Finally a Canadian Union Gets It; 600 Jobs to Mexico
- Thread starter tay
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Interesting the whole issue around automation. One hundred years ago people
52% of the jobs were in some way connected to agriculture now its two percent.
That being said automation had a lot to do with it. Automation replaces jobs
yes but it in turn creates other jobs and higher skilled jobs over time. Today the
problem is we don't have a shortage of jobs we have a shortage of skilled workers
to do the jobs we need done. As for the trade deals they are win lose deals but
it didn't have to be that way. If we raised the bottom up and provided people with
income to compete at the consumer level it would mean more middle class with
purchasing power and a more stable international economy
52% of the jobs were in some way connected to agriculture now its two percent.
That being said automation had a lot to do with it. Automation replaces jobs
yes but it in turn creates other jobs and higher skilled jobs over time. Today the
problem is we don't have a shortage of jobs we have a shortage of skilled workers
to do the jobs we need done. As for the trade deals they are win lose deals but
it didn't have to be that way. If we raised the bottom up and provided people with
income to compete at the consumer level it would mean more middle class with
purchasing power and a more stable international economy
First off I'm not white. I'm indigenous which gives me standing to be a Nationalist. And no, I don't want Mexicans or anyone else roaming the country for work as that is a tool on the Corporate's wish list to lower the cost of labour and increase their profits thereby lowering the standard of living for Canadian citizens. If you were inclined to educate yourself on Free Trades you would see that the poor citizens do not benefit. Mexico in particular has been run by corrupt governments for decades and have no desire to improve their citizens well being.
It hasn’t benefitted Mexican farmers, or Mexicans at al which is why so many try to flee to other countries....
Nafta is limping toward its 20th anniversary with a beat-up image and a bad track record. Recent polls show that the majority of the U.S. people favors “leaving” or “renegotiating” the model trade agreement.
While much has been said about its impact on U.S. job loss and eroding labor conditions, some of the most severe impacts of Nafta have been felt south of the border.
Nafta has cut a path of destruction through Mexico. Since the agreement went into force in 1994, the country’s annual per capita growth flat-lined to an average of just 1.2 percent -- one of the lowest in the hemisphere. Its real wage has declined and unemployment is up.
As heavily subsidized U.S. corn and other staples poured into Mexico, producer prices dropped and small farmers found themselves unable to make a living. Some two million have been forced to leave their farms since Nafta. At the same time, consumer food prices rose, notably the cost of the omnipresent tortilla.
As a result, 20 million Mexicans live in “food poverty”. Twenty-five percent of the population does not have access to basic food and one-fifth of Mexican children suffer from malnutrition. Transnational industrial corridors in rural areas have contaminated rivers and sickened the population and typically, women bear the heaviest impact.
Not all of Mexico’s problems can be laid at Nafta’s doorstep. But many have a direct causal link. The agreement drastically restructured Mexico’s economy and closed off other development paths by prohibiting protective tariffs, support for strategic sectors and financial controls.
more
www.nytimes.com/…
Like many, Avalos moved to Tijuana at 18 from central Mexico. The factories along the jagged, corrugated wall separating the city from its northern neighbour offered the promise of a better life for those with little education and few options.
Avalos says she often worked back-to-back eight-hour shifts to meet production quotas at a foreign-owned clothing factory. The wages, she says, barely made ends meet. The chemicals from the dyes, she says, made her skin peel and her nails turn black.
To stay awake and dull the pain of grinding manual labour, she says she and her colleagues mixed coffee grounds and Aspirin into bottles of Coke.
"That was when I asked myself whether the factory was the beautiful place I thought it was," she said.
As Mexico's population has surged, so too has the country's poverty. There are an estimated 14.3 million more Mexicans living in poverty than when NAFTA was first signed. It is now the most unequal country in the OECD, a grouping of 34 relatively high-income democracies.
This city alone is home to about 600 maquiladoras, or foreign-owned plants that are exempt from paying duties or tariffs on machinery, equipment and materials. If you have a TV, there is a good chance it was Tijuana-made, since companies like Samsung and Panasonic run major operations here.
Tijuana boasts of a "5:1" ratio: five Mexican workers for the price of every American one. Its business community says wages are fair and come with benefits, and that "friendly" labour relations are an attractive feature of setting up here.
It is extremely difficult to independently verify working conditions inside Tijuana's maquiladoras, which are protected by private security companies and often sit behind high fences fringed with barbed wire.
After several attempts, I gained access to one maquiladora on the pretense of looking for a job, slipping in through an unmarked door that did not name the company. The warehouse, where workers were slicing plywood, was hot and airless even on a cool, wet day. Workers wore cheap earphones to protect against the grating rasp of electric saws. The wages on offer were between 1,000 to 1,200 pesos for a 48-hour week — less than $2 an hour.
In a country with a daily minimum wage of 73 pesos, or about $5, that rate is still far more lucrative than many alternatives. But even with a weekly salary of 1,250 pesos, Alejandra Bartolomé, 26, cannot afford more than the home she and her family illegally cobbled together on the side of a four-lane Tijuana highway — part of an informal settlement where old garage doors and factory refuse substitute for bricks and mortar.
more
www.thespec.com/...
Most repetitive, identical widget manufacturing jobs left the NAFTA region and went to various parts of Asia. Car manufacturing did, too as the Asian manufacturers have beaten the pants off of the North American Big Three by making reasonably priced cars that are well designed, reliable and that outlast Chevys, Fords and Dodges. Toyota is now the number one car manufacturer on the planet. Honda, Hyundai, Acura, Nissan, Lexus, Subaru, Infinity are top quality marques. Instead of blaming the Mexicans for their woes, the laid off workers in Flint should be going after GM for their incompetent engineering and marketing.
It's easy to punish Mexico. It's a bitch to punish Japan. It's impossible to punish China.
It's easy to punish Mexico. It's a bitch to punish Japan. It's impossible to punish China.
I'd drive a Mexican built vehicle before one made here they've been at the business a lot longer and do a much better job.
I know that it's true of VWs. I don't personally know about the other brands.
Uh huh, I'm sure they did. Just like it was the Wynned sock and Ontario Libtard party blaming Harper for all of Ontario's woes.
No, the problem was the FTA and NAFTA already did a number on manufacturing jobs in Ontario. All the McWynnty Liberals did was dog pile onto the problem and they still are.
When you intentionally exacerbate an already existing problem, you are the problem.
Few years back, my employer moved part of our business to Mexico, 100% to save money on payroll/benefits. The experience was less than stellar, the time it took to train and bring up the level of knowledge to a close 50% of our Canadian force was painful. But regardless, it got slowly better, and layoffs started in Canada. Efficiency never reached parity, but the savings were astronomical. None of the jobs were manufacturing, IT or blue collar, so NAFTA has affected Canadian workers directly, no question about that. Jobs are flying out and are not being replaced by technology (not ours anyway), jobs are being erased. We need someone to stand up to the 1% who have made trillions. The people need to say no, we will not take it and slide down into a third world country, and that is what happens when people don't work and cannot afford to decent life, we owe our kids better than that.
That's where all these come from I used to drive one-Best Car Ever almost drove itself
It was the NDP that fought loudest and hardest against free trade. Will Trumpites ever acknowledge and accept their kinship with the Dippers?
Loc isn't a real conservative. If he he was, he'd be seeking smaller government and lower taxes. Instead, he supports Trump
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Not the Mulcair NDP
What do you do for a living? How much should you get paid?
Kinda weenie response. As Dias responded yesterday GM made $12 billion. How much do you think the Union took in?
The debate is not about quality. All of them are made to engineered requirements. It's about the fair share of profits and the treatment of fellow human beings.
I have a friend who works for a Magna/GM company as a Quality Control person. He goes to Mexico 6 times or so a year. I remember his first time there (25 years ago or so) and he was flabbergasted as to what he saw. He said the factory inside looks like one here only newer. But when you walk outside you can see all these shacks where the workers live, and open ditches with coloured water (paint/chemicals) running down them.
He's got nothing good to say about the situation...
Yes-Trump will renegotiate NAFTA to suit himself. He will NOT be awarding generous jobs for life to Cdns! It is sad that the Oshawa Ont GM plant so often had ultra high quality ratings and yet is apparently being slowly closed/strangled down. This has NOTHING to do with Nafta and EVERYTHING to do with saving Yankee jobs! Nafta is as dead as LIE-beral party economic policy!
It does not help that GM is playing a waiting game-seeing what our idiot ONTARI-OWE premier will do with her carbon crap and trade garbage-if she offers GM an exemption and if Trump doesn't hammer us too badly then GM jobs in Canada may yet be saved! But face it-the ONLY thing McWynnty can do is offer carbon exemptions-she simply cannot bail out GM nor BUY back jobs lost to Yankee isolationists. We are stone broke thanks to LIE-beral tax and spend madness-all in the name of buying civil service Hog votes!
The Peso falls by 50% which negates the tariffs, attracts even more manufacturing to Mexico, profits go up! The Yanks get their wall-geld ... Win-win!!! Happy-happy!!!
Mexicans are expendable.
He's already like Trump. Both like massive deficits high taxation and handing taxpayer dollars to corporations
A sad and willfully ignorant rebuttal to what was a reasonable comment on my part.
As you are too lazy to do a simple web search, i provided a starting point below:
General Motors Company (GM) Key Financial Ratios - NASDAQ.com
You can independently review the balance sheet, income statement and statement of cash flows yourself; I assume you don't need it spoon-fed to you
Far, far more than the capital risk that they (collectively) took compared to the company.
.... No doubt, you are one of the bigger proponents of the entitlement crowd, non?
How about the fair share of the risks?
... Yeah, no tangible answer there either
The FTA has always had a few problems for Canada. Access to US markets meant that Canada had to allow the Americans free access to almost every resource Canada possess and also gave US corporations the right to buy up almost any Canadian business. If the Dumpster wants to renegotiate NAFTA we may want to do something about those two clauses.
Lots of CDN companies buying-up US based resources and financial institutions as well... Don't get your panties all in a twist just yet
Will they be allowed to continue in an "America First" world with the terms being dictated by an unhinged leader? Stay tuned, folks.