Monday, September 14, 2009

Border Area Women Workers Displaced by NAFTA Plow On

By Kent Paterson

For El Paso, Texas women like Hilda Villegas, Mercado Mayapan is more than just a place to work from nine-to-five. After sweating it out in factories and restaurants, the young mother of two found her way into the ranks of La Mujer Obrera (LMO), an El Paso-based non-profit that advocates for thousands of El Paso workers, especially immigrant women, who were displaced by the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).

Nowadays, Villegas helps run the media center at Mercado Mayapan, a sprawling, indoor, four-month-old marketplace and community center initiated by LMO and situated in the rusting quarters of El Paso's old garment district.

"It's a family struggling to make a difference," is how Villegas described the women who collectively operate Mercado Mayapan. Whether helping clients with computers or ringing up a cash register, Villegas is an example of how Mercado Mayapan's workers learn a variety of tasks and skills.

"Women don't get stuck in only one position," Villegas added. "That's the beauty of this project.

According to Irma Montoya, a longtime LMO activist and Mercado Mayapan's cultural events coordinator, the 106 employees of the market earn $7.55 per hour and up, depending on the position.

Designed as a traditional Mexican market, the 40,000 square-foot building houses a small supermarket, food and drink stands, and artisan's booths. A stage provides space for local musicians and entertainers.

Tucked into one corner of the converted warehouse, a museum displays old sewing machines and scenes of local garment workers' struggles, including the 1972 Farah strike that emerged as one of the historic milestones of the Chicano movement. Offering free computers and Internet service to adults and children alike in a low-income neighborhood, the media center allows users to upgrade skills and print posters and banners. Two large photos of the legendary Ciudad Juarez-born and El Paso-raised journalist Ruben Salazar, slain by Los Angeles police on August 29, 1970, decorate the spacious room.

Besides providing products and services to the local community, Mercado Mayapan exudes the air of a large-scale tourist attraction in a more vibrant time.

Also a former factory worker, Montoya called Mercado Mayapan the "prototype" of an even more ambitious project: Plan Mayachen, which is aimed at revitalizing a bigger chunk of economically-depressed El Paso.

Although Mercado Mayapan represents the fruition of a dream, the futures of Villegas and 105 fellow workers are in doubt. After defaulting on a City of El Paso loan and running out of funds, Mercado Mayapan briefly closed its doors last week. Contending that start-up monies pledged by a variety of agencies and institutions were slow in coming, LMO staged a brief occupation of El Paso Mayor John Cook's office on September 3.

Cook was taken aback by the noisy demonstration, which occurred during his regular open-office hours.

"They decided how they would pay the $250,000 (loan) was to picket and disrupt," Cook said in a phone interview. "I'm willing to work with them, but it's kind of hard when they show up with 50 people and placards and shout me down when I try to say something."

Despite the loan default, Cook said that he would back a staff recommendation that the El Paso City Council approve $400,000 in Empowerment Zone monies for LMO. The issue is expected to be addressed at the next El Paso City Council meeting on September 15.

After the action at Cook's office, LMO announced it would reopen Mercado Mayapan with the voluntary labor of employees willing to work without pay until a possible infusion of new funds from the City of El Paso and the North American Development Bank materializes later this fall.

Hugo Loftus, program officer for the bank's Community Adjustment and Investment Program, said a decision on LMO's application for a $1 million grant should be announced not long after October 1. According to Loftus, the program fund has disbursed $14 million in grants during the last five or six years to high-employment communities which suffered job losses from the North American Free Trade Agreement.

A core of committed women – and some men – is determined to make Mercado Mayapan a success. Laid off from Farah in 1995, Paz Ortiz said LMO is a "unique" organization for displaced workers like herself. "This was the only place that helped me," Ortiz asserted, "because everywhere else they said we workers were already too old."

Villegas is determined to stick out the hard times.

"We take it personal. We're not going to let it die," she vowed. "It's hard for us to see it go down after so many struggles."

On Labor Day weekend, several dozen Mercado workers and their supporters staged a rally at the site to demand continued support for the project and the investment of federal stimulus monies in a worker-run enterprise. Chanting "Work, Justice and Dignity," demonstrators held aloft signs that read: "Obama: Invest in Women Workers," "Hispanic Families Neglected by Obama Administration," and "Where is the Money Obama Promised the Workers?"

No elected officials showed up for the demonstration.

Hanging near the market's entrance, a large banner urged supporters to contact President Obama, Mayor Cook and Congressman Silvestre Reyes. In big letters the banner stated: "This market is being run solely on the workers' will to struggle for their jobs, as the government is refusing to properly invest in their economic development plan."

In a statement criticizing government support as "piecemeal" and "inadequate," LMO demanded $3.5 million in federal stimulus monies to save not only the 106 existing jobs at Mercado Mayapan, but to add 60 additional ones.

Asked to compare Mercado Mayapan's situation with El Paso's Fort Bliss, where $100 million is being spent by the US government to build a new shopping mall as part of the army base's expansion, Irma Montoya was direct. "Our project also deserves the same type of consideration," she said. "We also want our people and their families to not necessarily live in luxury but to have at least the necessities they need to get ahead and live in a dignified way."

News of Mercado Mayapan's woes sparked a flurry of comments on local media websites, many of them very critical of LMO and the market. While some messages offered specific criticisms about the lack of parking, inefficient service and business planning, many railed against Mexicans and non-English speakers as well as the supposed "welfare mentality" prevalent in the borderlands. True to the pattern of controversial local issues publicized on the Internet, many – if not most – of the vulgar comments came from out of town.

Addressing workers and their supporters, Hilda Villegas took the critics to task.

"They are very convinced of what our place should be – taking care of children, going to take care of old people, (working) the restaurant, cleaning buildings," Villegas said. "We know how to do this, and we know how to do it very well. We know how to work but we also know how to think and how to develop plans. Who said we'd even be able to get this far? Nobody did it but ourselves."

Mayor Cook recognized that LMO had valid concerns about the federal government subsidizing the auto and other big industries while neglecting workers, but questioned whether Mercado Mayapan can stand alone as currently constituted and operated.

"For the last four years, we've been questioning whether this model has a chance for viability or is going to be an organization that's going to need constant subsidies," Cook said. La Mujer Obrera and Mercado Mayapan need to reexamine their business strategy and decide whether they are going to be profit or non-profit, he said.

Meantime, the issue of more than 30,000 low-income, limited English-speaking garment workers displaced by free trade in El Paso has not gone away, Cook added. "It's great we have $52 billion of trade between El Paso and the City of Juarez, but NAFTA's not rosy for everybody," El Paso's mayor said.

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Frontera NorteSur (FNS)
Center for Latin American and Border Studies
New Mexico State University
Las Cruces, New Mexico

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Kent Paterson is the editor of Frontera NorteSur.  Reprinted with authorization from Frontera NorteSur, a free, on-line, U.S.-Mexico border news source.