tionship between two mature trading partners. Yet the earnings of Mexicans have declined precipitously since NAFTA's enactment: In 1997, 7,771,607 Mexicans were documented as earning less than Mexico's legal minimum wage of $3.40/day, 20% more than in 1993. Among Mexico's working class, salaries at the end of 1997 had fallen to 60% of their 1994 value.The disappearance of American Icons has begun. The following casualties have evidenced this: Huffy Bicycles closed the world's largest bicycle plant in Celina, OH-laying off 650 workers and shifting its production to Mexico. Bass Shoes shifted production to Mexico after being located in Maine for 122 years, laying off 350. Thompson Consumer Electronics, successor to RCS-Victor, moved what was once the world's largest TV factory located in Bloomington, IN to Mexico laying off 1,200 workers. Only 8% found jobs that match or better their previous pay scale.The mutually beneficial proposition of NAFTA was to provide economic development and a better life for Mexicans and Americans. NAFTA was to make Mexico, in economic and social terms, more like the United Statesa more prosperous society with a middle class. Realistically, what has happened is that Mexico's level of development has regressed under NAFTA. Poverty is greater, the middle class is smaller, wages are lower, and maquiladora employment offering substandard living wage jobs and a diminished quality of life along the border has flourished. When asked, 67% of Mexicans say that Mexico has had almost no success with NAFTA.Proponents of NAFTA said the pact would place Mexico on a new development path, away from low-paying, oppressive, pollution-choked border maquiladora zones and toward the sort of development necessary for genuine and substantial growth. The day NAFTA went into effect, maquila employment along the U.S.-Mexico border stood at 546,433. As of April 1998, 983,272 Mexicans were employed in maquiladoras; the maquila sector is ...
