While tra­di­tion­al­ly most Mex­i­can auto indus­try work­ers have been men, in the state of Gua­na­ju­a­to, where the Sala­man­ca fac­to­ry is locat­ed, women make up about half the auto work­force. They tend to be sin­gle — as in the maquilado­ras, the Mex­i­can tex­tile fac­to­ries which pre­fer women because boss­es feel they are more vul­ner­a­ble and can be paid less.

Accord­ing to work­ers, the accused super­vi­sor would use the cul­tur­al prac­tice of a kiss on the cheek as an excuse to get sex­u­al. He would stalk women at work and force him­self on them physically.

At the new Maz­da assem­bly plant in Sala­man­ca, Mex­i­co, 20 work­ers were fired in March for sup­port­ing a co-work­er who was being sex­u­al­ly harassed by their supervisor.

One work­er first com­plained about this sex­u­al harass­ment — to the com­pa­ny and the union, using the estab­lished com­plaint pro­ce­dures — back in May of last year, but the sit­u­a­tion was allowed to con­tin­ue. Next, work­ers took their case to gov­ern­ment agen­cies, with wit­ness­es and sup­port state­ments, again with no results.

So ​“we decid­ed to protest,” said Tadeo Velaquez, one of the 20 fired work­ers. ​“We were [all] being harassed at work by this super­vi­sor. It was so intense that it was real­ly dif­fi­cult to work in a good envi­ron­ment. He would mis­treat and bul­ly us all the time.

“Then we heard that one of our part­ners, a woman, was sex­u­al­ly harassed by him. He wasn’t just dis­re­spect­ing us; he was also sex­u­al­ly abus­ing her.”

In March, work­ers on a sub­assem­bly line orga­nized a work-to-rule slow­down. That grabbed management’s atten­tion. A meet­ing was held. Man­age­ment and the union agreed to han­dle the prob­lem with the supervisor.

“We were informed that we weren’t going to be pun­ished for the demon­stra­tion,” said Edgar Capetil­lo, anoth­er fired work­er. ​“We had a mutu­al agree­ment with the union that noth­ing was going to hap­pen to us. But 15 days lat­er, we were removed from our duties.”

They were fired with­out expla­na­tion. All 20 of the work­ers were male.

Pushy new plant

Rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the fired work­ers appeared on the local news pro­gram, Zona Fran­ca, and asked their fel­low work­ers for sup­port. Anoth­er woman came for­ward with her sto­ry of harassment.

The super­vi­sor was giv­en two days off. Many work­ers feel he should be fired.

Super­vi­sor bul­lies are com­mon at this plant, where man­age­ment is push­ing ardu­ous hours and an intense pace. Work­ers on the assem­bly line have suf­fered injuries to the ten­dons in their hands, spinal injuries, even convulsions.

Pro­duc­tion would stop for noth­ing, accord­ing to the fired work­ers — if a work­er was hav­ing con­vul­sions, they would sim­ply be car­ried away and replaced by anoth­er worker.

The plant opened last year with 3,000 employ­ees. It’s in the Mex­i­can state of Gua­na­ju­a­to, Mazda’s only North Amer­i­can assem­bly site.

This is the first time in decades that the com­pa­ny has run an over­seas plant on its own. The last one, in Flat Rock, Michi­gan, became a joint ven­ture with Ford in 1992, and Maz­da ceased pro­duc­tion there in 2012.

The Sala­man­ca plant’s annu­al capac­i­ty is ini­tial­ly tar­get­ed at 140,000 vehi­cles. Pro­duc­tion is slat­ed to grow to 230,000 in the fis­cal year end­ing March 31, 2016.

After the plant reach­es full pro­duc­tion, about 30 per­cent of the Maz­da vehi­cles sold in the Unit­ed States will be sourced from North Amer­i­ca — com­pared with vir­tu­al­ly none today. At full capac­i­ty, it will employ 4,600 people.

Mex­i­co’s auto boom

Maz­da isn’t alone. Mex­i­co just sur­passed Brazil as the sev­enth-largest auto pro­duc­er in the world, pro­duc­ing 3.2 mil­lion vehi­cles last year. By 2020 it’s expect­ed to reach 5.1 million.

Toy­ota has announced a new $1 bil­lion plant in Gua­na­ju­a­to that will employ 2,000 work­ers and make 200,000 vehi­cles. GM is invest­ing $5 bil­lion between 2013 and 2018, adding 5,600 new jobs to the 15,000 it already employs in Mex­i­co. Ford projects anoth­er $2.5 billion.

The com­bi­na­tion of tar­iff-free man­u­fac­tur­ing, low wages, cheap land, few enforced reg­u­la­tions, and easy access to glob­al mar­kets make Mex­i­co a prime man­u­fac­tur­ing cen­ter. In the last five years com­pa­nies have announced $20 bil­lion in invest­ments made or planned.

Salaries have stag­nat­ed. One recent study — by a finan­cial insti­tu­tion, the Grupo Financiero BVA Ban­com­er — found more than half of all work­ing peo­ple in Mex­i­co earn less than twice the min­i­mum wage, or about $7 per day. Ten per­cent receive less than the min­i­mum, $3.50 a day.

These days, if plants in Mex­i­co are threat­ened with clo­sure, it’s to move the work to Asia. But a Bank of Amer­i­ca study found that while in 2003 Mexico’s aver­age wages were 188 per­cent high­er than China’s, today they’re 20 per­cent low­er.

Cor­rupt unions

All the work­ers in Guanajuato’s auto indus­try, includ­ing at the Maz­da plant, are rep­re­sent­ed by the cor­rupt Con­fed­er­a­tion of Mex­i­can Work­ers (CTM).

The union sided with man­age­ment in the fir­ing of the 20.

Despite a law that allows work­ers the right to return to work after unjust fir­ings, com­pa­nies oper­at­ing in Mex­i­co can bank on get­ting away with fir­ing per­ma­nent­ly. Unions are region­al, and con­tracts are nego­ti­at­ed plant by plant. Work­ers report that the CTM, a com­pa­ny union con­trolled by Mexico’s rul­ing par­ty, will not defend them. Fired work­ers are often forced to sign away their jobs and accept a legal­ly required cash pay­ment instead.

To illus­trate the lev­el of cor­rup­tion, look at Ale­jan­dro Rangel, a leader in the Gua­na­ju­a­to CTM who’s also a fed­er­al deputy. Union lead­ers often become fed­er­al and state deputies and senators.

Since tak­ing office, Rangel has built him­self a cas­tle with a gigan­tic swim­ming pool in front. He used his posi­tion to have fed­er­al funds used to build a road from the main road to his castle.

Unfor­tu­nate­ly for him, an error in the spec­i­fi­ca­tions labeled the paving project as meant for a near­by town. Like many in the area, this town only had a dirt road. When the error became known, towns­peo­ple demand­ed that their road be paved too.

As a side effect of a fed­er­al labor ​“reform” law passed in 2012, region­al union lead­ers are now allowed to move into oth­er regions. This means those who have the most pow­er in the par­ty and gov­ern­ment are tak­ing con­trol of plants in oth­er areas — mak­ing the cor­rup­tion even worse. But they all belong to the CTM and oppose inde­pen­dent unions.

Those inde­pen­dent unions that do exist — in auto plants in Puebla and Cuer­nava­ca — have been unable to expand into Gua­na­ju­a­to. An attempt to form one at the Hon­da plant in the neigh­bor­ing state of Jalis­co a few years ago end­ed with orga­niz­ers being fired, though that’s still being chal­lenged in court.

Rev­o­lu­tion­ary legacy

Ford’s plants are close to the U.S. bor­der. But most of Mexico’s auto pro­duc­tion is in the cen­ter of the coun­try. That’s where GM, Volk­swa­gen, Hon­da, Renault-Nis­san, BMW, Daim­ler, parts sup­pli­ers, and even research and devel­op­ment oper­a­tions are concentrated.

From a moun­tain high point, the view is spec­tac­u­lar: an enor­mous plain filled with auto plants, all emit­ting the same brown­ish-pink­ish smog. It sits in a lay­er over the plain, and extends into the sur­round­ing mountains.

This is also the area where the Mex­i­can Rev­o­lu­tion of 1810 began. When Miguel Hidal­go announced inde­pen­dence, he demand­ed that the slave­hold­ers imme­di­ate­ly release the indige­nous peo­ple who toiled in the mines here, cart­ing out gold and sil­ver for the empire.

Will Mexico’s work­ers be able to use their strength to con­front the com­pa­nies, the gov­ern­ment, and the cor­rupt CTM to build inde­pen­dent unions that can give form to their anger?