Dictionary:
ma·qui·la·do·ra (mä-kē'lä-dō'rä)  |
[American Spanish, place where the miller's fee is paid, maquiladora, from Spanish maquila, portion received by the miller in return for milling one's grain, from Old Spanish, from Arabic makīla, measured, measure of capacity, feminine passive participle of kāla, to measure.]
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| Business Dictionary: Maquiladora |
A manufacturing operation at the U.S.-Mexican border, mostly in Texas and California, that usually includes two plants, one on each side of the border, to take advantage of free trade allowed between the two, low Mexican wages, and U.S. Distribution facilities.
| WordNet: maquiladora |
The noun has one meaning:
Meaning #1:
an assembly plant in Mexico (near the United States border); parts are shipped into Mexico and the finished product is shipped back across the border
| Wikipedia: Maquiladora |
A maquiladora or maquila is a factory that imports materials and equipment on a duty-free and tariff-free basis for assembly or manufacturing and then re-exports the assembled product, usually back to the originating country. A maquila is also referred to as a "twin plant", or "in-bond" industry. Currently about 1.3 million Mexicans are employed in maquiladoras.
The term "maquiladora", in the Spanish language, refers to the practice of millers charging a "maquila", or "miller's portion" for processing other people's grain.[1]
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Mexico has a socialized medical system to which all Maquiladora operations must pay into. A maquiladora of over 150 employees is required to keep a doctor on staff in addition to employees having access to the public medical system.
Mexico has three different minimum wages, depending on which part of the country a company is operating in. The minimum wage for the border region is highest at 49 pesos per day. The average starting wage for most maquiladora workers is 110 pesos per day, with workers who stay for more than 3 months realizing a significant increase.[citation needed] Mexico has a 48 hour work week, with employees receiving a full day of pay on Sunday. Additionally, Mexico has a socialized medical system which every employer must pay into, social security, severance pay, paid holidays, mandatory bonuses and child care. The fully loaded wage rate for a new unskilled laborer working in a maquiladora is $2.30 an hour, taking into consideration all of the cash and non cash fringe benefits.
All raw materials, parts and machinery are imported into Mexico on a temporary basis duty free for up to 18 months. For machinery this can be renewed indefinitely, for raw materials and parts they must leave the country as finished goods on a first in first out basis over the 18 month period. If a Maquiladora wishes to import a North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) good into the country on a permanent basis, it may do so with no duty but the company will have to pay the Mexican VAT rate of 10% on the value of the good.
During the later half of the sixties, maquiladora industries rapidly expanded both geographically and economically and by 1985, had become Mexico’s second largest source of income from foreign exports, behind oil.[3] Since 1973, maquiladoras have also accounted for nearly half of Mexico’s export assembly.[3] Between 1995 and 2000, exports of assembled products in Mexico tripled, and the rate of the industry’s growth amounted to about one new factory per day.[4] By the late twentieth century, the industry accounted for approximately 25 percent of Mexico’s gross domestic product, and 17 percent of total Mexican employment.[5] However, profits generated from maquiladoras are typically sent back to the United States, or other investor-based countries, and therefore, maquiladoras do not promote direct economic development within Mexico.
Since globalization and physical restructuring[citation needed] have contributed to the competition and advent of low-cost offshore assembly in places like Taiwan, China, and countries in Central America, maquiladoras in Mexico have been on the decline since 2000: According to federal sources, approximately 529 maquiladoras shut down and investment in assembly plants decreased by 8.2 percent in 2002.[4] Despite the decline, there still exist over 3,000 maquiladoras along the 2,000 mile-long United States–Mexico border, providing employment for approximately one million workers, and importing more than $51 billion in supplies into Mexico.[6] As of 2006, maquiladoras still account for 45 percent of Mexico’s exports.[7] Maquiladoras, in general, are best represented among operations that are particularly assembly intensive.
Mexico possesses a strong system of labor laws, yet enforcement of these laws within the maquiladora industry is often lax.[8] While most people who were employed under the original Bracero Program were men, the majority of maquiladora employees are women.[9] Women are considered to be preferred to men because women will typically work for cheaper wages, and are easier for male employers to direct. Some maquiladora operators have admitted a preference for women also because women often display a greater level of patience and higher dexterity than men in performing the standardized and repetitive work of an assembly plant. Therefore, the maquila industry has, based on these conditions, been accused of the sexual exploitation of women. On the other hand, opponents of this allegation argue that women are paid higher wages working in a maquiladora than they commonly would in other forms of employment in northern Mexico. In addition, some have argued that maquiladora employment enables women to make their own money and thus become more independent, while teaching them new skills and giving them more opportunities that they may not otherwise acquire.
The maquiladora operators have also been accused of discrimination of child-bearing-aged women in order to keep costs down because Mexico’s labor laws contain extensive maternity requirements. They often demand pregnancy tests as a prerequisite to employment or insist that female workers use birth control.[10] If a woman is found to be pregnant, it may likely hinder her chances of getting hired, and if an existing worker becomes pregnant, she may be terminated.[10]
In recent years, however, there has been a shift toward hiring more male workers due to labor shortages and the emergence of heavier industries operating within maquiladoras.
One of the main goals of the Border Industrialization Program was to attract foreign investment. In order to do that, Mexican labor must remain cheap and competitive with other major export countries to keep the United States firms operating within the Mexican assembly plants. So to keep production high and costs low, maquiladoras have been accused of harsh working environments, which include low wages, forced overtime, and illegal working conditions for minors. Mexican women work for approximately one-sixth of the U.S. hourly rate.[11] It has also been reported that the income one receives from work in a maquiladora is rarely enough to support a family. Low wages are a main reason for foreign investment. However, some management personnel condone low wages in maquiladoras by arguing that the cost of living is lower in Mexico than in other countries. Employee turnover is also relatively high, reaching up to 80 percent in some maquiladoras, due in part to stress and health threats common to this type of labor.[12]
Many of the environmental concerns, particularly in the border region of Mexico, are attributed to Mexico’s economic development strategies and intense industrialization. The dense number of maquiladoras and the inability of Mexico’s environmental regulatory program to keep up with the rapid growth of the industry over the past quarter of a century have contributed to major environmental problems. Both the United States and Mexican governments claim to be committed to environmental protection, yet environmental policies have not always been enforced.[13] although the La Paz Agreement signed by Mexico and the United States in 1983 requires hazardous waste created by United States’ corporations to be transported back to the U.S. for disposal, some companies avoid paying disposal costs by dumping toxins and other waste into Mexico’s rivers or deserts. The United States Environmental Protection Agency reports that only 91 of the 600 maquiladoras located along the Texas-Mexico border have returned waste to the United States since 1987.[14]
Although NAFTA recognizes the need to prevent hazardous waste, Mexico’s waste imports have nearly doubled in recent years, and most of this waste comes from the United States.[15] In Mexico, some maquiladoras lack proper waste management facilities and the ability to clean up disposal sites, which is why some of the hazardous waste is illegally disposed of.[14] Environmental hazards associated with some maquiladoras include polluted rivers and contaminated drinking water. According to the Southwest Consortium for Environmental Research and Policy (SCERP), all streams and rivers in the border region have suffered some amount of devastation as a consequence of the maquila industry.[16] Furthermore, the United States Geological Survey, the state of California, and the Imperial County Health Department have all asserted the New River, which flows from Mexicali near the border to the Salton Sea in California to be "the dirtiest river in America".[17] Ongoing exposure to toxic wastes can contribute to health problems such as cancer, skin disease, hepatitis, and birth defects. Furthermore, Mexico does not have any laws requiring industries to publicize basic environmental data on their operations, and so Mexico does not keep a very accurate inventory of hazardous waste.[14]
The Border 2012 plan devised by the EPA has an extensive plan to help with environmental issues along the US Mexico Border. You may view the entire plan by visiting http://www.epa.gov/border2012/.
In these times of great competition in international markets, is very important that companies have the best tools to be more competitive, to track inventory and regulatory compliance. The main idea of a solution of an automated system is saving time and money by managing the needs of the most complex manufacturing and distribution operations in Mexico. With a Mexican Foreign Trade Software the user must have the following benefits: [18]
"Maquiladora" is a song by the British alternative rock band Radiohead. It appears on the B-side of the single for High and Dry released in February 1995. The track was considered for Radiohead's second LP The Bends.
At the Drive-In song "Invalid Litter Dept." criticizes the work done at maquiladoras and the mysterious murders of some of their female employees.
Gregory Frost's SF novelette Madonna of the Maquiladora (Asimov's Science Fiction 2002) was a finalist for the James Tiptree, Jr. Award, the Nebula Award, the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award and the Hugo Award.
In Steve Earle's song 'What's A Simple Man To Do?' the narrator is an imprisoned Mexican who lost his job in a maquiladora before resorting to illegal entry.
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 | Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Business Dictionary. Dictionary of Business Terms. Copyright © 2000 by Barron's Educational Series, Inc. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| WordNet. WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Maquiladora". Read more |
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