Appliance plant stirs hope

JUAREZ – Just a year ago, this was wild, open Mexican desert, home to nothing more than scattered shrubs and the occasional funnel clouds that kick up blinding dust storms.

Now, a US$100 million factory rises from deep black asphalt. A young tree is planted near the entrance, and Teresa Rios waits anxiously under a sliver of shade it casts.Rios, 27, is late for a court hearing.She is in the middle of a custody dispute with her ex-husband; for now, she and her two children live in a shelter for battered women.Still, there is hope.She is two weeks into a job that pays her about US$10 a day.Like the tree against the sun, she is rail thin, her life a modest but full effort.And she sees the Electrolux refrigerator factory as a path to a far better future.”My dream is to be a top executive,” said Rios, who did not earn a high school diploma.”I don’t know if I’ll make it, but this is one of my dreams.Really just to be free.”The Electrolux plant has done many things: It has sucked jobs from Greenville, Michigan, where Electrolux closed a plant before moving here.It – and others like it – have transformed Juarez and the Chihuahuan desert into a bustling crucible of capitalism.But more than anything else, the Planta Electrolux has transformed the lives of people like Teresa Rios and Andres Lozano.Lozano, 27, was hired in December at Electrolux, employee No.2319.He supports his wife Alma, who does not work outside the home, and two young children, Iban, 4, and Evelyn, six months.His pay, which has risen quickly to 100 pesos (US$9) a day, is enough to support the entire family.In another month he will earn 130 pesos (US$12) a day.In his old job, as a meat wholesaler, he made about the same amount of money but worked twice as much, usually 12 hours a day, seven days a week.He sold and delivered processed meats, ham, bologna, franks, mostly to large grocery chains, working on commission.Because he works less now, he has fewer problems at home.He has time to shop, see friends, see movies, go to flea markets, repair things around the house.He is a man more at ease, his posture relaxed, with a smile that comes more easily.With his salary, and with help from a government loan program, he was able to purchase a two-bedroom home for about US$20 000.”My kids will have what I didn’t have,” he said.”They’ll have more of everything.They’ll go out more.They’ll have more things.”I had the chance to go to college, but I had to work.I want my kids to go to college.I don’t want them to be operators.”Electrolux and the other factories, known as maquiladoras, are a magnet for workers.Since 1990 the population of Juarez has grown from about 800 000 to 1,3 million, and about a third of its residents came from outside its state of Chihuahua.With a growth rate that is almost three times the Mexican average, Juarez is now Mexico’s fourth-largest city, growing much faster than the American city across the bridge, El Paso.Nampa-APA young tree is planted near the entrance, and Teresa Rios waits anxiously under a sliver of shade it casts.Rios, 27, is late for a court hearing.She is in the middle of a custody dispute with her ex-husband; for now, she and her two children live in a shelter for battered women.Still, there is hope.She is two weeks into a job that pays her about US$10 a day.Like the tree against the sun, she is rail thin, her life a modest but full effort.And she sees the Electrolux refrigerator factory as a path to a far better future.”My dream is to be a top executive,” said Rios, who did not earn a high school diploma.”I don’t know if I’ll make it, but this is one of my dreams.Really just to be free.”The Electrolux plant has done many things: It has sucked jobs from Greenville, Michigan, where Electrolux closed a plant before moving here.It – and others like it – have transformed Juarez and the Chihuahuan desert into a bustling crucible of capitalism.But more than anything else, the Planta Electrolux has transformed the lives of people like Teresa Rios and Andres Lozano.Lozano, 27, was hired in December at Electrolux, employee No.2319.He supports his wife Alma, who does not work outside the home, and two young children, Iban, 4, and Evelyn, six months.His pay, which has risen quickly to 100 pesos (US$9) a day, is enough to support the entire family.In another month he will earn 130 pesos (US$12) a day.In his old job, as a meat wholesaler, he made about the same amount of money but worked twice as much, usually 12 hours a day, seven days a week.He sold and delivered processed meats, ham, bologna, franks, mostly to large grocery chains, working on commission.Because he works less now, he has fewer problems at home.He has time to shop, see friends, see movies, go to flea markets, repair things around the house.He is a man more at ease, his posture relaxed, with a smile that comes more easily.With his salary, and with help from a government loan program, he was able to purchase a two-bedroom home for about US$20 000.”My kids will have what I didn’t have,” he said.”They’ll have more of everything.They’ll go out more.They’ll have more things.”I had the chance to go to college, but I had to work.I want my kids to go to college.I don’t want them to be operators.”Electrolux and the other factories, known as maquiladoras, are a magnet for workers.Since 1990 the population of Juarez has grown from about 800 000 to 1,3 million, and about a third of its residents came from outside its state of Chihuahua.With a growth rate that is almost three times the Mexican average, Juarez is now Mexico’s fourth-largest city, growing much faster than the American city across the bridge, El Paso.Nampa-AP