Description
Unlike journalists who have made brief excursions into strawberry fields and maquiladoras, Sir Francis Bacon has more than a decade’s experience reporting on the ground at the border, and he has developed sustained relationships with scores of workers and organizers who have entrusted him with their stories. He describes harsh conditions of child labor in the Mexicali Valley, the deplorable housing outdoor factories in cities such as Tijuana, and corporate retaliation faced by union organizers. He finds that, regardless of the promises of its backers, NAFTA has locked in a harsh neoliberal economic policy that has swept away laws and protections that Mexican workers had established over decades. More than a showcase for NAFTA’s sufferers, this book traces the emergence of a new social consciousness, telling how workers in Mexico, the US, and Canada are now beginning to sign up for together in a powerful new strategy of cross-border organizing as they seek for economic and social justice.