I entered the high, barbed-fenced area under a flat-arched sign reading: “ZONA FRANCA.” The neatly laid-out streets and cheap, warehouse buildings reminded me of internment camps from the Second World War. Peering past the shotgun-toting guard into the high shell of a building, I saw row upon row of women, sitting at identical tables with identical postures, surrounded by identical piles of cloth stacked beside identical sewing machines. I had entered the brave new world of the Export Processing Zone in San Pedro de Macoris in the Dominican Republic.
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References
1.
Some analysts prefer a different term due to the diversity of activities and services now being performed, such as manufacturing and data entry. The older term remains useful as a generic reference and is retained here.
2.
Industry Development Division, Industry and Energy Department [and] Trade Policy Division, Country Economics Department. Export Processing Zones. Washington, D.C.: World Bank, 1992: 25 [thereafter World Bank].
3.
World Bank: 3; KelleherT.“Free Zones as an Instrument of Economic Development in Developing Countries,”Shanon, Ireland: International Development Ireland, 1991 (photocopy), lists 300 EPZs in 50 countries. The largest concentrations of enterprises can be found in China, Mexico's Maquilas, and in Mauritius, though not every study includes China and Mexico in the EPZ category.
4.
RolkoJ.Restructuring the World Economy. New York: Pantheon Books, 1988: 44–5; StrangeS.States and Markets: An Introduction to International Political Economy. New York: Basil Blackwell, 1988, Chapter 8; KellyFernandez M.“International Development and Industrial Restructuring: The Case of the Garment and Electronics Industries in Southern California,” in MacEwanA. and TabbW., eds. Instability and Change in the World Economy. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1989: 147–165. These developments must be seen as a response to the challenges from labor in the Post War Era, and the end of the compromises followed earlier in that period.
5.
The EPZ is akin to the idea of “enterprise zones” frequently advocated to revitalize America's urban centers.
6.
FergusonJ.Dominican Republic: Beyond the Lighthouse. London: Latin American Bureau, 1992: 67; World Bank 40 note 23; WiardaHoward, “The Dominican Republic: Mirror Legacies of Democracy and Authoritarianism.” in DiamondL. eds. Democracy in Developing Countries: Latin America. Volume Four. Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1989: 442 for union rates.
7.
See BeneriaL., “Gender and the Global Economy,” in MacEwan and TabbW., op. cit.: 241–258.
8.
AbreuA.Las Zonas Francas Industriales: El Exito de una Politica Economica. Santo Domingo: Centra Internacional Para el Desarrollo Economico, 1989: 115–6.
9.
World Bank: 17,20. On lax regulation see HartlynJ., “The Dominican Republic: Contemporary Problems and Challenges.” in DominguezJ. eds. Democracy in the Caribbean: Political, Economic, and Social Perspectives. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993: 163–4.
10.
World Bank10.
11.
They are sometimes dubbed the “Chicago Boys” from the inspiration of the market-oriented University of Chicago Economics Department under Milton Freedman. See “Working to Make Your Business Work Free Zones in the Dominican Republic.” Santo Domingo: Dominican Republic Investment Promotion Council, January 1990; Abreu, op. cit.; and DauhajreA. HijoImpacto Economico de las Zonas Francas Industriales en la Republica Dominica. Santo Domingo: Fundacion Economia y Desarrollo, Inc., 1989.
12.
PinedaM.“La Vida Mia, No Es Facil: La Otra Cara de la Zona Franca”. Santo Domingo: CIPAF, 1990: 48.
13.
World Bank3.
14.
Ferguson: 10. Bluestone and Harrison have documented the process of capital flight and job destruction in the deindustrialization process led by such conglomerates. BluestoneB. and HarrisonB.The Deindustrialization of America. New York: Pantheon, 1982.
15.
World Bank 35, 31 note.
16.
World Bank: 35.
17.
Dauhajre: 161.
18.
DeereC.In the Shadows of the Sun — Caribbean Development, Alternatives and U.S. Policy. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1990: 168.
19.
Deere: chapter 6.
20.
Dauhajre: 204.
21.
Dauhajre: 125, 127.
22.
Abreu: 71. Compare these figures with Los Angeles, the second largest garment-producing center in the U.S., where virtually no firms with more than 500 workers existed by the late 1980s. Fernandez Kelly: 160.
23.
Ferguson: 66–67. See also HornP., “Paying to Lose Jobs,”Dollars and Sense. March 1993: 20.
24.
Deere: 171. Economist Intelligence Unit, [hereafter EIU], Cuba and Dominican Republic. First quarter 1993: 21 reports $105 million in 936 funds since 1987.
25.
World Bank: 15; Abreu: 115–6.
26.
Deere: 169. The Economist Intelligence Unit lists Korean and Taiwanese investors as third and fourth largest after North American and Dominican interests. They combine for less than 20 percent of the total number of EPZs. Cuba and Dominican Republic Country Studies. Third Quarter 1993: 27.
27.
These zones contain millions of workers and are among the very fastest growing industrial areas in the world. See SklairL.“Regional Consequences of Open Door Development Strategies: Export Zones in Mexico and China,” in SimonD., ed. Third World Regional Development. A Reappraisal. London: Paul Chapman Publishing Ltd, 1990.
28.
SojaE.“Economic Restructuring and the Internationalization of the Los Angeles Region.” In Smith and Feagin, eds. op. cit.: 184.
29.
KellyFernandez, op. cit.
30.
Sassen-Koob, 5. “Growth and Informalization at the Core: A Preliminary Report on New York City.” In SmithM. and FeaginJ., eds. The Capitalist City. Oxford, UK: Basil Blackwell, Ltd., 1987: 148.
31.
Sassen-koob: 142–3. There is also downward pressure on wages and working conditions on the order of 17 percent since 1980, according to Patricia Horn: 21.
32.
See the alternative criteria in World Bank, Sklair, and LindekeW., “EPZ: Hidden Thorns and Alternatives”Namibia Review (Windhoek) August 1992.
33.
See note 14.
34.
World Bank: 17, 19. Sassen, 5. “Why Migration?”Report on the Americas. Volume XXVINo. 1 July 1992.
35.
KellyFernandez, op. cit.: 161.
36.
Pineda: 28, 42. Patricia Horn reports similar findings in Honduras, where garment workers “…complained of eye irritations, skin rashes, nausea, headaches and coughs caused by airborne contaminants in the factory.”: 21.
37.
Pineda: 14,15,45ff.
38.
Author's March 1990 interview with the supervisor of a US-based, Department of Defense subcontracting company. Despite repeated recommendations from management, workers still resisted wearing respirators.
39.
Author's May 1990 interview with a San Pedro union leader. Union officials may be called upon to negotiate between labor and management in crisis situations, but they are not allowed to organize. Additional difficulties arise due to gender differences between labor leaders and the majority of EPZ workers.
40.
The World Bank report counts 434,147 workers in 1886 Mexican border plants that earned more than $12 billion in exports by September 1990. P.38 note 4. Mary E. Kelly points out that up to half of these firms may generate hazardous waste. Although Mexican law requires waste produced by US-owned firms to be returned to the US, Environmental Protection Agency data cited by her show only 91 of 600 Texas-Mexican border firms returning waste through Texas ports of entry since 1987. KellyM.“FREE TRADE: The Politics of Toxic Waste,”Report on the Americas, XXVI #2, September 1992: 5. See SklairL., Assembling for Development: The Maquila Industry in Mexico and the United States. Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1989 for citations on health and safety issues.
41.
Pineda: 25–6.
42.
Ferguson: 47ff.
43.
TabbW., “Capital Mobility, the Restructuring of Production, and the Politics of Labor,” in MacEwan and Tabb: 267.
44.
Horn: 10.
45.
EIU, 3/93: 27.
46.
See Latin America Regional Reports: Mexico and NAFTA Report (London). Various dates 1993.
47.
The Dominican Republic has costs two-thirds of those of Mexico, Abreu: 128–30.
48.
See Latin America Regional Reports: Caribbean and Washington Letter. (London). Various dates 1992 and 1993.
