This is a timely and comprehensive update of the world’s largest export-processing program. Maquiladoras employ only 11 percent of Mexico’s workers, but they are that nation’s second provider of foreign exchange. Maquiladoras epitomize economic liberalization and foreshadow the Free Trade Agreement between Mexico and the United States.
Three chapters in this volume are outstanding. Gregory K. Schoepfle and Jorge F. Pérez López (“The Impact of Maquiladoras on U.S. National Employment and Employment in Selected Industrial Sectors”) examine Item 807.00 of the U. S. Tariff Schedule and its possible repeal. They conclude that the estimated impact of the repeal on total U. S. employment may be small, but that some sectors would be acutely affected; workers in those types of manufacturing would require special assistance.
Maquiladoras have rapidly diversified since 1982. Over the last decade, capital-intensive manufacturing grew and the labor force changed. In 1979 over 85 percent of maquiladora workers were women. That proportion has dropped to 65 percent. Joan B. Anderson (“Maquiladoras in the Apparel Industry”) and Patricia Ann Wilson (“The New Maquiladoras: Flexible Production in Low-Wage Regions”) provide vital insights on this subject. Anderson discusses the increased number of men in garment assembly, even at a time when that sector has shrunk as a proportion of total maquiladora production. Wilson’s astute treatment of maquiladora diversification shows that the rise of flexible maquiladoras—among them automobile-related producers—has led to a caricature of post-Fordism. Plants that rely on programmable machinery have limited its use so as not to obviate the labor-intensive nature of their operations or their reliance on working women. Moreover, the rise of flexible specialization has not been accompanied by an autonomous research and development capability. Apparently the answer to the provocative question in the book’s title is: both.
