Magna Goes Over 13 pesos

Chris: I already stated that I though the practice of contracts is illegal but it is being done! One of the companies is either part of the Government or totally funded by the Government! These low ages are actually common in fishing villages all along the coast. The article I pasted states that 13% of the work force is earning min. wage. That is a huge amount of people.

Moisheh

Well, I have to say that you are uniformed on the law. Any employment, no matter what term with a contract, requires full benefits. I know that personally as well as what the law says.

Your first post is confusing. You mention kids making 60 pesos a day as a construction worker. Are they kids? Albaniles are construction workers. Under them are peones, or unskilled workers. You say that albaniles make 250 a day. That's actually a working wage in Mexico which entitles the worker to a low-interest home loan at 6% guaranteed and payments as low as 500 pesos a month. Many of our family and friends fall into that wage category and do quite well; house, used car, kids are all in school.

Your tone to me is condescending. I've stated my work many times and I will again. I am a teacher, I contract out to the education department both on state levels as well as federal. I have worked in many rural settings including those with indigenous populations. I know the benefits that families receive including free milk (minimum 100 people and a formal petition), the program Oportunidades which has now been changed to Prospera which provides large cash incentives to rural families to keep their kids in school, so much so that many families have stopped working.

(SEDESOL Pensión para Adultos Mayores, Seguro de Vida para Jefas de Familia, Estancias Infantiles, Empleo Temporal, Jornaleros Agrícolas, Liconsa, Diconsa, Oportunidades, se reforzará la atención de la población)

I know Kino and have worked in Guaymas, Mexicali, Tecate, Rio Colorado, Ensenada, Rosarito, Tijuana, and many other cities and towns in between. Your vision of Mexico is one of corruption and poverty while mine is one of economic growth and development that other American countries are not seeing.

The article above makes one very important point, "almost 60 percent of Mexico's workforce was in the informal economy", a very true and sad statement but one that is driven almost always by choice.

If what you say is true, and I were an albanil making sixty pesos a day, I would get the heck out of Kino, sounds like a not so nice place based on that. The guy would be better off washing windshields on a corner than doing back-breaking work for 60 pesos a day. The rest of northern Mexico is a strong and vibrant engine where good-paying jobs are on the rise and people are on the move.

tepetapan: Are you calling me a liar? Are you familiar with the employment circumstances in Kino or are you just speculating? Of course gringos will not get a worker for those wages but Mexican employers do all the time. These are the same employers that make the workers sign a 6 month contract. Apparently with this contract the employer does not contribute to IMSS and the employee has no coverage. At 6 months they lay off that employee and replace him with another under contract. This is probably illegal but it happens all the time.

Moisheh

Mexico opens debate over low minimum wage

11:00 AM Saturday Aug 9, 2014

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MEXICO CITY (AP) National attention in Mexico has focused on the country's shockingly low minimum wage after the Mexico City government suggested it could act to increase the local minimum.

The debate has highlighted widespread dissatisfaction with the minimum wage of 67.29 pesos per day, or about $5. But suggestions that it be raised have drawn howls of protest from business chambers, who say raising it would only spur inflation.

In a country where the Constitution says the minimum should be sufficient to provide for the basic needs of a worker and his or her family, today's minimum wage in fact buys about a single hamburger meal at a chain restaurant.

Mexico's minimum wage is among the lowest in the hemisphere, comparable only to Honduras, the poorest nation in Central America. However, lower food prices in Honduras make that wage go further there.

Experts say about 6.5 million workers in Mexico currently earn the minimum wage, or about 13 percent of the workforce. During the oil boom of the mid-1970s, those earning it almost made ends meet. But during economic crises in the 1980s, 1990s and in 2008, the government held down wage increases to revive the economy, something that has worked to some extent in sectors like Mexico's booming auto industry. Mexican autoworkers now earn less, in many cases, than their counterparts in China.



"We have fallen 35 years behind in terms of wages," Mexico City Mayor Miguel Angel Mancera said earlier this week, igniting the debate. "We can only buy 23 percent of what one could buy in the 1970s." While he acknowledged the city government can't set wage policy alone, Mancera said he would try to reach a voluntary agreement with businesses in the city to get wages hiked.

Many Mexicans who earn close to the minimum said Friday their lives are a struggle to make ends meet.

Martina Marin Espinosa, 50, a single mother with a 17-year-old daughter, works six days a week as a street sweeper in Mexico City's downtown district, and makes just over the minimum wage, about $5.70 per day. "I just work for my daughter, to get her ahead in life. I don't expect anything for myself," said Marin Espinosa.

Like most here, she is able to get by on such low wages only because of the country's fallback support system: the family. She lives rent-free with her two brothers in a slum on the outskirts of the city.

With only a grade-school education, she is now proud that her daughter is going to high school, though that brings up her biggest problem: clothes. "Girls that age like nice clothes," and Marin Espinosa.

Experts estimate the minimum wage would have to be at least $14.50 a day to provide food and basic necessities for an average family, and up to $41.50 if rent and other expenses are included.

Juan Pablo Castanon, the president of the national employer's federation, a business group, wrote in a statement that "we businessmen agree on the need to increase the real wages of workers, but we say the real discussion on how to do that has to do with getting more people into the formal sector," and out of the vast network of 'informal' work as street vendors and unregistered farm workers.

With wages low in formal jobs, most Mexicans opt to work under table, where they can earn as much in a few hours of hawking newspapers or pre-paid telephone cards, as a minimum-wage worker makes in a whole day. The business sector thinks the vendors hurt the economy, because most usually don't pay taxes.

Last month, the government released a study showing that almost 60 percent of Mexico's workforce was in the informal economy.

Gerardo Gutierrez Candiani, the president Mexico's Business Coordinating Council, says the worst thing that could happen would be an increase in wages by decree. "The two fundamental ingredients we need for growth is macroeconomic stability ... and sustained economic expansion," he wrote in a statement.

AP

Sorry for an confusion in terms.

I brought up Mexico oil imports to the US to point out that Mexico and Pemex to export a lot of oil to the rest of the world and they profit from those exports. By that reasoning I do not understand why Mexico needs to continue to raise prices to the people of Mexico. Venezuela has not done this. That was my point.

To clarify any confusion - the percentages I gave were to show how much of the oil the US IMPORTS comes from where - the other figures above are the percent of oil the US CONSUMES and where it comes from. Very difficult to find sources that agree on exactly how much we import of what we use (some source web addresses below). But my point again was just to say that Pemex makes money from exporting oil - which should help to keep costs to Mexican consumers down - but this does not seem to be working. So if Haliburton and Schlumbereger are allowed to work with Pemex (I think they already are?) then Mexico can increase their production and their exports and maybe save the citizens some money.

Below are some websites with charts and graphs that cannot be reproduced here. They can vary greatly - depends on dates and monthly production and consumption. Again - to stay on topic - the concern is why Mexico cannot profit enough from oil production and exports to keep their domestic prices down?

http://www.npr.org/2012/04/11/150444802/where-does-america-get-oil-you-may-be-surprised

http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/pet_move_impcus_a2_nus_ep00_im0_mbbl_m.htm
http://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=727&t=6

http://www.businessinsider.com/map-us-oil-imports-by-country-of-origin-2013-1

http://askville.amazon.com/percentages-oil-buy-countries/AnswerViewer.do?requestId=5430673

https://www.google.com/search?q=us+oil+imports+by+country+of+origin+percentages&espv=2&tbm=isch&imgil=Sub39awJ2dzJxM%253A%253BXTNs3SWXOQIseM%253Bhttp%25253A%25252F%25252Fwww.eia.gov%25252Ftodayinenergy%25252Fdetail.cfm%25253Fid%2525253D5570&source=iu&fir=Sub39awJ2dzJxM%253A%252CXTNs3SWXOQIseM%252C_&usg=__LtNHmSPLr7rGO_aPOsMgGVd9RZI%3D&sa=X&ei=WdQMVK2IHeWM8QHSx4CwDw&ved=0CD4Q9QEwAw&biw=1440&bih=781#facrc=_&imgdii=_&imgrc=Sub39awJ2dzJxM%253A%3BXTNs3SWXOQIseM%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.eia.gov%252Ftodayinenergy%252Fimages%252F2012.03.27%252FMonthlyCrudeImports.png%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.eia.gov%252Ftodayinenergy%252Fdetail.cfm%253Fid%253D5570%3B542%3B277

If you can't hire a person in Catemaco for minimum wage you certainly can't hire one in Kino Bay for minimum wage. 100 pesos a day is bare minimum for unskilled workers.

Chris: Lots of youth in Kino doing construction make 60 pesos a day. Some make as much as 100 a day. Albanils go for 200 to 250. Farm workers also get around 100 a day. You need to get out of the cities and go to the small towns and villages. In Oaxaca if you can get farm work it is often less than 60 pesos a day. They all come to work the farms in Sinaloa and Sonora. Chiapis is another low paying area. You need to under stand the realities of a country where employers abuse their workers. I am a capitalist business owner but still am shocked at what goes on. It is often just like the 30's. Workers pay outrageous amounts for a one room shack and the employer charges the worker transportation to the nearest town to buy food. Sometimes they are covered by IMSS but often get no coverage. They are usually from Chiapis and Oaxaca. Lots of Trikis. Very sad situation.

Moisheh

imports to US are more like 15% Canada, 7.5% Mexico. We're now producing almost 40% of our consumption- but that's getting away from the topic

Price of diesel here in Fallon is $3.689/gal. at the price quoted below that makes Mexican diesel $3.78/gal. at 13.61 pesos/ltr. Getting more expensive to RV in Mexico, but we are not quitting any time soon. We sure slowed down a few years ago though when diesel was $5.39/gal. here in the US. There is still a sign up here in Fallon NV on a station that went out of business then and that is the posted price.

I'd really like to meet that kid who is making 60 pesos a day. Unheard of. That's not how minimum wage works. Show me one and I'll give him a month's wages no questions asked. Of course, he has to be working legally.

I like the Big Mac method to compare costs of living. The Economist ranks countries by how long you have to work to buy a Big Mac. That would make Mexico a very low wage country. AS for gasoline try going to a Pemex early in the morning. A Charanga ( POS) car will pull in and buy 20 pesos of fuel. That is less than 2 litres. That car will probably travel less than 10 miles on that fuel. Many families do not use the car except on Saturday to buy groceries and maybe Semana Santa. The cost of fuel does not affect the working poor but the high food prices make life very difficult. Do not believe the Mexican unemployment rate. Like most nations it is BS. Besides what good is that rate if you are counting some young kid working construction for 60 pesos a day.

Moisheh