On The Line : life on the US-Mexican border

life on the US-Mexican border

Plot

About the Author Augusta Dwyer is an award-winning independent journalist and the author of Into the Amazon: Chico Mendes and the Struggle for the Rainforest and On the Line: Life on the U.S.-Mexico Border. Product Description The US-Mexican border is a unique meeting point of the first and third worlds. Every day thousands of Mexicans run the gauntlet of the US Border Patrol to reach the promised lands of California and Texas. On the Mexican side half a million people, mainly young women, earn a dollar an hour or less, toiling for US companies in the assembly plants. In On The Line, Augusta Dwyer journeys through the crowded, dirty cities of the border, uncovering the stories of dozens of ordinary Mexicans - workers, illegal migrants, environmental activists. She reveals the hidden costs of free trade, and shows how Mexicans are resisting exploitation and the destruction of their environment. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. On the LineLife on the US-Mexican BorderBy Augusta Dwyer, Duncan GreenPractical Action PublishingCopyright © 1994 Augusta DwyerAll rights reserved.ISBN: 978-0-906156-84-1ContentsMap, v, Preface, vii, 1 Petra Welcome to the Border, 1, 2 Don Jaime's Domain The Rise of the Maquiladoras, 15, 3 Women's Work Attempts to Organise, 31, 4 The Way the Wind Blows The Environment, 49, 5 Handle with Care Health and Safety in the Factories, 66, 6 The Mexican Incident Book Migrant Workers in the US, 79, 7 Let's Shoot Some Aliens The US Border Patrol, 100, 8 On the Line Organising For Change in Mexico and the US, 121, Mexico in Brief, 131, Acronyms, 134, Further Reading, 136, Resources and Action, 139, Index, 144, CHAPTER 1PetraWelcome to the BorderIt happened during the night shift at General Electric's modern Sociedad de Motores plant in Reynosa, at the end of a hot August day in 1991 .The shift began at 8.30pm. At around eight, Petra Santiago left her yellow plywood shack in Colonia Roma, crossed the narrow wooden planks over the drainage trench and, picking her way through the mesquite bushes and rubbish and mud, climbed the roadside ditch to the Monterrey highway. Waving her hand, she stopped a bus that would take her to work, just a few kilometres down the road to the Reynosa Industrial Park.At the time, Petra was four months pregnant with her third child. She wasn't married to the child's father, Oscar Figueroa, but they had a steady relationship. She also looked after her two children from a previous marriage.By law, pregnant women are not allowed to work night shifts in Mexico. The company is supposed to assign them day shifts and allow them an extra half hour rest period. But by mid-1991 Petra had been assembling and quality-checking motors for GE air conditioners for three years. She was already accustomed to the big American company's lack of attention to these matters, just as she was used to the obligatory overtime, the nine-and-a-half-hour shifts and the lousy pay of US$38 per week.At around I 0.30 that night, two hours after her shift began, Petra suddenly felt sharp pains in her abdomen. She left the brightly-lit quality control area to find that night's supervisor, Martín Ríos, and told him that she needed to go to the local hospital. All maquiladora workers like Petra are insured for medical benefits at the state-run hospitals of the Mexican Institute of Social Security (IMSS). But they are also prevented, under threat of immediate and automatic dismissal, from leaving the factory floor during their shifts without management permission. Ríos fobbed Petra off. 'Just go and see the duty nurse,' he told her, and in spite of her misgivings, Petra went.The nurse gave her a couple of aspirins. 'She told me to take one right then and the other eight hours later and that would take care of the pain,' says Petra. 'But I knew they wouldn't work. And besides, I've always heard that when you're pregnant you shouldn't take any kind of drugs. So I went on feeling sick