"Queremos Vivir": The Workers Who Wouldn't Die for the Pentagon
Maquiladora workers in the border city of Mexicali strike against working conditions.
MAURIZIO GUERRERO
FEBRUARY 24, 2022
Workers in the Mexican border city of Mexicali, many of them young migrant women, were fighting for their lives. It was the deadliest point of the pandemic in 2020 in one of the hardest-hit states in Mexico, Baja California.
By May 2020, a local news outlet reported that 432 of the 519 Covid-19 fatalities to date had been workers in maquiladoras—assembly plants on the border that mostly supply the United States.
On April 8, 2020, the Mexicali workers forced two maquiladoras of Gulfstream — a U.S. aerospace company with several active contracts with the Department of Defense— to shutter for nearly a month. Though it was temporary, workers saw the closure of a prime Pentagon supplier as a victory.
By May 4, under pressure from the Pentagon, Mexico allowed these factories to reopen as “essential businesses.”
Mexicali, a city with a population of 1 million just across the border from Calexico, Calif., is home to maquiladoras that employ a total of 70,000 workers making parts and products for U.S. medical, automotive, telecommunications and electronics industries, among others. Mexicali and Tijuana, both in Baja California, together host most of the aerospace maquiladoras in Mexico, at least four of which are current Pentagon contractors.
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https://inthesetimes.com/article/workerstrike-bordercity-pandemic-mexicali-maquiladoras-workers-weapons-companies-covid19