Tuesday, April 06, 2004

New York Times on Salvadoran maquilas

"If they would just treat us like human beings, even without raising the minimum wage, my life would be better," says Marina del Carmen Leiva, a 32-year-old mother, who works in a maquila for $152 a month, and is the sole supporter of three children, in an article in today's New York Times.

"In a country with a 42 percent unemployment rate, these workers are considered lucky to have a job, even if it does pay the lowest of the country's three minimum wages," notes economics reporter Elizabeth Becker. The main thrust of the story is about labor rights and CAFTA, and notes that El Salvador "has a miserable record of upholding its labor laws."

The arch-conservative daily El Diario de Hoy is the local distributor of the Spanish-language summary of the New York Times every Sunday. I can't wait for this article to run--one that EDH would never dream of printing in its own pages (save for the weekly magazine Vértice).

Comments to dlholiday@yahoo.com

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