The children of NAFTA : labor wars on the U.S./Mexico border / David Bacon.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Bacon, David, 1948-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

North American Free Trade Agreement (1992 December 17).

North American Free Trade Agreement.

Foreign workers, Mexican--United States.

Foreign workers, Mexican.

Labor movement.

Quality of work life.

Migrant labor.

Mexican Americans--Employment.

Mexican Americans.

United States.

Migrant labor--Mexican-American Border Region.

Quality of work life--Mexican-American Border Region.

Labor movement--Mexican-American Border Region.

Mexican-American Border Region--Economic conditions.

Mexican-American Border Region.

Mexican-American Border Region--Social conditions.

Physical Description:

348 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Other Title:

Labor wars on the U.S./Mexico border

Place of Publication:

Berkeley, Calif. : University of California Press, [2004]

Summary:

Based on gripping firsthand accounts, this book investigates the impact of the North American Free Trade Agreement on those who work along the U.S./Mexico border producing food, televisions, computer equipment, plumbing supplies, clothing, and other goods that are the material foundation of our lives. Journalist David Bacon paints a powerful portrait of poverty, repression, and struggle, offering a devastating critique of NAFTA in the most in-depth examination of border workers published to date.

Unlike other journalists who have made brief excursions into strawberry fields and maquiladoras, Bacon has been reporting on the ground for more than a decade, and he has developed sustained relationships with scores of workers and organizers who have entrusted him with their stories. He describes harsh conditions of child laborers in the Mexicali Valley, the deplorable state of housing outside factories in cities such as Tijuana, and the corporate retaliation faced by union organizers. His study is concentrated around key events and social movements from 1988 to the present, many of which he personally witnessed.

This important book finds that, despite the promises of its backers, NAFTA has locked in a harsh neoliberal economic policy that has swept away laws and protections established by Mexican workers over many decades. More than a showcase for NAFTA's victims, The Children of NAFTA traces the emergence of a new social consciousness, telling how workers in Mexico, the U.S., and Canada are now beginning to join together in a powerful new strategy of cross-border organizing as they fight for economic and social justice.

Contents:

Introduction

Grapes and green onions

Putting solidarity on the table

Tijuana's Maquiladora workers

Han Young

Build a house, go to jail

The strategic alliance

Duro means hard

Mexico's wars over privatization

Transplanted expectations

The world of the border has changed.

Notes:

Includes index.

ISBN:

0520237781

OCLC:

52757356

Online:

Publisher description