Maquiladoras Essay

A maquiladoras (also known as maquilas) is a corporation which operates under the Boarder Industrial Program (BIP) that began in 1965. Maquilas are approved by the Mexican Secretariat of Commerce and Industrial Department attracting corporations owned and operated by Mexican, American, and Asian companies. The BIP, a form of neoliberalism, allows up to 100 percent foreign involvement in terms of capital investment in and management of the companies, as well as duty-free imports of machinery, equipment, raw materials, parts, safety items, and administrative materials provided that the goods do not remain in Mexico permanently (Buitelaar and Pérez 2000). Narrowly defined, neoliberalism is used to describe specific policies marked by a change from “Keynesian welfarism” to a political agenda favoring the relatively autonomous operation of markets (Larner 2000). More broadly, neoliberalism signifies a rationality of governance that encompasses extending and disseminating market values to all institutions and social action (Brown 2003).

The maquiladora trade has come to portray, in large part, Mexico's northern border region due to the hastened changes which its presence in this region has brought about in terms of population growth, trade businesses, subsidiary or supporting industries, and services (Buitelaar and Pérez 2000).

The maquilas that have the greatest number of employees are located in Ciudad Juárez, Tijuana, and Reynosa-Rio Bravo respectively (Wilson 1992). Although it remains heavily concentrated in this region, over the last two decades it has also increasingly spread throughout the country's interior in cities such as Chihuahua and Guadalajara-Zapopan (Maquiladora Service 2015). Maquiladoras became a means of providing employment and significant foreign-exchange earnings for Mexico’s developing economy (Cravey

1998).
The government hoped that increased economic activity would result in the creation of new sources of employment for Mexicans in the region and would help to improve living conditions. Huge multinational corporations such as Fisher Price, Ford, IBM, and Phillips have set up factories and they have brought with them some of the most advanced manufacturing technology anywhere in the world. Yet near these 21st-century facilities stand the shantytowns.
They are home to many of the more than 1.2 million men, women, and children who work in the maquiladora factories. These Maquiladora workers assemble products that end up around the world. But when they go home at night, they can barely afford to put food on the table nor have access to clean water or electricity. The Mexican government says that the maquiladora system, which allows multinational corporations to avoid taxes and trade restrictions by setting up factories that produce goods for export, is an economic success story. It is successful, for the corporations who have taken advantage of Mexico's plummeting wages. As for Mexican workers in some of the maquilas, they have only brought misery and repression.