 | MEXICO AND LIVING WAGES: THE UTMOST EPITOMIZATION OF SOCIAL DARWINISM AS A SYSTEMIC PUBLIC POLICY
The policies undemocratically imposed by the governments entrenched in power for the past thirty years provide irrefutable testimony of their deliberate transformation of Mexican workers into labour-bondage disposable items.
This assessment arrives at a paramount conclusion: there is a deliberate policy in place to pauperise Mexico’s work force, to serve as a source of the most competitive labour cost possible in the neoliberal globalised division of labour. Such conclusion is the result of assessing the quality of Mexico’s manufacturing wages, gauging the trend they have followed from 1975 to 2009 for production-line workers and from 1996 to 2009 for all people employed in the manufacturing sector.
Additionally, this work makes two projections exploring two different scenarios to close the huge wage gap of Mexican production workers with the wages of equivalent workers in the U.S. The first projection will assess what kind of real wage average annual increase it would take to close the wage gap with equivalent U.S. wages in the term of thirty years. The second projection assesses how long it would take to close the same wage gap by following Brazil’s concept of annually increasing nominal wages by the sum of inflation plus GDP growth. Both projections are fully in line with TLWNSI’s concept of equal pay for equal work of equal value through gradual wage equalisation.
Yet, currently the questions posed by these projections are undoubtedly rhetorical questions. Indeed, closing the gap to make Mexican wages of a living wage kind will remain an absolutely impossible endeavour as long as Mexican society does not get the resolve to organise to peacefully remove from power the structures that have historically been working to maintain the centre-periphery relationship that keeps all the benefits from economic activity for the robber barons and their foreign neoliberal tutors. Or, as the citizenry worldwide is increasingly denouncing, as long as the 1% keeps taking most of what belongs to the 99%.
Download the assessment of Mexico's living-wage gap here!
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UPDATe 1975-2009!
In 2009 the Shock of the greatest depression of global capitalism since 1929 begins to be reflected in the real wages of production line manufacturing workers
PPP WAGE GAPS FOR SELECTED DEVELOPED AND "EMERGING" ECONOMIES FOR PRODUCTION-LINE MANUFACTURING WORKERS (1975 up to 2009).
Since 2008 Japan began to experience a strong revaluation of the yen with little increase in the PPP cost of living. This enabled Japan to record in 2009 its best living  wage equalisation level ever (15% living-wage gap). In contrast, since 2007, most countries experienced substantial currency devaluations, strong PPP growth or real wage increases below the growth of U.S. wages. Thus, except for Italy and Hong Kong, which managed to sustain their previous equalisation, all the other countries increased their hourly compensation costs gaps with the U.S. in 2009.
In the Euro Area real wages have barely moved since 2007. Thus, Germany, France and Spain lose some ground in their equalisation trends. Only Italy managed to increase real wages enough to maintain its previous equalisation index.
Brazil experienced a huge increase of 25%, since 2007, in its PPP cost of living. Consequently, real wages dropped and, thus, its living-wage gap increased four points from 63 to 67%. Singapore experienced a similar behaviour, which increased its gap from 50 to 53. Hong Kong barely managed to leave its living-wage gap at 32.
The analysis is an update for 12 economies and the U.S., prepared by TJSGA, using 2009 hourly compensation costs for manufacturing workers as reported by the U.S. Department of Labour, and PPP data from the World Bank and the OECD. The report exposes once again a global labour system that profits over the majority
The analysis is and update for 12 economies and the U.S., prepared by TJSGA, using hourly compensation costs for production-line manufacturing workers (1975-2009) as reported by the U.S. Department of Labour, and PPP data from the World Bank and the OECD. The report exposes once again a global labour system that profits over the majority of the people in favour of a global elite. Download the pdf file with the wage gap update for 12 economies (Germany, France, Italy, Canada, U.K., Spain, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Brazil, Hong Kong and Mexico).
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UPDATED ASSESSMENT OF MEXICO'S WAGE GAP 1975-2009
The Mexican State, still challenged for the lack of legitimacy of its election, corroborates every year its vocation as a customary violator of the labour rights of its citizens
Once again, the following assessment may seem redundant  to those who have read our analyses of previous years. Yet the stubborn policy of the government in power –which deliberately pauperises the Mexican labour force– compels us to insist on the same assessment that exhibits the nefarious consequences of such policy. Moreover, it is necessary to depict once again the political context in which it is imposed. Assessing the wage data of the manufacturing sector of thirty- five years, irremediably exhibits the exploitative and repressive character of the group that has wielded real power for the last three decades. A group that has completely submitted itself to the Washington Consensus, with the goal of remaining in power. This has engendered an environment that stands out on a global scale for the tremendous erosion of labour rights. The illegitimate and mafia-like nature that accurately delineates the Mexican State, has imposed an ethos of labour bondage that takes the country back to conditions prevailing before the social revolution of 1910.
The future of production-line manufacturing wages in Mexico is absolutely ominous unless society removes from power those who have imposed the Mafia State and impose a citizen’s government of real democracy. Every year the government’s economic policies contain or further erode real wages. Additionally, the State has unleashed a policy of repression of the rights of freedom of association and to organise and collective bargaining. The deep impoverishment of Mexicans is a fact. Official data acknowledge that 81% of Mexicans are poor (Coneval 2009). By the same token, in 2009 the minimum wage was able to afford 17,5% of the 40 goods of the CBI or indispensable basket of goods, down from 49% in 1994, a 64% loss of purchasing power in 15 yearswhich is deemed essential for survival. Moreover, the government began 2010 and 2011 with strong price increases in the energy sector, which guarantee a greater pauperisation of real wages. Thus, parting from these findings, it is estimated –with a great degree of confidence– that less than 10% of all salaried workers can afford the CBI in 2011. This prospectus remains with exactly the same tone conveyed in the 2007 and 2008 reports, for the deprivation, depredation and deliberate pauperisation – as a State policy– continue deepening.
In summary, more than a quarter century of predatory capitalism in Mexico exposes, decisively, a government's policy –from the perspective of manufacturing wages in particular and all wages in general– of perverse and premeditated pauperisation and exploitation of Mexican labour, for the only public policy of the Mafia State is to govern for the benefit of domestic and foreign institutional investors and their corporations. In this way, as long as the “robber baron” elites currently in power remain in control, the deepening of the pauperisation of Mexico’s population is more than guaranteed, in such a way that the odds in favour of making the closing of Mexico’s living-wage gap a reality in the term of thirty years is currently zero. Download the pdf file with the analysis of Mexico's wage gap here.
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UPDATED ASSESSMENT OF BRAZIL'S WAGE GAP 1996-2009
Brazil’s recovery of production-line manufacturing wages recedes since 2006. Yet, there are plans for a strong long-term equalisation
The future of Brazil’s wage policy is being redefined by clearly establishing a commitment to not only recover its 1996 wage level but to equalise wages with equivalent wages in the U.S. This shows strong affinity with TLWNSI’s concept –of the gradual closing of wage gaps through annual real wage increments (increments of several points over inflation)– for a system of annual real minimum wage increases has already been implemented beginning in 2010 and until 2023.
Although Brazil’s plan will hardly close the wage gap with the United States by 2023, it will undoubtedly embody a great improvement that will trigger different multiplying effects that will generate the endogenous development of Brazil. This will place it far much closer to the socioeconomic indicators of developed countries than of developing ones. Last year we were confident that once the benefits to be obtained from Brazil’s minimum wage appreciation policy were attested, the new government of Dilma Rousseff would maintain the same policy. But sooner than expected, Rousseff’s government and Brazil’s Congress have already transformed into law the appreciation plan and seem committed to it despite the fact that the opposite policy, of wage depredation, is being pursued globally and with special emphasis in the European Union.
To be sure, there is no guarantee that the current minimum wage appreciation policy will be maintained by future Brazilian governments. In any case, the responsibility for making sure that this policy remains falls directly on society, which bears the full load for making Brazil’s future governments feel compelled to consolidate this objective. Hence, it is indispensable that Brazilians become fully aware about the need to permanently get involved in the public matter to make sure that future governments work for the benefit of society and not for the owners of the market and their very private interests, as the vast majority of governments enthusiastically pursue in most countries today.
Download the pdf file with the analysis of Brazil's wage gap here.
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UPDATED ASSESSMENT OF SPAIN'S WAGE GAP 1975-2009 In 2009 Spain stays in line with the general trend followed by euro-driven economies, slightly sliding in their equalisation indices – since 2007– relative to U.S. wages. Yet, the slide in real wages will surely worsen in the entire euro area and even more so in Spain and other countries as the extreme austerity recession-side strategy that is being imposed ensues. The gradual transformation of Spanish wages into living wages is bound to experience a hard regression to the levels recorded many years ago. As could be expected, the ensuing effects of the systemic global capitalist crisis began to exert a toll on real wages in the entire Euro area in 2009, which continued in 2010 and 2011 and will be felt far more harshly from 2012 onward. Greece, Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Belgium and Spain have been forced to impose drastic economic policies that can no longer be considered supply sided or even recessionary but truly economically depressive. A euro-area policy centred on the harsh reduction of publicdeficits to 3% of GDP by 2013, is drastically cutting budgets in all areas of government at both national and municipal levels. However, “coincidentally”, the new European Union directives are imposing, and not just demanding, a sheer neoliberal systemic restructuring which will deepen the already supply-side ethos that was gradually put in place in the 1990s. In complete incongruence with a truly democratic ethos, the new directives are now focused on reducing wages to the minimum common denominator and on dismantling many labour rights. As it happens, given that euro-area countries no longer have a national currency that could be devalued to increase competitiveness, and that the European Central Bank’s sole goal is to contain inflation, euro-area economic strategy to increase competitiveness is now exclusively anchored on wage pauperisation. Thus, euro-area workers are at a real disadvantage vis-à-vis the rest of the world.
The capitalist systemic crisis has served to ensue a new assault on labour rights and the Welfare State in Spain and across the entire European Union. This will in all certainty decrease the workers’ share of income and increase the employers shareholder value in the coming years.
Download the pdf file with the analysis of Spain's wage gap here.
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UPDATED TO 2009!
TABLE T4*: 1975–2009 REAL-WAGE GAPS FOR TWELVE ECONOMIES, IN PURCHASING POWER PARITY (PPP) TERMS, FOR PRODUCTION-LINE MANUFACTURING WORKERS. *(The base table used for all PPP real-wage gap analysis)
In 2009, the international comparison of hourly compensation costs for production-line (PL) workers between the U.S. and selected developed and "emerging" markets,  shows, relative to 2007, most countries markedly widening their gap with the wages of their U.S. counterparts or little or no change in their equalisation indices. Only Japan reported a marked improvement, recording its best equalisation index since 1975. This will be the last report for production workers. Beginning with 2010, the data will report labour costs for all manufacturing employees, including production workers. Since 2008 Japan began to experience a strong revaluation of the yen with little increase in the PPP cost of living. This enabled Japan to record in 2009 its best living wage equalisation level ever. In contrast, the rest of the countries experienced substantial currency devaluations, strong PPP growth or real wage increases below the growth of U.S. wages, with respect to 2007. Thus, all the other countries increased their hourly compensation cost gaps with the U.S. except for Italy and Hong Kong, which managed to sustain their previous equalisation index.
Download the pdf file of Table 4 here.
TABLE T4-EUROPE: 1975–2009 REAL WAGE GAPS FOR EUROPEAN ECONOMIES, IN PURCHASING POWER PARITY (PPP) TERMS, FOR PRODUCTION-LINE MANUFACTURING WORKERS
In assessing the competitiveness in the equalisation of European countries’ manufacturing wages (total hourly compensation costs) for production line (PL) workers –in purchasing power parity (PPP) terms– with equivalent U.S. wages, most countries lost ground in 2009 relative to their 2007 position. Only Switzerland was able to increase its advantage while Italy and Austria were able to sustain it. Most Euro countries lost some ground, despite a small currency revaluation, for nominal wages grew less than their PPPs. Other countries, prominently the UK. Sweden and Norway, suffered a large devaluation, which provoked a dramatic drop in their wage equalisation indices, with the UK recording the worst performance.
Download the pdf file of Table 4 for European economies here.
TABLE T4-ASIA AND OCEANIA: 1975–2009 REAL-WAGE GAPS FOR ASIA AND OCEANIA, IN PURCHASING POWER PARITY (PPP) TERMS, FOR PRODUCTION-LINE MANUFACTURING WORKERS
In assessing the competitiveness in the equalisation of countries’ manufacturing wages (total hourly compensation costs) for production-line workers –in purchasing power parity (PPP) terms– with equivalent U.S. wages, most countries in Asia and Oceania lost ground in 2009 relative to their 2007 position. Only Japan was able to increase its advantage due to a strong revaluation of the yen. Several countries, particularly South Korea, Australia and New Zealand suffered devaluations that dropped their equalisation indices. The rest lost some ground or were barely able to sustain their 2007 position.
Download the pdf file of Table 4 for Asia and Oceania economies here.
Table T5: New living-wage gaps 1996–2009 –in purchasing power parity terms (PPPs)– vis-à-vis the U.S. for all manufacturing employees for the four largest economies in the Americas (Canada, Brazil, Mexico and Argentina)
The equalisation indices of hourly compensation costs for all manufacturing sector workers (AMWs) (blue & white collar) in Canada, Mexico, Brazil and Argentina, recorded an erosion of real wages and, thus, a widening of their wage gaps vis-à-vis equivalent U.S. workers with respect to 2008..
Download the pdf file for Table 5 of wage gaps for all employees in manufacturing in the Americas here.
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AEQUUS INDEX – Living-Wage Equalisation in the Manufacturing Sector
From inception, TLWNSI developed its living-wage equalisation index, which measures how close the real wages of manufacturing workers in a specific country are to those of equivalent workers in the U.S. in purchasing-power-parity terms. The index exposes either the size of the gap or, in some countries, the true compensation advantage that real wages have over the wages of equivalent U.S. workers. Given that in 2011 we expanded our list of 13 economies included in our living-wage assessments to up to 32 economies, we decided to convey the most relevant indicator of our work in a very explicit manner. Hence we have named our index the "Aequus Index", Latin for "equal" or "balanced", which accurately reflects the purpose of our index.
In doing so we provide two indices. The first index measures wage differences for all employees in the manufacturing sector,  which includes all persons employed full or part time in an establishment during a specified payroll period. The second index measures differences for production workers, which refers to only those employees who are engaged in activities directly or closely related to the production process. Both criteria belong to the methodology used by the Bureau of Labour Statistics (BLS) of the U.S. Department of Labour, our source for all nominal wages included in the indices. Yet, this will be the last time that we produce the Aequus Index for production workers, the same measurement that we have assessed since 2003 for 12 economies. The BLS has decided to no longer update wage data for production workers. We will, however, maintain this table readily available, given that it provides wage data as far back as 1975, allowing us to provide a comparison for many countries between that year and, in most instances, 2009. The index for all employees dates back, depending on the country, to 1996 and, except for India and China, compares the benchmark year with 2009 and will continue to be updated every year. India and China's wage data is currently available for the periods 1999-2007 and 2002-2008 respectively. A word of caution, nonetheless, is required with these data, for India and China data gathered by the BLS are not fully comparable to the rest of countries due to some inconsistencies in methodology. However, given that in both cases the BLS argues that this does not substantially affect the hourly compensation estimates, rough comparisons can still be made, and thus, we have decided to include them in our Aequus Index.
Download the 1996-2009 Aequss Index for All Employees here!
Download the 1975-2009 Aequss Index for Production Workers here!
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ARGENTINA'S MANUFACTURING LIVING-WAGE GAP: STILL A WAYS TO GO BUT STEADILY CLOSING IN
After the complete economic debacle of 2002, Argentina is enjoying a substantial recovery and real wages are at their best level ever. Yet, they still have considerable ground to cover before becoming of a living-wage kind; a goal that is realistically attainable in less than a decade if Argentina is able to sustain the current trend and control inflation
Under the new supply-side paradigm Argentina experienced a short bout of economic boom at the end of the century. But in 2001, the laissez-faire opening of Argentina’s economy actually resulted in its complete collapse due to the sheer speculative and predatory basis upon which it was anchored.  With “el corralito” –the actual freezing of all bank deposits due to lack of funds provoked by massive capital flight– Argentina was forced to declare a credit default of its large and mostly securitised foreign debt. As a consequence, since 2003, Argentina has moved from sheer laissez-faire to far more cautious economic policies –with some measure of regulation, and a less privatised and a more demand-side economic approach.
As for the quality of wages, although real wages in Argentina since WWII were not nearly as good as they were in the first part of the century, they continued to be by far the highest in Iberian America and reflected low levels of inequality up to the mid seventies. To be sure, with the abandonment of demand-side economics in favour of a sheer neoclassical approach, real wages deteriorated substantially –except during the brief period of neoliberal GDP growth during the last decade of the past century, and inequality grew exponentially, particularly during the turn of the century until the economy collapsed in 2001-2002. Since then real wages have improved dramatically in line with the unprecedented sustained economic recovery that began in 2003. As a result, manufacturing real wages in particular are at their highest level since at least 1996, more than doubling their previous real value during the short neoliberal boom.
By the same token, since 2003 the living-wage gap vis-àvis equivalent real wages in the U.S. has decreased dramatically as well and, as could be expected, it is much smaller than comparable manufacturing wage gaps among its counterparts in Brazil and Mexico, the largest economies in the region.
Nonetheless, from TLWNSI’s (The Living Wages North and South Initiative) living-wage perspective, before Argentina’s real wages in the manufacturing sector can be considered of a living-wage kind, they still have considerable ground to cover to reach the levels of Western Europe and East Asian wages. Yet, if Argentina is able to sustain the current trend, it will cross the livingwage threshold in less than a decade at a gradual pace and will attain comparable wages –in living-wage terms– to those of Western European and East Asian countries. A realistic goal indeed.
Download the assessment of Argentina's's living-wage gap here!
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NEW EDITION OF TLWNSI'S WORKING DRAFT!
The idea of The Living Wages North and South Initiative (TLWNSI)It was conceived to address a very conspicuous question: why do workers in Southern countries, who work for global corporations, earn a miserable wage by any standard, whilst their counterparts in  Northern countries earn a living wage for doing the same job, of equivalent market value, for the same corporation?
Our work drew a first certainty: the wages paid to workers in the South have nothing to do with the cost of living differentials between economies; rather, they have to do with the logic of comparative advantages that puts supply and demand arguments to work on behalf of a global market system that practices labour exploitation as a core strategic asset of its global operations model.
Nevertheless, contrary to what we envisioned, when the first decade of the current century came to an end, we saw an ever more entrenched fixation with supply-side neoliberal economics both among governments and markets, and a much less than expected opposition from the part of people, both as citizens and consumers, despite their substantial and exponentially growing dissatisfaction. This despite the dramatic and evident systemic crises of the current undemocratically imposed market-driven ethos.
This has moved us to redefine our focus and variables. That is, our living wage concept and argumentation to support it remains exactly the same, but our strategy and tactics have been redesigned to have a full bearing on the marketocratic ethos in which we are living. We go about this through an approach that address the logic of the market in such a way that –in sync with a wide global movement of civil society organisations– we can realistically expect to gradually transition from the current market-driven paradigm into the new true-democracy paradigm in the term of thirty years or about one generation.
In this way, by clicking here you will get a copy of the latest edition of TLWNSI’s working draft, for it will always remain a working draft as we continue to adjust our strategy and tactics to increase effectiveness.
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Observations on the Final Report of the Special Representative of the UN Secretary General on the issue of human rights and transnational corporations and other business enterprises, John Ruggie*
Alejandro Teitelbaum has devoted many years to work on the issue of human rights in the realm of global corporations and other business enterprises. As the former Permanent Representative to the United Nations Office in Geneva, for the American Association of Jurists –based in Buenos Aires, he spent time toiling with the bureaucracies of the UN and member States, in his pursuit of an international legal framework that would harness business activity so that it would stop violating a wide array of human rights in its sphere of influence, as is customarily the case today. As such, he witnessed how, time and time again, the bureaucracies succumbed to the will of the leading economic powers, who were adamant at maintaining the preeminence of corporate interest over their responsibility for their infringement on human rights.
In recent years, Teitelbaum has assessed the extremely pro-business slanted work of John Ruggie, appointed, arguably, to design a framework that would “increase the stakes” for corporations when infringing upon human rights in their daily operations. Teitelbaum has consistently criticised Ruggie’s clear inclination for neoliberal ideology at the service of transnational economic power, which clearly opposes any kind of instrument that would govern, in a binding manner, business practices concerning human rights.
In this brief, Teitelbaum provides his final observations on the perspective that Ruggie attempts to advance in his Final Report. The author incorporates into his assessment the consistent laissez faire course followed by Ruggie since the time when he was the UN Secretary General’s principal advisor for the Global Compact; a public relations instrument –now even derided inside the UN– to allow companies to look good without really doing the public good. In his previous assessment,** Teitelbaum succinctly concludes that Ruggie puts up an act to change so that, at the end, everything remains the same. That is, he advances no binding rules to ensure that business activity does not infringe on human rights, but only an encouragement to voluntarily incorporate into business culture a consideration for respecting human rights. Thus, the author’s recommendation to really address the issue was that “the UN Human Rights Council should make an about turn of 180 degrees on this issue to be in sync with the gravity of the social and economic situation in which the world is living”.
Yet, as could be expected, Ruggie’s Final Report remains consistently on the same course and constitutes merely a meek orientation, wrapped as “Guiding Principles,” that lacks a binding nature for both States and corporations. It is on this respect that the author makes his main observation, conspicuously pointing at the central fault of Ruggie’s laissez faire non-binding premise. His argument is that Ruggie takes advantage of a past mistake made in the Norms Draft for Business and Human Rights “to create the confusion between the inherent obligation of the State to promote, guarantee and ensure respect for human rights and the obligation –and the corresponding direct responsibility in case of violation– of corporations (as of all moral and physical private persons) of respecting the human rights upheld in international norms.” For Ruggie, the author argues, “human rights would constitute a special category of rights that can only be violated by States and their civil servants and not by private persons, except in certain war crimes and crimes against humanity”. However, the author asserts, “there is no doubt that transnational corporations, as all private persons, have the obligation to respect the law, and if they do not do it they must suffer the civil and penal sanctions at an international level as well, which clearly emerges of a relatively attentive examination of the current international instruments”.
In this way, Teitelbaum’s conclusion is that if transnational corporations benefited when the Norms Draft was buried, Ruggie’s Final Report sinks again any attempt to create an instrument of binding nature to enforce respect for human rights in the realm of business activity. Consequently, and as could be foreseen, Ruggie’s work is once again a ploy so that everything remains the same.
*(A/HRC/17/31, 21 March 2011)
** A Dialogue with Ruggie?
Download the assessment of Ruggie's Final Report (2011) here!
Pour obtenir un exemplaire de la version française, cliquez ici.
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mexico: HELL IS THE TIJUANA ASSEMBLY LINE
The maquiladora factories, where consumer goods are pieced together along the Mexican-US border, are falling apart. Their workforce is without rights, without hope, and increasingly without jobs
Anne Vigna’s incisive account of the maquiladora sector –in-bond plants that import about 97% of the parts, which are assembled to be then “exported” back to their  contractors– exhibits the dire and complete disenfranchisement of Mexican workers in the formal economy. Yet over 50% of workers toil at a living in the even worse underground economy.
In Vigna’s first hand experience, right on the field during 2009, she talked to workers earning even lower wages. She found workers –mostly women– earning $58 per week in the electronics sector. That is barely more than a dollar an hour (about $1,16), for the typical work week of at least 48 to 50 hours. In the apparel sector, the hourly pay could easily be below a dollar an hour. Such labour endowments are, to be sure, what is now commonly regarded as modern-slave work wages. Contrary to popular wisdom, slavery in the XXI century is not by any account a thing of the past. It is a social phenomenon that has been growing in direct proportion to the grip that today’s global Darwinian capitalism –the worst of its kind– is increasing on a world where representative democracy has been supplanted by marketocracy, where the institutional investors and their corporations dictate the pubic agendas.
Indeed, the most prominent feature of the practice of modern-slave work in Mexico’s maquiladora sweatshops –a far more accurate adjective to refer to this mode of production– is the complete, systematic and customary violation of all international labour rights as well as many other human rights that Mexico’s Congress ratified many years ago. This creates an ethos clearly reminiscent of the worst kind of social Darwinism practiced in the factories of the English Industrial Revolution that Charles Dickens so eloquently portrayed.
In the case of Mexico, Anne Vigna’s brief vividly exposes the dire circumstance that millions of Mexicans working in the maquiladora sector throughout Mexico endure daily in a gripping account of first hand experiences. Since NAFTA took effect, millions of Mexicans have been displaced –completely disenfranchised– for they lost their past livelihoods as part of the so-called “market externalities” of today’s global economy. Many of them have sought to work in the sweatshop sector as a measure of last recourse; many after trying unsuccessfully to migrate to the U.S. where many corporations and millions of consumers benefit from the modern-slave work conditions model of Mexico’s maquiladora industry.
As could be expected, the maquiladora sector is only a symptom of a far more complex and dire problem. The actual systematic depredation and destruction of this nation for the last three decades is due to the close partnership between the Mexican oligarchy, foreign corporations and their governments, who have worked closely –through the traditional centre-periphery relationship– to exploit at ease the human and natural resources of this depredated territory.
Anne Vigna’s account of life in the maquiladora sector represents a rather important contribution to expose the truth about Mexico and denounce it. Far from being a democracy, the real Mexico can only be regarded as a devastated “protectorate” of global Darwinian capitalism, imposed jointly by the Mexican oligarchic mafias and their tutors in the global centres of economic power.
Download Anne Vigna's account of Mexico's sweatshops here!
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INDIA'S LIVING-WAGE GAP
Another modern slave work ethos
Regarding the real value of the manufacturing wages, India’s living-wage  gap is not as dramatically dire as that of China. However, as could be expected, it is still one of the worst in the world, for it clearly exhibits its sheer modern slave work nature. As a result, India’s increasingly deregulated economy is rapidly becoming a very important source of misery wage manufacturing workers for the Darwinian capitalist system of today’s global corporations and their institutional investors. Whereas there is increasing talk about China reaching a turning point when its pool of surplus labour would start declining, India is expected to contribute, over the next few decades, a larger labour supply to its manufacturing sector than China. Yet, to be sure, this will continue to occur at rather meagre real wages. Consequently, along with China, India will continue to exert tremendous downward pressure on the wages of all the developing nations that have bet their economic strategy on the traditional centre-periphery relationship, anchored on the offering of comparative advantages. In this way, as Álvaro de Regil, the author of this analysis argues, from the perspective of real democracy and human rights, this poses a rather intractable problem for the labour endowments of workers worldwide, but all the more so for those in the periphery of the world’s Darwinian capitalist system in which we have been undemocratically immersed.
Download the assessment of India's living-wage gap here!
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MEXICO VIS-À-VIS THE ROBBER SCUM
Dignity or Capitulation in the Face of Mexico's Abduction by the Political-Business Mafias
What is Mexico dying of? Next to the miseries of modernity, a whole series of inherited miseries distress us, a by-product of the resilience of ancient forms of production already outdated, with all their entourage of anachronistic political and social relations. Not only those alive besiege us, but also the dead. (Marx, 1867) If we had the chance to look at Mexico from a point in the future, surely we would shudder at seeing the whirlwind of contingencies in which it sinks, and with painful urgency we would ask ourselves, why did it happen this way? Yet today the problem is to understand our situation from the point of view that we have access to: the present. And, from this vision, the truth is not only that daily we are stressed out by poverty, unemployment and violence, but, all the more, by, from the citizen’s perspective, the lack of solutions, unless we endow ourselves with another political class: for the current one lacks moral stature, strategic intelligence, public responsibility and vocation to lift the country from its sinking. "Mexico vis-à-vis the Robber Scum" is an assessment of the outrageous situation endured by our country. It is about the systemic illegalities executed by those in government invariably against the citizenry. It is about an institutional edifice that establishes predatory privileges for the coalition in power. It is about, unequivocally, a “despotic island” that maintains, exacerbated, all the authoritarian and illegal depravities of the Mexican State, with repercussions deeply damaging of our social wellbeing; as if its historical clock had stopped before adjusting to the West, and the time of modernity remained an unreachable promise. This book describes the systematic and paralysing plundering that Mexican society is facing up to. Nonetheless, for its author, Álvaro de Regil, to think about Mexico’s problems just as a matter of moral order is tantamount considering the predators, the robber scum, would need to humanise how they deal with the citizenry and be upright with the public matter. For this, to infuse morality, is indeed to go against the nature of the current regime. Moreover, a strategy of this kind does not end with the ungovernability and misgovernment, for the plundering has been exacerbated by the institutionalisation of a perverse method. De Regil compartmentalises comprehensively and critically the institutional system and its incapacity to process the challenges posed by today’s environs. Even more, the author ponders beyond the mere critique of the perverse effects of neoliberalism, and explores a grim and subdued terrain: the pending responsibilities of the citizenry. In this area, he underscores the issues of the modern concept of democracy, demanding the fundamental conditions: participation, rights and empowerment. That is, we are what we are, by virtue of our participation (active or passive) in the public life of our society. Hence his final proposal is a call to action to get rid of, as citizens, the inherited miseries, as Marx would say, that keep Mexico in agony. In sync with this vision, "Mexico vis-à-vis the Robber Scum" puts together quite revealing dimensions of the undertones of the political process and their meaning in the national and international debate. To grasp the character and the motives of this agony in which Mexico is trapped will allow us to assess our life as citizens and to know where we are heading. Guadalupe Lizárraga Independent journalist and writer
Download here the detailed assessment about the threat that looms over Mexico! (document currently available only in Spanish-language version).
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A COMPARATIVE APPROXIMATION INTO CHINA'S LIVING – WAGE GAP
China’s manufacturing wages incorporate millions into the modern slave work model of today’s Darwinian capitalism in one of its direst possible forms
Some recent studies argue that, due to demographic trends, this economy may be about to reach the turning point when its pool of surplus labour would start declining, which would make real wages rise. The number of cases of labour strikes and other forms of pressure that have resulted in dramatic wage increases are apparently mounting. But this is still too early to tell and it is strictly based on traditional market logic. On the contrary, if China eventually runs short of workers, market logic –Darwinian as it is– would make multinationals leave China to better labour exploitation  heavens, where the political-business oligarchies would be more than happy to let corporations exploit their citizens in exchange for a share of the profits. This Darwinian logic imposes a tremendous downward pressure on the quality of life of many societies in the developing world, for governments have bet their sustainability in power on customary centre-periphery relationships. The result is a rather dire situation for the vast majority of the population in these societies. Neoliberal globalisation has globalised consumer markets, prices and access to labour pools, but wages, deliberately, have not been globalised. In this sense, the extremely low level of China’s wages is a perfect strategic element used by corporations to maintain strong pressure on the manufacturing wages of other economies that compete with China. This is the political economy milieu explaining the labour endowments of Chinese workers. Given the importance of China as a major global player, the TLWNSI project has been seeking, for several years, reliable data that can enable it to assess the state of real wages in China and their gap with a living wage. TLWNSI regularly uses as its main source for its analytical work the annual reports published by the Bureau of Labour Statistics (BLS) of the U.S. Department of Labour. Lett and Bannister –the authors of the BLS’ reports on China– argue that albeit these data are not as reliable as those for the most developed economies, the accumulated evidence to date, including China’s First National Economic Census..., supports the general validity of the BLS’ annual calculations on China’s manufacturing employment and labour compensation. In this way, TLWNSI now deems it appropriate to prepare its first comparative report of hourly compensation costs in China’s manufacturing sector vis-à-vis selected countries. From TLWNSI's living wage concept perspective, this work assesses the dimension of the gap between the real wage and the living wage. Subsequently, two projections into the future of China’s manufacturing sector wages are performed. The first projection is based on the growth experienced during the five-year period of this study (2002-2006). This will allow us to prospect how long it would take to close the living-wage gap –at the average nominal wage growth rate of 9,2%– under certain assumed conditions. The second projection explores the average growth rate of Chinese real wages, in the manufacturing sector, required to close the gap in thirty years –TLWNSI’s standard to close wide wage gaps– under certain assumed conditions. Parting from TLWNSI’s living wage concept, the two projections in this assessment expose, comparatively, the dramatic gap that currently exists between the real wages paid, on average, to all manufacturing employees in China and the nominal wages that would constitute a living wage in real terms. This gap is dramatically wider than those prevalent in the two largest East Asia economies of Japan and South Korea, and still quite wider than those in some of the so-called emerging markets in other regions, such as Brazil and Mexico. Moreover, the likelihood that China’s future economic policy will integrate a reasonable long-term plan of thirty years to achieve labour endowments of a living wage condition is currently unrealistic. Although, in the last few years, Chinese real wages have been appreciating, China’s role as the largest supplier of cheap labour –under modern slave conditions– in the global capitalist system’s international division of labour, does not show any signs of any significant abatement. China’s development policies are still anchored on offering the traditional centre-periphery comparative advantages, namely cheap labour. Thus, the weight of China’s huge labour pool will continue to exert strong downward pressure on the wages of other developing economies that are dependent on centre-periphery relationships.
Download the assessment of China's living-wage gap here!
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BRAZIL: in perfect harmony with tlwnsi's concept
Brazil undertakes a historical policy to close wage gaps that stands out for its strong affinity with Jus Semper’s TLWNSI concept for the realisation of living wages
President Lula’s Brazilian government, approaching the end of its second term, has just made a decision that is both transcendental and historical due to its paramount effectiveness in the reduction of poverty in a very meaningful manner and in the span of little more than a decade. Beginning in 2010 the Brazilian State intends to increase the real minimum wage annually, until 2023, following the simple rule of increasing nominal wages by applying the rate of inflation plus the GPD growth recorded two years earlier. Without a doubt, such policy will gradually transform Brazilian wages into living wages. In this way, Brazil commits to closing the wage gap  prevailing between current Brazilian labour endowments, still undignified, and the living wage ethos prevailing in developed economies, within the current market context. This commitment makes the Brazilian State achieve a great deal of congruence with the most primeval raison d'être of any State that takes pride in being a democracy: the pursuit of the welfare of every rank of society, and especially of the dispossessed. The Brazilian plan brings a great dose of encouragement for Jus Semper’s mission, for it exhibits rather strong affinity with our concept: The Living Wages North and South Initiative (TLWNSI); an initiative designed to close the wage gap between so-called developed and developing economies, through the gradual increase of real wages, by increasing nominal wages several percentage points above inflation. Our ebullience is unprecedented for TLWNSI has always argued that, unfortunately, the vast majority of so-called democratic governments have become market agents of the world’s capitalist system. Consequently, their performance typically favours institutional investors and their corporations. A second alternative to close the wage gap is the pressure of consumer power on businesses; an option until now unsuccessful, however, for the development of a responsible consumer culture is still in its infancy. Therefore, if by chance a State commits itself to closing the wage gap in its society, as is the case in Brazil, the setting could not be better to fulfil a fundamental human right in the context of real democracy, with the full power of the State: the right to a just and favourable remuneration ensuring the worker and his/her family an existence worthy of human dignity, as stipulated in Article 23 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In this manner, Jus Semper obtains conclusive evidence, and hardly surpassable, that provides a powerful argument to assert, convincingly, that the realisation of this human right is perfectly possible through the gradual closing of the wage gap, as proposed by TLWNSI, when a country counts with the resolute political will of the State. Download assessment of Brazil's new wage appreciation policy here!
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ILO's case for wage-led policies
This issue of the International Journal of Labour Research addresses a central issue, if not the key issue for the labour movement: that of wages and what has happened to them over the past three decades. Clearly, the combination of restrictive macroeconomic policies, trade liberalisation and the financialisation of corporate governance has drastically changed the landscape in which collective  bargaining takes place. In the North “concession bargaining” has become a familiar concept, and in the South, the shift in the balance of power has meant that workers are not able to capture the hard-earned fruits of economic growth.
The This new context, by weakening labour market regulation both de jure and de facto has profoundly eroded trade unions’ ability to connect improvements in standard of living to productivity gains. This has resulted not only in increased wage and income inequalities and higher incidence of low pay, but also in an increasingly dysfunctional macroeconomic picture.
One of the main findings is that wage-led growth economic s t rategies , far f rom undermining growth as is argued by mainstream economists, would, on the contrary, improve growth rates. This is an important argument as it directly contradicts the current “competitiveness” policy orientation in much of the world – an orientation based on permanent wage moderation. Clearly, such a recovery can only materialise if there is a global rebalancing of wages and productivity. This will not only require that trade unions intensify their efforts at the bargaining table and in pushing for better minimum wages, but that they fight to change the new global “rules of the game” that are diametrically set against them. In this area, as for others, collective action is a sine qua non condition to achieving any success Click here or on the picture to download the full pdf file.
Click here to download the french version of the ILO's wage-led case in a pdf file.
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