While the United Auto Workers is focused on its recent devastating defeat in Chattanooga, with its low wages and close proximity to the U.S., the UAW should be more concerned about what is south of the border than unionizing plants in the Southern U.S.
According to this report, there are more auto workers in Mexico than there are in the ailing UAW–and they make a heck of a lot less.
Mexico has roughly 580,000 auto workers, whose numbers have risen by 100,000 since 2008. They are paid about $16 a day, more than $4 less than what the average U.S. autoworker is paid every hour. More than half of all Mexican workers earn less than $15 a day, according to Mexico’s census agency. [Emphasis added.]
According to Time’s Business & Money, Mexico is overtaking Japan as the second-largest exporter of cars to the United States.
An $800 million Honda plant opening Friday in the central state of Guanajuato will produce about 200,000 Fit hatchbacks a year, helping push total Mexican car exports to the U.S. to 1.7 million in 2014, roughly 200,000 more than Japan, consulting firm IHS Automotive says. And, with another big plant starting next week, Mexico is expected to surpass Canada for the top spot by the end of 2015. [Emphasis added.]
By the time the UAW awakens from its feeding frenzy on the workers in the South, it will be too busy chasing jobs even further south.
