Frontera NorteSur March-April  2004

Average Mexican Worker's Income Varies by State along the Northern Border

Sonora workers earn less than residents of all the other border states, according to an article in the Hermosillo, Sonora newspaper El Imparcial.  The average salary of a Sonoran worker is 4,042 pesos (approximately US$368) per month while the national average is 5,051 pesos (US$459) per month.  Sonora ranks number 22 out of Mexico's 32 federal entities (31 states and the Federal District) in terms of the average worker's salary. 

The federal entity with the highest average salary was the Federal District at 6,939 pesos per month.  In second place was Nuevo León at 5,661. 

El Imparcial lists and ranks the northern border states in terms of salary but does not include Nuevo León among them.  Nuevo León shares only a narrow border of a few miles with United States.  The other border states are the following (listed in terms of rank, state and average salary):

 7.  Baja California, 5,041 pesos
10.  Tamaulipas 4,676
12.  Chihuahua 4,617 
13.  Coahuila 4,569
22.  Sonora 4,042

The article goes on to note that Sonora is closer in rank to Mexico's five poorest states:

28.  Nayarit 3,626
29.  Yucatán 3,568
30.  Chiapas 3,453
31.  Durango 3,437
32.  Zacatecas 3,282

The Mexican secretariat that performed the study, the Secretaría del Trabajo y Provisión Social, also found that real salary increases between 2001 and 2003 were only 3.5%.  This is below the national average of 4.8%.  

The head of a Sonora union told El Imparcial that low salaries are due to low productivity and high unemployment in the state.  He also said that, "...when the owner pretends to pay a worker, the worker pretends to work and this creates a setback."

Source: El Imparcial (Hermosillo, Sonora), April 13, 2004.  Article by Adriana Manjarrez & Norberto Corral. 

Mexican Border Opened to Many US Beef Imports

Mexico's secretariat of agriculture, SAGARPA, has determined that beef from the US may once again be imported into Mexico.  According to the head of SAGARPA in Tamaulipas, Luis Carlos García, beef trimmings can be brought into Mexico from the US.  Beef trimmings include tongue, liver, heart, diaphragm, kidney, lips and other parts of the cow. 

The permitted trimmings do not pose a mad cow disease threat to either human or bovine populations in Tamaulipas, García said.  Imported meat must come from approved US plants and cattle must be 30 months old or younger at the time they are slaughtered.  Cattle cannot have been killed using techniques that include injections into animals' brains as needles may spread infected tissue between animals.  

Meat from animals raised on feed made of the ground bone and meat of pigs, goats and cattle may not be imported to Mexico.  Ground beef remains banned. 

These precautions were put in place after SAGARPA analyzed the recent discovery of mad cow in the US. 

Tripe (intestines) remain banned from importation until US and Mexican veterinarians can finish technical discussions on how to avoid any possible exposure to mad cow through the consumption of the meat. 

Pet food imports from the US are legal as long as they do not include protein from ruminants (which includes cattle).

Source: EnLínea Directa (Tamaulipas), April 15, 2004.  Article by Jesus Fernández.

Tijuana May Privatize Waste Collection 

By bidding out garbage collection to private companies, the city of Tijuana could save nearly 7.5 million pesos (approximately US$680,000) per month or 90 million pesos per year (more than US$8 million), says Jesús Manuel Sández Contreras, a member of Tijuana's technical commission for the concession of waste services. 

After returning from Monterrey, Nuevo León, which already has a system in place that is similar to the one being proposed for Tijuana, Sández stated that there are many benefits to a private, trash-collection model. 

Besides saving money, Monterrey experienced what Sández described as an important increase in the number of garbage trucks on the road and an improvement in their maintenance.  Service to citizens and vehicle condition improved as well, he noted. 

In Tijuana it costs 440 pesos (US$40) to collect one ton of trash.  By comparison, it costs 240 pesos (US$22) to pick up a ton of garbage in Monterrey.  However, Sández did acknowledge that waste collection in Monterrey is cheaper because that city has four dumps while Tijuana has just one. 

Moving to private waste collection services would at the most cost Tijuana 300 pesos per ton, Sández stated. 

While in Monterrey, officials from Tijuana also looked at how the bidding process took place there and how contracts were structured with private companies. 

To help keep their city clean, Monterrey officials made one condition of their contract state that once a month companies would pick up tires, stoves and refrigerators that are thrown away throughout the city. 

No mention was made of what will happen to Tijuana's current waste-disposal employees if privatization takes place. 

Source: Frontera (Tijuana), February 18, 2004.  Article by Karla Gutiérrez and Said Betanzos. 

Visteon Design Center to Open in Chihuahua City

Visteon, one of the world's largest automotive suppliers, is opening a design and engineering center to be located on the Chihuahua City campus of the Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey (ITESM).  

The new center will be responsible for the invention and engineering of automotive parts and systems for existing and future vehicles.  It is estimated that the "Centro Técnico de Visteon" will employ more than 200 engineers from Mexican universities.  

Given that the center will be located on the Chihuahua City campus of the ITESM (commonly referred to as the Tec de Monterrey), university officials are hoping that these jobs will fall to many of their graduates.   To reach this end, ITESM has begun offering a course on electronic and mechanical design that is offered to students during their final semesters before graduation.  The goal of the course is to make sure that students are familiar with the engineering design process so that they can perform well once in the workplace. 

ITESM faculty members are also involving students in their research.  This gives them another way to experience real-world projects, often in a business environment. 

The Visteon building should be completed by July 2004 and will provide 5,000 square meters of office space. 

Visteon has over 73,000 employees around the world and was ranked 97 in the Fortune 500 survey of 2003.  Sales revenues for 2003 were more than US$17 billion.

Source: El Heraldo de Chihuahua, February 25, 2004.