Comité Fronterizo
de Obrer@s
CFO

For the labor rights and all human rights of the maquiladora workers

Alcoa is the second largest producer of aluminum in the world, and the leader in aluminum smelting capacity and alumina production. Its main headquarters are in New York City and Pittsburgh . Alcoa has 129,000 employees in 43 countries. Former Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo is a member of Alcoa's Board of Directors.

The Alcoa business AFL Automotive is one of the five largest suppliers of electric distribution systems (wire harnesses) in the world. AFL has approximately 18,500 workers in the Mexican states of   Coahuila , Puebla and Nuevo León where they make harnesses for Ford, Volkswagen, Harley-Davidson, Paccar, GM and many other vehicles. The operations in its maquiladoras in Piedras Negras and Ciudad Acuña have approximately 10,500 workers.

Alcoa's maquiladora in Piedras Negras has the legal name of Manufacturera de Componentes Eléctricos de México (Macoelmex). In Ciudad Acuña, AFL owns 8 plants with the name Arneses y Accesorios de México.

Alcoa and its workers

In the cities of Piedras Negras and Ciudad Acuña, in the Mexican border with Texas, the Alcoa workers have challenged the company for several years because of the very low wages they earn in addition to a deterioration of working conditions Alcoa itself had a few years ago. The workers have also brought up to the company an extensive and detailed list of abuses to their human and labor rights conducted by local managers and supervisors.

Since September 1994, when 179 workers from Alcoa Plant #4 in Ciudad Acuña got intoxicated with carbon monoxide, to date hundreds of workers have participated actively in struggle in defense of their rights. Those struggles have ranged from small actions of resistance to changes imposed by managers that affect them to labor stoppages provoked by the inability and lack of will of the company to deliver solutions to workers' problems. The workers have also been part of a dialogue between Alcoa religious shareholders and top Alcoa executives from the U.S. and Mexico .

Alcoa has a Vision and Values statement. One of its Principles is: "We treat each other with dignity and respect at all times." Many Mexican workers affirm that is not true, and challenged that Alcoa not only has violated the Mexican Federal Labor Law but also its own principles.

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www.cfomaquiladoras.org is produced in cooperation with the
Mexico-U.S Border Program
of the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC)

Comité Fronterizo de Obrer@s (CFO)
Monterrey #1103, Col. Las Fuentes
Piedras Negras, Coahuila
C.P. 26010, México