Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, November 1, 1993 TAG: 9311010099
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ROBERT T. NELSON SEATTLE TIMES
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
Crusty old George Meany, the late labor leader, couldn't have written the ad any better. There, on the pages of World Trade Magazine, a balding, worried boss is rubbing the back of his neck and complaining because he can't find "good, loyal workers for a dollar an hour."
The advertisement, paid for by the Mexican state of Yucatan's Department of Industrial and Commercial Development, doesn't mince words in offering U.S. manufacturers a cheaper place to do business. With little else to sell, the government offered its people. Cheap.
"Labor costs average under $1 an hour, including benefits," reads the ad. "The turnover rate is less than 5 percent a year. And you could save over $15,000 a year, per worker, if you had an offshore production plant here. When the U.S. is too expensive and the Far East too far. Yes You Can In Yucatan."
"Yes You Can In Yucatan" is the answer to the questions posed in a series of ads designed to lure U.S.-owned businesses to one of the least-developed states in Mexico.
Arguably the most offensive ad has a businessman wondering how he can keep his labor costs low and his own, personal standard of living high.
You guessed it. In Yucatan.
During the 27 months they ran in trade publications, the ads caught the attention of thousands of U.S. businesses, whose executives called to inquire about moving manufacturing plants there.
More recently, Ross Perot and labor organizations have taken notice, making the Mexican government-sponsored ads the centerpiece of a campaign to defeat the North American Free Trade Agreement.
NAFTA would gradually eliminate most barriers to free trading among the United States, Mexico and Canada, something business groups generally favor. A House vote on NAFTA is set for mid- to late November, with Senate action to follow.
So effective are they at making labor's case against NAFTA that U.S. Trade Representative Mickey Kantor urged Mexican authorities to pull the ads, which they did, replacing them with ads that extol Yucatan's scenic beauty.
But pulling the ads may have come too late. One member who was on the fence, Rep. Jolene Unsoeld, D-Wash., fell off this past week on the side of labor. She held up copies of the ads for other House members to see as she explained her opposition to the trade agreement.
The irony in the debate over the ads is that they have almost nothing to do with NAFTA.
For more than a quarter-century, the Mexican government has run an economic-development program known as Maquiladora. Thus far the effort has resulted in the establishment of more than 2,100 manufacturing facilities. About 85 percent of those are joint ventures between Mexico and U.S.-owned companies, most of which chose to locate their production facilities in states other than Yucatan.
The ads are Yucatan's effort to compete with the other, more developed Mexican states. The producers of the ads say they weren't so much aimed at U.S. businesses trying to decide between South Carolina and the Yucatan as at businesses considering Asia or other regions of Mexico.
by CNB