‘We’re Competing Against Everybody Just Like You’: Voices on Manufacturing in Mexico
At a time of uncertainty over the fate of the North American Free Trade Agreement, what does it feel like to work
in a manufacturing plant in Mexico, where a surge of American companies have taken advantage of low labor costs?
The son of an artist and a nurse who has struggled to make ends meet, Mr. Torres Romero put himself through
college by working the night shift as an assembly operator at a factory that made consumer electronics.
My dad was the plant manager for this company and his bosses would call him every day
and say, “If you don’t reduce the costs by this much, we’re going to move.” We didn’t celebrate my 12th birthday because of the stress.
He rose through the ranks, becoming a technician, an engineer and finally a plant manager at an electronics factory in Tijuana.
Douglas Naudin, 75, of Laredo, Texas, worked as a human resources manager in the maquiladora industry from 1983 to 2007.
Today, she lives in Tijuana and works for an American software company that markets to Latin American customers.
He was thrilled when an American company based in Carrollton, Tex., hired him
in the 1980s to work in a newly built electronics factory in Juárez, Mexico.
Mr. Naudin became head of human resources at that plant, which made LED bulbs for automobile dashboards.
David Treviño, 56, worked for 12 years as a production manager at a plant in Mexico City that made electrical bundles