Tuesday, May 15, 2007
By JIM BOREN
MCCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS
The footpaths across our southern border go in both directions. We encourage Mexican workers to sneak into this country to work in jobs we don't want, and we send jobs to Mexico that we do want.
While our political leaders say these seemingly conflicting policies should be fixed, there are too many people benefiting from this system for any real changes to be made.
It's the equivalent of a 21st-century economic miracle. Employers can get cheap labor on both sides of the border.
All this came together recently as the San Joaquin Valley in California debated two nagging issues: immigration reform and the need for good-paying jobs. On the day that illegal immigrants were rallying for legal status, the venerable Hershey Co. announced it was closing its San Joaquin Valley chocolate factory and moving those jobs to a plant it will build in Monterrey, Mexico.
These two events framed our schizophrenia on the issues very nicely.
As a society, we say we want to stop illegal immigration, but for economic reasons we don't. We also say we want to keep jobs from leaving this country, yet corporations that ship them abroad get rewarded by Wall Street.
These issues are contentious, but this much we can agree on: If Mexico had a stronger economy, fewer of its citizens would travel to the United States for jobs and fewer American companies would find it cheaper to build entire factories in Mexico.
But there's no sign of Mexico improving its economic plight, despite the argument by free-traders that all this would change if markets were opened on both sides of the border. A dozen years after the North America Free Trade Agreement took effect, not much has changed.
Cheap trade
While Mexico ignores the needs of its people, much of corporate America is more than willing to take advantage of that neglect. Unfortunately, most in this country interpret free trade as cheap trade -- financed by the poor wages paid in trading partners like Mexico.
We see that in agriculture, the hotel industry and construction. Those industries are subsidized by illegal immigrants working for cheap wages. At the same time, Hershey can close its chocolate factory in Oakdale, Calif., and put 575 people out of work because they make a good wage. Ship those jobs to Mexico and Hershey, a publicly traded company, can tell shareholders costs are down and profits will be up.
But that's short-term thinking and there's a huge price to pay for the way we do business.
Agriculture and the others may benefit from cheap labor, but those illegal immigrants they encourage to come here are showing up in our hospital emergency rooms, schools and social service agencies. We all pay for it through increased insurance premiums and public resources stretched by a population we don't formally recognize.
And what will be the effect of Hershey closing its Oakdale plant? It's the largest employer in the community, and the ripple will be felt across the region. It's the "multiplier effect" that the economic development gurus trumpet when they bring a company to town. Of course, they don't mention how much of that multiplier goes away when they lose businesses to Mexico.
When I first read the news of the Hershey plant closing in Oakdale, I wondered what local and state officials were doing to save the plant. Where was Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's highly touted Partnership for the San Joaquin? But you can put together all the public-private partnerships you want, and they can't trump what Mexico offers: cheap, cheap, cheap labor.
Ashley Swearengin, chief operating officer for the Regional Jobs Initiative, said the closing of the Hershey plant will effect the entire area.
"It is a productive facility that was gaining in its capacity," she said. "However, it is still cheaper for them to produce in Mexico. According to the Hershey execs, they can get the same exact product out of Mexico for less money."
World's economy
She said similar kinds of decisions may be made by other companies because of the world's economy. "Knowing that the 'World is Flat' and that things like this are going to happen more and more, what should our response be? Work like crazy to get those 575 people moved into other jobs and find someone to fill that plant."
She also said the region must grow its own businesses -- and help them expand -- and train the work force." If we did nothing else but educate and train people, we would safeguard our economy from the impacts of inevitable plant closures."
But as long as employers can get cheap labor on both sides of the border, we're going to have workers illegally coming to this country and American companies shipping jobs to Mexico. There's no incentive to change.
Jim Boren is editorial-page editor of the Fresno (Calif.) Bee. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.