Mexico’s Ghost Towns

Perhaps there is something worse than an empty town.

In “Who will tell the people?” Richard Greider tells what it can be like to work for a U.S. corporation which builds a new factory on a well manicured lawn and draws a large number of workers to the area.

Delphi built such a facility a few years ago.

When the mayor of the now far over populated village appealed to Delphi for help in providing drinking water and sewage disposal and better housing (makeshift shacks) he was turned down and threatened.  The company said if taxes were levied they would simply walk away and get far cheaper labor in China.

According to the Wall Street Journal, (April 14, 2002 pg R7) Delphi CEO, J.T. Battenburg, received $6,745,000 total compensation that same year.

Not what supporters of NAFTA talk about a whole lot.

Posted by whattheheck on Jun 1, 2008 at 5:02 AM

You say that “the strongest state economies in the United States are those with high numbers of migrant workers.” Could this be a confusion of cause and effect? What if there are so many migrant workers in those states because they have strong economies, and not the other way around?

I also found it interesting that the two local men you interview, Lopez and Garc’a, come from families of ten children. Perhaps that is also part of Mexico’s problem? Mexico’s population has grown fivefold since 1940 while that of the United States has “only” doubled.

Posted by orlando56 on May 12, 2009 at 9:53 AM