Mexico: Live to Work for $1.19 an hour - by Miguel Ángel Pallares Gómez (Upside Down World)

2013-05-24 · first published in marxsite · 258 words

This was not a Socialist Resistance publication. marxsite was Phil Hearse’s own long-form site, run alongside the paper he helped edit. It is kept here with his agreement, recovered from the Internet Archive after the domain lapsed and was taken over by someone else; nothing here links to the address it now points at.

Only part of this piece survives. The capture it was recovered from is truncated, so the text below stops before the article did.

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'Enslaving', is the word that Doña Raquel uses to define the work that she has performed over the last 16 years as a supervisor hired to promote different brands, from shampoo to food products.

Her work is based on encouraging customers in malls or self-service stores to select certain products. From the time she was hired, she has been paid around $10.57 per day before taxes. With that pay, Rachel has to visit at least five stores each day; she pays transport and food. She has a starting time, but not an ending time.

In an exercise carried out by EL Financiero, employment as cashiers, sellers, and general assistants was sought from companies like Walmart, Vips, Elektra, McDonald's, Oxxo, KFC, and El Globo.