as stealing U.S. jobs, while Mexican workers see U.S. workers as overpaid. But a labor union manager in El Paso, Hector Arellano, sees the new Center as a means of survival for U.S. workers. "Whatever is prosperity for the Mexican worker is prosperity for us," he told the El Paso Times.
The effort to unionize Juarez's maquilas may be an uphill battle since maquiladora workers are traditionally better paid with better benefits than workers in the rest of Mexico. The average maquiladora worker in Mexico makes about $1.50 an hour including benefits.
Source: El Paso Times