Juchipila, MexUSA

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Juchipila, MexUSA
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Human Rights are Transnational(?)

• Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948)
• Article 23.
• (1) Everyone has the right to work, to free
  choice of employment, to just and favourable
  conditions of work and to protection against
  unemployment.
• (3) Everyone who works has the right to just and
  favourable remuneration ensuring for himself and
  his family an existence worthy of human dignity,
  and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of
  social protection.
• (4) Everyone has the right to form and to join
  trade unions for the protection of his interests.
  

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• Article 25.
• (1) Everyone has the right to a standard of
  living adequate for the health and well-being of
  himself and of his family, including food,
  clothing, housing and medical care and necessary
  social services, and the right to security in the
  event of unemployment, sickness, disability,
  widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in
  circumstances beyond his control.

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And migration?

• Article 13.
• (1) Everyone has the right to freedom of movement
  and residence within the borders of each state.
• (2) Everyone has the right to leave any country,
  including his own, and to return to his country.

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How clean is the line?
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Ambos Nogales

• 2008
• 1898

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How clean is the line?

• Transnational space
• Processes of inclusion and exclusion
• LA as quintessentially American place
• LA as quintessentially glocal place
• LA as Mexican place
• LA and ideologies of the Mexican
• Inglewood and Boyle Heights
• History of US-Mexico Relations
• Late 19th Century
• Revolution
• 15 of Mexican labor force employed in US
• 1 of 4 workers migrates to the States
• Julio rests in Resurrection Cemetery

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What is Neoliberalism?

• Rule of the market
• Free enterprise and markets
• More international trade and investment
• No price controls
• Cutting public budgets
• Reducing safety nets for fiscal
  responsibility
• Deregulation
• Including workplace and environmental protections
  
• Privatization
• Selling public enterprises to private investors
• Individual responsibility
• You can do it! (i.e., youre on your own)
• And if it doesnt work out.

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NAFTA in a nutshell

• To reduce tariff and non-tariff barriers to trade
  and investment

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Growth Prosperity

• How do you measure growth? What matters and what
  doesnt?

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Competition Efficiency
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Free Markets and Freedom

• Does neoliberalism promote or limit democracy?

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• two-way commerce between the United States and
  Mexico roughly tripled, from 81 billion to 232
  billion.
• dramatic economic and political transformation
  from a centralized economy under an authoritarian
  state to an open and dynamic market democracy.

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• Encouraged higher regulatory standards in Mexico
  and more cross-border cooperation on sensitive
  environmental issues.
• A stable, democratic and modernizing Mexico is
  profoundly in America's national interest, and
  the pact has helped to make that a reality.

encouraged higher regulatory standards in
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• No "giant sucking sound 18 million new jobs
• Automobile industry produces same number of
  cars more cost-effectively. Output up 41
• First 5 years half-million new manufacturing
  jobs

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Economic Policy Institute

• The Economic Policy Institute, a nonprofit
  Washington D.C. think tank, was created in 1986
  to broaden the discussion about economic policy
  to include the interests of low- and
  middle-income workers. Today, with global
  competition expanding, wage inequality rising,
  and the methods and nature of work changing in
  fundamental ways, it is as crucial as ever that
  people who work for a living have a voice in the
  economic discourse. 

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• NAFTAs impact in the U.S. obscured by boom and
  bust cycles
• Trade deficits and job losses 759,000
  NAFTA-related jobs lost between April 1998 and
  2001 and rising

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In Mexico

• Employment statistics are notoriously unreliable
  (if you worked one hour)
• NAFTA has created about ½ the jobs needed to
  cover yearly demandhence rising numbers of
  migrants
• Surge in well-educated migrants from cities
• Urbanization slowed

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Maquiladoras in a changing Mexican Economy
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North American Agreement on Labor Cooperation

• A NAFTA side agreement to protect workers rights
• Governments do not have to meet existing minimum
  international labor standards (e.g. those encoded
  in UN-sponsored declarations and covenants)
• May shame countries that have persistently failed
  to enforce their own labor laws

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• NAALC SCORE CARD 
• Number of Submissions Received U S
  ........................... 17 Mexico
  ........................ 7 Canada
  ........................ 4 Total
  ........................ 28 
• Number of Cases Heard U S .......................
  ..... 9 Mexico ........................
  7 Canada ........................ 2 Total
  ........................ 18 
• Outcomes Ministerial Consultation ... 12 Beyond
  Consultation .......... 0 Improved Conditions
  .......... 0 
• Issues in Hearings re Mexico Freedom of
  Association ..... 15 Health and Safety
  ............ 7 Gender Discrimination ........
  1 Child Labour ................. 1