from envio, jan 1994:
Life in Nicaragua today is marked by a push towards the private, the individual and thus an attack on most things collective including in organizational terms. When the Chamorro government took office in 1990, its officials began to talk about the "new era" and the "new economy," preaching the advantages of a free market and the future awaiting Nicaragua as it opened itself up to international trade. It is common to hear the government and politicians of all stripes talking about the need to adapt their strategies economic or political to this new era. Many of the "new" models have as their key foundation something as old as a nearly total faith in the efficiency and moral correctness of the free market. What is new today is how the world has changed, and with it, nearly all the rules of the game.
(...) [history] In the mid 1960s, most of the poor countries of the South still did not have assembly (maquila) plants or free zones producing for the world market. A decade later, the technological innovations taking place in the North led to a new international division of labor and an industrialization of the poorer countries oriented toward new kinds of exports for example, radios, tape recorders, computer chips, blue jeans and sportswear instead of coffee, bananas or sugar. With this new division, the free trade zones emerged. The free trade zones came to the region during the 1970s, within the context of the new Central American Common Market. They were conceived of by the governments as mechanisms to promote development, and the state was seen as playing a key role.
(...) Nicaragua was one of the Central American countries where the installation of a free trade zone was first planned (in 1973), but the zone did not open its doors until 1996, with eight factories and 3,000 workers. There was even a complementary plan to construct a deep water port on the southern Atlantic Coast near Monkey Point, to facilitate exportation of the zone's products to the eastern seaboard of the US by bringing transportation costs down. But the port was never built.
(...) The free trade zones throughout Central America were taking on more importance by 1980 and were integrated first as part of the Caribbean Basin Initiative and later in the Initiative for the Americas, the economic strategies for Latin America promoted by the Reagan Bush administrations. They fit well with the neoliberal model and the structural adjustment programs the international financial institutions were introducing at the regional level. The emphasis was on assembly process of nontraditional exports. According to the study, "Maquilas and Union Organization in Central America," by Roland Membreño and Elsa Guerrero, "our countries are being converted into huge industrial parks, abandoning any pretension of serving to satisfy internal demand."
(...) Although the zona franca was essentially irrelevant to the economy of revolutionary Nicaragua, a small zone did continue to function, producing primarily shoes and clothing. A worker from the ENAVES textile factory confiscated by the revolution and part of the zona franca during the 1980s remembers those years: "There were problems, but there was protection. They gave us meals, including breakfast and dinner, when we had to work extra hours. They also gave us the basic market basket of goods and transportation." The factories in the zone during the 1980s were unionized and state run. Thus their workers benefited both directly, in terms of their actual salaries, and indirectly, through the many subsidies the state guaranteed to the entire population. That is the key difference with the zona franca as currently constituted.
(...) Looking to reinsert the country into the international market, the "1970s style" maquila reappeared in Nicaragua at the end of 1991. New legislation facilitated investment in this kind of enterprise and the zona franca began to function, as it does in all countries, as a productive enclave, isolated and disconnected from the national economy. Nicaragua's free trade zone is still small and relatively unimportant for the country economically, but the prospects are for significant growth. And that's what the government is aiming for. Government statements about the zone circulating among the foreign business community declare that "the government of Nicaragua offers an attractive package of incentives, to all enterprises that qualify, to establish operations in the free zones of the country."
(...) "Although the Ministry of Labor is supposed to look out for the interests of the workers, the truth is that it represents the interests of these foreign companies. It has rubber stamped firings and mistreatment of the workers," charges Meneses.
(...) "A lot depends on the country's productivity image, and, in spite of everything that's happened here, we have a good reputation," Carlos Zúniga claims. Regarding public services (water, light, etc.), which so often fail to function in Managua, he adds, "We are always working for the institutions to offer better services in the zone. We want special treatment, because if we received the same treatment the rest of the world does, we wouldn't be able to produce."
(...) As part of its package to privatize state enterprises, the Chamorro government closed a number of state textile, clothing, shoe and other factories which set unemployment soaring among women workers, who had been the backbone of the work force in these industries. When the zona franca opened it doors again in 1991, almost all of the women from the closed textile factories sought and found jobs in the zone, working now for foreign employers.
(...) In its US publicity campaign, the Nicaraguan government emphasized how cheaply investors could acquire these factories. Although it spoke and continues to speak of "private" enterprises, the government plays a key role in consolidating the zone. The free trade zones, showcases for the free market, would not exist if not for other mechanisms that promote them, at the expense of other types of economic activity. In a commentary on the nightly "Sin Fronteras" radio program, CRIES economist Adolfo Acevedo destroyed the myth of the so called free market; his words are pertinent to an understanding of the zona franca. "The concept of the free market is ideological. A free market exists nowhere in the world; there is state intervention and regulation everywhere.... In the case of Nicaragua, the market simply does not function for 70 80% of all Nicaraguans. What the market does is deepen social and economic polarization, instead of attenuating it."
(...) "It's not that unions aren't allowed," says Carlos Zúniga, "it's that no place in the world is there a free trade zone that has unions. A union would mean shutting down the zona franca because, quite simply, investment doesn't come in where there are unions. We're working with the Ministry of Labor to resolve all this, so that unions aren't needed here."
(...) According to a study by Ana Silvia Monzón, the characteristics traditionally assigned to women in the social and labor division of society point to "women as a labor reserve that is poorly skilled and therefore cheap, docile and disciplined." This makes women the "perfect" work force for maquila production.
(...) Advertisements in the Nicaraguan newspapers appearing recently read as follows: "Private firm located in the zona franca needs female personnel from 16 to 22 years old." In Central America, women are 90% of the work force of the maquila, which now employs 8% of the economically active female population at the regional level. This is explained in part because the region's most important maquilas are textile plants, an industry that has long been a bastion of female labor. Another reason is of greater concern: businessmen tend to see women, and particularly young women, as ideal workers, more easily manipulated and thus less problematic.
(...) In spite of all these problems, there are always workers who manage to earn fairly well. And what happens to them? They tend to be transferred to other areas inside the factory. "That happened in ENAVES," says Auxiliadora Abarca, "And what happens when they're moving you around every other day is that you never get really good at any one job."
(...) The growing complexity and constant intensification of work in the maquilas takes a serious toll on the women workers. According to Membreño and Guerrero, this method of work hides "a conception of the woman worker, and of human beings in general, which reduces her to a kind of cog on the machine. Thus it becomes so important to control the time, and even the bodies, of the workers."