
Lexmark fires Mexico factory workers demanding $0.35 raise - benologist
http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/dec/15/printer-giant-lexmark-fires-juarez-factory-workers-demanding-raise
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jorgeherrera1
I'm from Mexico and $6 pesos raise is a joke. You cannot even buy gum with $6
pesos. And like the article says, they fired them just before Christmas;
leadership at Lexmark must be really fucked up. I'm NOT buying a freaking
Lexmark printer ever again. I'm really upset by this.

~~~
tim333
Also my last Lexmark printer was awful

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largote
One of the key points that is not covered as widely is that the workers were
also demanding the right to unionize. This is a general right in Mexico but a
lot of employers use a loophole where it's possible to have a "planted" union
that's friendly to the company as the default union, I believe this allows the
company to prevent the creation of another union.

~~~
danharaj
If unions could compete with each other for workers' influence they would
behave better within the market economy. They used to. It was a boon for
businesses to be able to make their shops single-union.

~~~
cbd1984
> If unions could compete with each other for workers' influence

... they might become less corrupt, and more responsive to the wishes of
labor, as opposed to union leadership.

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rubyfan
You don't get to be "a world leader in laser printers" by giving out an extra
$0.35 to a few dozen workers.

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lips
There's a lot to be said for trying.

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venning
So, honest question: is that a lot?

The workers are asking for the top band to increase by 5.3%, from 114 pesos to
120. They are currently making 163% of the minimum national wage of 70 pesos.
I don't have any feel for how livable that is in Ciudad Júarez.

~~~
danny_taco
I would consider that salary as extra income for multiple earners in a
household (You wouldn't be able to rent any decent place with that amount per
day). Although the cost of living in Juarez is way way below than most places
in the US, the cost of utilities in Juarez is unreasonably high. I couldn't
find a lot of online resources to support this though.
[https://goo.gl/beC6LK](https://goo.gl/beC6LK)

I grew up in Juarez and despite my parents making at least ten times that
amount between the two of them, I would say we were only considered middle
lower class for a household of four people.

The city has grown over the past 30 years considerably due to the
manufacturing industry.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maquiladora](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maquiladora)

Most of the jobs provided by the maquiladora industry are low wage jobs such
as this one that attract a lot of struggling families or individuals from
other Mexican states. Some of my old friends still live in Juarez given that
they work as industrial engineers and their salary ranges between $30,000 -
$40,000 USD. Just enough to buy a 2-3 bedroom home in a decent area of town.
This is a comparatively high salary for the region as well.

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venning
Hmm, that's helpful, thank you.

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Thetawaves
I think I'll vote with my dollar and never buy a Lexmark product again.

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alyandon
Unfortunately, all this story does is confirm what I already knew about
Lexmark.

I've refused to purchase Lexmark gear after they started using the DMCA to try
and prevent third parties from manufacturing compatible toner and ink
cartridges for their printers.

~~~
Natsu
I got rid of mine when I discovered that I could buy a new printer AND and an
extra refill of the new ink for less than I could buy just ink for my old
Lexmark.

Trashed it and never looked back.

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funkyy
I would like a news site, that would actually check both sides of the story.
If Lexmark did it just because 35 cents, then that is bad, but if there was
more to it, then I would like to hear it.

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ank_the_elder
Not every story has two sides, nor necessarily are those two sides (when they
exist) equally valid. The idea that journalists should always check "both
sides of the story" basically manufactures false dichotomies.

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Cyberdog
There is _always_ more than one side to a story, particularly when it involves
conflict between two or more groups - say, employees and an employer.

Covering only one side of a story is dangerous, particularly when that
coverage is used as a source or inspiration for further coverage, which then
itself gets used, and then eventually edited into Wikipedia articles because
all these reputable news sources are reporting it and that's all that's
required for "truth" over there, and so on, and so on.

~~~
ank_the_elder
You can trivially see that's not the case. Look at anti-vaxers vs. science. Is
this two sides of the same coin? Or just two unrelated topics? Namely,
science-based medicine and a fringe group of lunatics commenting on a topic
they don't understand.

So, there you have one trivial counter-example. Hence, your assertion is
false.

To reiterate what I've stated: not every topic has more than one side. This
circus-like setup is especially deceiving if you let popular opinion pick them
- this apocryphal rule not only manufactures false dichotomies, but also
allows for nonsense to challenge well-established science.

Especially when it comes to the so-called hard sciences - some topics are not
under discussion - we can choose to discuss and argue all day whether the
fundamental theorem of calculus is true or not, but since it's a theorem it's
already been proven well beyond any opinion's reach.

~~~
Cyberdog
Congratulations, you pedantically found an exception to my rule. There's no
way a labor dispute as as cut-and-dry as calculus, however, or even
vaccination science. And in the latter case, I think there _should_ be
reporting on what anti-vaxxers think and why, if for no other reason than to
document that these people exist and hopefully help construct a framework to
change their minds.

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threatofrain
Why is Lexmark obligated to retain these workers? Instead of asking companies
to exercise morality out of their own decency, I'd rather be sure via
mechanism. Lexmark is paying above minimum wage. Isn't it minimum wage that's
the problem?

~~~
jacobolus
The real problem is lack of collective bargaining rights and other worker
protections, not only in Mexico but around the world.

In the US, labor protections have been continuously eroded since at least the
80s, as the US Republican party has worked tirelessly (and overtly) to promote
corporate interests at the expense of workers, and the Democratic party has
often joined them without advertising it (for both parties, that’s where the
money is).

On an international scale, international agreements, including both bilateral
agreements & large multilateral treaties and various trade deals, erode state
sovereignty replacing local worker protections with unaccountable judicial and
quasi-judicial arbitrators who tend to side with corporations against
consumers or workers, and sparking a race to the bottom when it comes to all
sorts of national regulations.

For individual companies, there’s no downside in ignoring any unregulated
external harms to workers, consumers, the environment, etc., right up to the
point where a scandal gets so big that it sparks mass boycotts. The “free
market” is utterly incapable of self policing, and as citizens we should
continue to fight in our separate republics for systems which clamp down on
corruption and abuse.

In Mexico in particular, the government is weak and corrupt, relies
excessively on oil money for revenue, and has been fighting a war against drug
cartels across half the country; enforcing better wages and working conditions
is far from their top priority.

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vinceguidry
> In the US, labor protections have been continuously eroded since at least
> the 80s, as the US Republican party has worked tirelessly (and overtly) to
> promote corporate interests at the expense of workers, and the Democratic
> party has often joined them without advertising it (for both parties, that’s
> where the money is).

It's really how it has to be. Collective bargaining ultimately stifles
innovation. It's really hard to come up with new business concepts if there's
this giant body of law, regulation, and tradition that governs every way
someone can contribute to an economic venture. I personally would hate for web
development to become a unionized field, ultimately that would reduce my
options rather than increase them. Every job becomes pretty much the same.

Given a choice between US-style employment and European-style, I'd pick US.
There is a lot I can do to alter the terms of my employment. I can contract,
start my own firm that hires only me, I can accept full-employment and
negotiate perks. No relationship is unalterable and sacrosanct. To put it
succinctly, I prefer to retain my bargaining ability rather than delegate it
to someone else.

Obviously I have a very privileged position in society and the less-privileged
would probably choose more stable unionized jobs. But I wasn't born rich. I
didn't graduate college. My options really do come from the society I live in
rather than the circumstances of my birth within that society.

The problem is that it's all or nothing, and once you start going in one
direction, it's really hard to turn the ship around. I think ultimately Anglo-
style fungibility of labor will, over time, find market solutions to the
problems of the lower class, and not have to resort to political solutions
except to retain worker mobility.

Freedom of information makes it really hard for abusive practices to stay in
the shadows, and also allows the social norm to shift over time. It offers
most of the advantages of collective bargaining without the stifling political
intrusion. So we get a pendulum effect in which things get worse in one
direction, but public attention forces things to get right again, and
everybody benefits from the norm shift.

~~~
Sanddancer
The way society's going, we're heading towards nothing. Even in the tech
industry, if you're not a coder, you're going to be dealing with a completely
different sort of life. Support people, entry level IT people, etc are brought
in as contractors, which means that the protections that you get as a
programmer are things they don't have. As your company makes more and more
money, they are stuck with a barely livable wage, because too many CEOs don't
want to think about those jobs that "anyone" can do. This stratification is
getting worse, and something really does need to change.

~~~
tracker1
I feel that part of the problem is the ever-expanding protections provided to
large incumbents via IP law and other overly-restrictive legal protections. It
flies in the face of being able to compete, or create new upstart competitors.

I enjoy being skilled as a software developer, but it's still not relatively
as good as it was in the mid-late 70's accounting for inflation. The problem
is we have a lot of pro-business combined with protectionism that inhibits the
pro-competition that's meant to offset monopolistic tracks.

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tbrooks
Is it the principle or the price that makes people upset?

If the workers demanded a $1000 raise, is Lexmark just in firing those workers
and hiring workers that are willing to work for less?

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peterkelly
The price

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kitanata
At 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year, with 120 employees, that turns out to
just over $87,000 dollars. The fired 120 employees over $87k. Shameful.

~~~
stephenboyd
The 0.35 cents raise they asked for was per day, not per hour.

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prawn
What effective alternative would workers in this situation have to improve
working conditions other than striking?

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skylan_q
They can't. There's tons of cheap labor out there in the developing world and
3rd world. Capital moves quick and labor is everywhere.

The best we can do in the long-run to increase working conditions is to
increase demand for labor. In the short-term, all they can do is strike.

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skybrian
The best we could do, in theory, would be to allow them to work in the U.S.
This helps not only the workers but their families at home, though
remittances. Unlikely to happen in this political climate, though.

~~~
garrettgrimsley
The whole point of Lexmark operating the plant in Mexico rather than the USA
is to save on labor costs. It does not make sense for Lexmark to purchase
labor in the USA for over eight times what it would cost if they were to
purchase it in Mexico.

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gnu8
Lexmark should not be allowed to purchase labor in Mexico for any less than it
would cost in the United States. That would solve the problem neatly.

~~~
tonyedgecombe
Then there would be no jobs in Mexico.

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exabrial
I mean, print cartridges are expensive! They're only making ".35" profit
anyway

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ramanamit1234
Well done Lexmark.

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beefcake
Capitalism is a beautiful thing <3

