Ojeda is leading a squadron of Mexican factory workers to the streets of Seattle for the summit to denounce the ways free trade impacts the lives of working people in developing countries. In Mexico, nearly six years after the passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement, which was supposed to create more jobs and higher wages throughout North America, one of the consequences of free trade has been the proliferation of maquiladora factories, which critics call little better than sweatshops. There are by now some 4,000 maquiladoras concentrated along the US-Mexico border. According to the Mexican business journal El Financiero, employment in the maquiladoras nearly doubled between 1993 and 1998, and now stands at over one million people. Life inside the factories is often grim.
Workers labor from sunrise to sunset.
Some have even been murdered. More free trade, say critics, means more maquiladora-style manufacturing. This is what globalization is all about. At workshops and rallies throughout the Seattle meetings, the maquiladora delegation will join farmworkers, union members, and activists from all over the world in trying to get their concerns heard. In Mexico, as everywhere, we simply want fair wages, good working conditions, and the ability to live with dignity.