"X"

So after talking to my best friend in site, I find myself extremely disheartened although not in the least bit surprised by the situation facing my town and all of Nicaragua. Sure I've known since I got here that “X” is an assembly line style “production factory” that has work sites in every single department of the country. I knew that the jobs they supply are painfully tedious - mind-numbing to quote my friend - and that their buses leave my town at 5:30am for the factory and return at 7:00pm. But I never took the time to talk to anyone about the reality of the conditions that are faced by so many of my neighbors and acquaintances there.

My best friend, Carlos, who upon graduating high school went to a university to study, had to drop out so he could work to help his family get by. He got a job at “X” and was assigned the duty of putting the elastic on boxers. For twelve hours a day, he sat in front of his sewing machine and watched it's 4 needles bob up and down as he fed each pair of boxers into the machine and pumped the pedals with his feet. He worked with his team of 15 coworkers trying to achieve 100% productivity while 4 supervisors stood over them to make sure they were not talking or wasting even a second. 100% productivity would mean a few cents more of pay, so it was something to work towards. He began work at 6:00am and was allowed one 5 minute bathroom break before lunch, and another after lunch. Lunch was 40 minutes of freedom where they were allowed to eat what they brought in with them, and aside from two other optional 15 minute breaks that they did not get paid for, he was not allowed to leave his seat until 6:30 that night. He worked all day with a mask on to prevent inhaling all of the fibers from the material, but he told me that he knows of many people who have had serious respiratory problems due to fibers in their lungs.

I asked him about the room itself and he told me there were two big industrial fans but that because there were no windows, the heat was “sufocante,” or so hot that he felt like he was suffocating. The entire room was drowned in the deafening hum of machines, so they were therefore required to wear earplugs. People worked basically on top of each other, so stressed about making their production objectives that when they walked to the lunch area, they were all dizzy and unable to see straight for the first few seconds away from their machines. He made sure I understood that although they “only” worked for 12 hours straight, it felt like 24. He said the people there work more than “bueys,” which is the Spanish word for the work cattle that are used for farm labor here.

So what is one paid for such labor? Allow yourselves to lower your standards a little since the cost of living here is lower than it is in the US. Even with lowered standards however, this might as well be called slave labor. In New York, one hour of work at the minimum wage of $7.15 will buy you at least a fast food meal at any chain on the side of the street, or even a healthy lunch at Panera. Here though, one hour of work doesn't pay $7.15...it doesn't even pay $2 which is enough for a full plate of the most basic gallo pinto and cheese, nor $1.00 which would allow someone here to buy the Nica version of fast street food...a tortilla with cheese and onions. No. Here, for one week of work (4 consecutive days of 12 hours each), my best friend earned 380 cordobas, which is equal to about $17. A WEEK! That means that for each of those 48 hours of labor, he earned 7.92 cordobas (27 American cents.) That, my friends, is not even enough to buy a pound of raw rice, the cheapest food there is here. Add in the fact that these people have families to feed/clothe, houses to maintain, electricity and water bills to pay, and all the other necessary expenses (diapers, school supplies, uniforms) that we have back in the states, and you'll really see the disparity for what it is. If that's not enough of a comparison, I as a Peace Corps volunteer receive almost three times that amount; I live alone, without a TV or fridge, and my house was basically furnished with things that have been lent to me, and I still find myself waiting for “payday” to come around every month.

What does this say about how we are exploiting the “Third World?” Those boxers my friend was making were for a North American clothing company that I will refrain from naming here, but I know for a fact that everyone reading this has at least one of their T-shirts in their drawers right now. It's sickening to realize that these companies are allowed to completely take advantage of the employment crises in these developing countries. This blatant exploitation allows these disgustingly rich companies to avoid paying taxes (which leaves even more of the tax burden on the middle and lower classes – but that's another conversation all together) and to avoid paying their employees anything remotely close to a living, let alone a fair wage.

Of course the people here rely on their jobs in these factories. That's the worst part. They return to their houses miserable each night, cursing the fact that they're not making anything remotely close to a living wage, spend an hour or two with their families, eat, sleep, and wake up at 4:30am to start again. During their days off they don't even have the options of studying or holding another steady job because they work on an 8 day rotation which means their free days are constantly changing. It leaves many of them to do other work (sell tortillas/frescos/bread/clothes, wash/iron clothes, etc.) on the side to make ends meet. From what I've been told, the current government improved the situation a little by demanding that the workers in the “X” factories receive insurance, but nothing more than that could be accomplished because “X” threatened to leave the country all together, which would leave a sickeningly large percent of the population unemployed. This abuse of power is literally trapping the people of these countries in the poverty that they are struggling to bring themselves up out of.

I should explain that “X” is basically a catch-all work zone that allows for foreign companies to come in and use the space and human labor in their warehouse factories. The workers get paid by the individual companies, rather than by “X,” and therefore some of them actually do receive a living wage. UnderArmor for example, is one of the companies that pays their workers fairly; but unfortunately for the people of the department of Rivas, the only company working in the “X” here, is not the least bit concerned with the incredibly low standard of living it is forcing upon its workers.

In discussing this with some of my fellow PC volunteers, the idea of “free will” was tossed around. Sure no one is literally “forcing” these people to work there. “X” is not entering people's towns and dragging them out to the factories to work as slaves...but I'm not comfortable using the word “choice” to describe the process by which one ends up working for “X.” I have yet to meet anyone who had turned down a different option because they preferred to work for “X.” In fact, what I have encountered is an unsettling amount of people who have applied at twenty other stores, restaurants, carwashes, schools, etc. and who have found themselves with no other option but to join the masses piling onto the “X” buses in the mornings. Saying “they choose to work there” is the easiest way for us to pretend that this is not a problem. It's a quick way to clean our consciences of such messy thoughts about labor laws and hierarchies of power and class. Let's do better than that for the sake of humanity.

Of course this is not a problem that can be solved in one or two steps; it goes deep into the roots of improving education and providing viable work options, etc. But that doesn't mean there is nothing we can do from up in our privileged section of the American continents. I urge you all to consider where you're buying your clothes/shoes/toys from, as a little bit of internet research will let you know which companies state their employment policies in plain English for all to see. Those of you who are willing to do a little more than just shop consciously, start up petitions, email the heads of these enterprises and plead with them to be fair to their employees. We've all got to look out for one another, and those of us with a little bit of power should use it.