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Babson, Auto Industry 2 FREE TRADE AND WORKER SOLIDARITY IN THE NORTH AMERICAN AUTO INDUSTRY STEVE BABSON In many ways, the Ford assembly plants in Hermosillo, Sonora, and wayne, MichiganlãióiémäiRã6it 3id:il,ar. äoî[ buiiä th¿ ;ä¡ne cár-thè Esöoil uiìtil 1999, "now'ihê'Fòcus. Both use nearly identical plant and equipment, featuring Kawas¿ki robots and Komatsu stamping presses. Both borrow selectively frog¡ a. iilean production" model that includes work teams and just-in-time inventory. In both fâctories, union workers produce cars with competitive ratings for quality and cost (Babson 2000). But there is one visible difference between the two plants thât speaks directly to what-Uls. antlcantdìõ-autoworkers fear most about global- ization: the eri.ìÞlõyéeÞâiking löts. At Wayne, ihey àre full óf late-model Ford, Clirysler, and GM products, most of them bigger, more expensive models than the subcompacts produced at the plânt. At Hermosillo, on the other hand, the hourly lot is small, and tlìere is not a siugle Focus behind the fence. As the best paid factory workers in the state, Flermosilio's Ford employees earned between $2 and $3.4n hou¡.in.2000 (Contrato Colectivo de Trabajo 2000-2002: 28)-more than double the rate in many of Sonora's border factories, but.one-tenth the str¿ight- time wages of Michigan's Ford workers. With the Focus selling for The author would like to thank fellow nembers of tlre lntemational Research Network on Autowo¡k ìn the Americas (IRNAA) for rhcir commentâry and assis- tance, especially Huberto Juá¡ez of the Autonomous University of Puebla. 17 I8 SÍEVE BABSON FREE IRADE AND WORKER SOLIDAR{ÏY IN fHE AU'IO INDUSTRY 19 $15,000 and up in Mexico, even this subcompact is a luxury item for two factories in Flint, Michigan, where local strikes over work intensity niost Mexicans. Consequendy" Ford exports 95 percent ofthe Hermosillo and job security gradually starved GM's assembly plants of parts, Over plant's cars northward ("Producción Mensual"), leaving the parking ìot the preceding twenty years, the FlintEast workforce had fallen from 13,000 to a fleet of white busses that every morning pick up workers who build 1o fewer than 6.000 as the company installed ncw lechnology and ex- cars for foreign customers. pänded its Mexiôan þioduction of instrument clusters and other small parts. These workers are not reconciled to their low wqg.qq, no¡ do they "They just crated the equipment, hoisted it onto a tractor trailer, and sent weliome their role as low-cost competitors of U.S-. and Canadian it away to Mexico," as one local leader told the N¿w Yo rk'[imes.'"lhere's autoworkers. Nevenhèless, that is the role forced upon them in the glo- hardly anybody at thìs plant who hasn't seen machinery moving out in a bal arena of free irádé. A corresponding question is forced upon crate with an address on it says 'Mexico"' (Dillon 1998). àùtoworkers across tlìe còntiient: can the dive¡se labor movements of Since the lâte 1970s, GM has been unloading these..crates in Mexico, the United States, and Canada overcome the competitive dy- Mg!1.T91.9r, n*ylosa. Ciudad Juárez. and orher lactory towiri õn Mexico's namic of free trade and establish a rcgìonal union movement bascd on northern border, a region known for its low wages and low levels of crosçbórdèr sôlidáriìy? The aniwer to this question requires the posing unionization. By 1998, GM's Delphi pa.ns division had grown to fifty of another: what is the economic and sociopolitical terrain of cross- border factories employing 58,000 Mexican workers, nearly matching bo¡der trade as it helps or hurts cross-border solidarity? the 64,000 union members at its U.S. and Canadian parts plants (Delphi Automotive Systems 1998). In the meantime, GM was also opening North Àmerican Auto new assembly plants in north and central Mexico, where workers pro- duced 315,000 Cavalicrs, Silverados, and Suburbans in 1998-two-thi¡ds While auto labor in the new millennium remains fragmented and local, for export (Lira 2000). Significantly, oftwenty-nine GM assembly plants iÌ-re qulo cornpafieÀ ãiá reorgánìzing on a c,ontinental basis. This dra- in North America, the company's plant in Ramos Arizpe was one of matic shift in corporate strategy is highlighted by the ioùtiásting dy- only two that continued operating throughout the eight-week FIint strike, namics in the United Auto Workers*General Motors (UAW-GM) strikes apparently supplied by parts made in Mexico and Brazil; among the few of I970 and I998. assembly þlants able to reopen before the end of the Flint strikes, the In M91i99 footnote .in. the UAWls ¡ational plant ]91Q, -1v,q9^gr..irrqle¡ant. hrst was the company's in Silao, Guanajuato ("GM to Resume stiike against GM over i,ssues ofpay and retirement benefits. The com- Production ât Mexican Plant Next Week" 1998). pany had just two factories in Mexico, employing a total of4,300 work- In the scale and scope of its commitment to Mexico, GM has been at ers: an aging tiuck plant in the Fèderal District, dating from the 1930s, the'cùtiirg êdle df inidei ôhãñgeS trãnSforniìñg ihè Sôrithèíq tiei ôf the and an engine plant in Toluca, opened in 1965. Both factorles p¡o{uged Nönh Americân auto industry. At êach step in this transforming pro- for Mexico's tiny domestic market, delivering a wide variety of models cess, governmènt policy on tjôt[ sides of the border has provided the in relatively low volùmes with little automation. It could be no other blueprini áícl ihé inóôntives fór chànge. ìn Íhil-'srjniË,'"gló6alization" isl way-high tariffs and local-content qeg¡¡,|¡erneltq lppq¡gd by the not the spontaneous expression of market forcàs so often invoked by free | - country's natiònáliit !óvèrirment prevented GM from.imp-o_rt-!ng.vg-li,qleg trade þiópònenti bur ìs ¡áùher a þioduct òf public pòücy âììgned-:more | '' (Monis 1998, 115-116; Middlebrook 1995,231, A. Garc ía and Lara ofÉÍi than not-with corporate pianning. Àt'the sarne time, globalization--l 1998,207-2131. a time wben production totaled just 165,000 units in is not whctlly determined by drêpolicy góals ofthe corporate interests that 1969 (less than 2^t percent of the U.S. total), Mexico hardly mattered to profit by it. Cenainly. U.S. corporations have reaped the bottom-line har- the strike antagonists in the year that followed. vest ofi4exico's lo* *ug"r, but, ironically, it wai the political success of I In -l998, however, GM's Mexican operations were a flash point in the U.S. labor movement in 1965 that unii,itéätidnâlly ópened the door ] locâl strikes that shut down the company's North American operations. f<ii GM-Delphi. -l This wai especially evident at Delphi's Flint East plant, the second of In t?,9ålhe AFLCIO and the farmworke¡s u¡ion wor.repeal of the æ SÌEVE BABSON FREE TRADE AND WORKER SOLIDARIIY IN THE AUTO INDUSTRV 2ì bracero progr4r¡, a World War Il-era policy that gave Mexican to foreign capital (Bureau of Labor Statistics 1999). In this sense, the fàrnìworkers temporàry visas to iravel north and work for U.S. "maquilazation" of the economy was already well advanced by 1993, , agribusiness. Since this transicnt workforce undermined the organizìng w-heä the Nórth Americdi'i Free Trade Agreemenr iNAFTA) ratiired efforts oftlle farmworkérò únion, the laboi mòvêment lobbied the Johnson Mexlco's intó â Nòrth ¡,meiican trading bloc dominated by r-- - integiáiion I adnxnistration tbr repeal. Success created a new problem for Mexico, the United States. Where before the opening of Mexico's economy to r -" however, since it left Mexican farmworkers stranded aldng the i tiorder. foreign investmênt dèþended on shifting government policy, now the In ,"rpon.", the Mèiì-ðln goTèiñrilôñt-iriì-ple..diôn'rðd-â-*bdrãöiiä¿lüStii- changes were codified in treaty law (see Canillo 2000; Kopinak 1996, àiizaiiôriÞìö¿iâm"-tïãÌ i 'c-.ort úôùìd átiraci corporate investmènt Io'thðriôith: 8-17; Monis 19981. ,I edge oi rhè"iounrry. CoInpanles rhár búili "maquiladora" ior By the turn of the century, these policy-inspired transformations had "maquila"t ¡/ , planrs, ãs these border facrories were called. could impofl dramaiically rèaligned Meiico's industrjal with the auto in- jà 9congmy,. J parts duty-free and pay taxes onÌy on ìhe value àddèri long as the dustry (referred ro alsò âs "auto") taking the lead. Mexìcò's output of plant exported 100 percent / of iis ourput back ro the Unireã Stàres cars and light trucks had soared to 1.9 million units by the year 2000, a L lMatArthur 2000. 17; Kopinak I996,7-8). growth of 980 percent compared to 1970 and more tlìan double the I jobs The goal was to attract to the economicâlly depressed north with- 755,000 units built i¡ 1990 (Chappell 2001; "The Automotive Sectors f out otherwise amending the policies of economic nationalism that dated of Latin America 1999," 292). Th9_,lve .lqg,g¡t ma-4u{1qtuJ9ls; back to ihô Mexican revolution ôflSl t-i917. iÈat upheaval had been Volkswagen, GM, Daimler*Chrysler, Ford, and Nissan-accounted for sparked by popuìâr rescntment of the Díaz dictatoiship's close alliãnce 99 peióêät òl iiJtáIiiodüðiion, wiih cM ;lône Èiânnlng ro aouùle oúç ., ' wirh U.S. corporations and forcign ìandowners, who together owned 25 pút tö rnóre thãn 600,00Õ uìi1is Uy ZOOZ (Karoub 1998; Lira 2000). A ' pCrcent of the country's land ánd dominàted Mexico's economy (Hart dramatic shift toward production for export was also gaining momen- 1t 1981, 2"16:-326).
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