Factory Work Shifted to Mexico After NAFTA Goes to Asia

JHB

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Sun Dec-28-03 01:22 PM
Original message

Factory Work Shifted to Mexico After NAFTA Goes to Asia

The money quote:
"The lesson of NAFTA is that trade liberalization alone will not bring greater jobs or prosperity"

For nearly two decades, Nancy DeWendt hunched over the clackety machinery of the Swingline stapler plant in Long Island City, dreaming that the tedious but steady work would put her younger son through college.

"Then they pulled the rug out from under me," said DeWendt, a widow who has been jobless since Swingline laid off its 450 assemblyline workers almost five years ago and moved its Queens operation to Mexico.

At Swingline's new plant in Nogales, a gritty industrial city on Mexico's northern border, Alma Arenas worries she's about to lose the stapler-assembling job she inherited from DeWendt, which earns her $1.27 an hour, compared to DeWendt's final hourly wage of $18.

In the past few years, Swingline has laid off hundreds of employees in Nogales and has started sending work to China. It is following the example of scores of other U.S.-owned factories that used the North American Free Trade Agreement to move to Mexico with the aim of lowering costs, but are now turning to Asia, where labor is even cheaper. Sitting in her one-room shack with a dirt floor and a latrine out back, Arenas fretted, "I could be next."

****
MORE: http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/ny-nafta1228,0,1839598.story?coll=ny-nationworld-headlines

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cosmicdot

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Sun Dec-28-03 02:01 PM
Response to Original message

1. I don't think I like the word "liberalization" associated with NAFTA

Edited on Sun Dec-28-03 02:31 PM by cosmicdot

"The lesson of NAFTA is that trade liberalization"

is China listed on *'s Axis of Evil list?

symbolic of so much incongruity

:kick:

an important story

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undergroundrailroad

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Sun Dec-28-03 03:02 PM
Response to Original message

2. I just read the article in Newsday. Thanks for posting this to share

with our members and readers.

The most hurtful part of that article is that the bright red neon SWINGLINE sign has perished. How well I remember the neon red Swingline sign, prominently placed for viewing, before you entered the 59th Street Bridge in Long Island City. What bothers me is that the sign has been destroyed. No one thought at the time the historic, pop culture meaning the sign has. Many New York Museums, perhaps the Smithsonian, would have welcomed the sign as it reflects the history of New York proper.

Thanks again.

UGRR

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T Bone

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Sun Dec-28-03 08:05 PM
Response to Reply #2

3. I have heard from a Ford engineer that China counterfeits Ford cars

so they are now moving legitimate production from the Maqliadoras in Mexico to China in order to in part to co-opt the Chinese counterfeiting.

Crazy world.

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The Zanti Regent

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Sun Dec-28-03 08:17 PM
Response to Original message

4. Hmmm what if they shift right wing hate radio to China too?

Be nice to put Rush, SpinHannity and the clones out of work too!

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