The Global Assembly Line in the New Millennium

More than 20 years ago, as part of my dissertation research, I sat behind a sewing machine at a Mexican maquiladora in Ciudad Juarez. That border city was the cradle of outsourcing in the region for American companies aiming to reduce production costs and improve their competitive edge in the world market. For approximately two months I sewed biases around the cuff openings of men's shirts for such well known American companies as Billy the Kid, Devon, and Sears Roebuck. My wage was nine times smaller than the minimum wage of $1.90 paid to workers in the neighboring city of El Paso, Texas, one of the most depressed in the United States, but still more expensive from the point of view of employers than its Mexican counterpart, just 15 minutes across the international line. The year was 1978 and Ciudad Juarez was experiencing a boom resulting from a new trend in globalization. Women were becoming the new face of the international proletariat.