Looming above a Canadian auto-parts plant, keeping watch over workers, is a painting of the Virgin Mary. This same plant plans a celebration of its latest expansion with a party featuring a mariachi band.
It’s far from Windsor. It’s close to Mexico City.
The story of the Exo-s factory is the story of NAFTA: manufacturing booming in Mexico, while surviving in the north; supply chains that are internationally interconnected and extra-efficient; and a Mexican workforce seeing the most modest gains and longing for more.
Canadian auto-parts companies have more than 120 plants and 43,000 employees in Mexico, and this Quebec-based plastics-maker is among them. It has grown a bit in Canada, but exploded here: when it opens a new warehouse on its property, its Mexican workforce will have nearly tripled to 300.
While workers hammer and weld together the new warehouse frame, the plant manager explains why Mexico was a must.
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By Alexander Panetta / The Canadian Press. Read the whole article at Toronto Star