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Llegan a Tijuana más empresas de las que salen

Llegan a Tijuana más empresas de las que salen
Diario de San Diego, Mar Mar 9 2010
http://diariosandiego.com/bin/articulos.cgi?ID=84381&q=1&s=34
(Notimex, México)

En el último año, en Tijuana, Baja California, la recesión económica en casas matrices, más que la inseguridad, motivó la salida de 23 empresas, pero llegaron 42 nuevas y otras 20 invirtieron en su expansión.

La violencia e inseguridad preocupaban hace cinco o siete años, "ahora, en los planes de inversión, juega más la ubicación, la logística, los incentivos fiscales, la experiencia en materia de maquiladoras y los 52 parques industriales en Tijuana", dijo el presidente de Desarrollo Económico e Industrial de Tijuana, Gerardo Brizuela Altamirano.

El representante expuso el comportamiento en esa ciudad fronteriza al anunciar el Encuentro Tijuana Innovadora 2010, que se realizará del 7 al 21 de octubre, con la asistencia de los premios Nobel de la Paz, Al Gore; de Química, Mario Molina; y de Economía, Robert Aumann.

En el encuentro también se programa la presencia del director general de la OCDE, José Angel Gurría, dijo en una conferencia de prensa organizada por la Cámara Nacional de la Industria de Transformación (Canacintra).

Brizuela adelantó también que en los próximos 45 días se concretarán inversiones por 17 mil millones de dólares en materia automotriz, lo que generará hasta 900 empleos, aunque se reservó el nombre de la industria automotriz.

Agregó que recientemente se realizó una inversión de 25 millones de dólares para la expansión del aeropuerto internacional de Tijuana. "Somos el tercer aeropuerto con mejor conectividad y el cuarto en operación de viajes; se esperan otros 20 millones de dólares de inversión para los siguientes cinco años".

En materia de infraestructura, destacó que hay un avance de 80 por ciento en la construcción de concreto hidráulico en las principales vialidades de Tijuana. En total, se construirán 42 kilómetros con una inversión de mil 700 millones de pesos, lo que da mayor competitividad al transporte de mercancías.

Respecto al proyecto portuario de Punta Colonet, recordó que el secretario de Comunicaciones y Transportes, Juan Molinar, comentó que "el proyecto estaba en el gimnasio, tomando fuerza, lo que nos da confianza, pues sería un detonador. Esperamos buenas noticias antes de que termine el semestre".

Brizuela Altamirano sostuvo que empiezan a regresar a Tijuana las empresas que hace años salieron por la inseguridad. En la actualidad, precisó, 30 por ciento de las inversiones en esa ciudad provienen del sur del país.

Aseveró que la apertura de una empresa en Tijuana tarda de cinco a 10 días, a reserva de los trámites que se requieran si el negocio tiene implicaciones de carácter ambiental.

Por su parte, el presidente del Encuentro Tijuana Innovadora 2010, José Galicot, señaló que el reto es traer industrias estadunidenses a México, en vez de que se exporten ingenieros mexicanos hacia el vecino país del norte.

De igual forma, indicó que es necesario que las universidades volteen hacia la tecnología, se invierta en educación e investigación. "En Tijuana hay más actividad cultural que en San Diego, Estados Unidos".

Anulan derechos laborales

Líderes sindicales textileros negocian la anulación de derechos laborales
Pusieron fin a prestaciones y futuros trabajadores sólo podrán pactar salarios: FAT

PATRICIA MUÑOZ RÍOS
Periódico La Jornada, Lunes 8 de marzo de 2010, p. 19
http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2010/03/08/index.php?section=politica&article=019n1pol

Los líderes sindicales del sector textil Fermín Lara, de la Confederación Revolucionaria de Obreros y Campesinos, y Miguel Ángel Tapia, de la Confederación de Trabajadores de México, aceptaron y firmaron una modificación radical al contrato ley de dicha industria que significa la renuncia a los derechos laborales para los futuros empleados del ramo.

En una nueva fórmula para acabar con las prestaciones y derechos que otorgan dichos contratos, ahora se están alcanzando acuerdos entre algunos líderes sindicales y cámaras o representaciones empresariales para determinar que los futuros trabajadores ya no tendrán las mismas prestaciones.

Ello significa la defunción anticipada de los contratos ley y que en adelante éstos se conviertan en megaconvenios de protección patronal, denunció el Frente Auténtico del Trabajo (FAT).

Esa renuncia a los derechos laborales inclusive ya se publicó en el Diario Oficial de la Federación, por lo cual es un hecho consumado que los nuevos empleados sólo contarán con salario y prestaciones que marca la ley, haciendo a un lado las conquistas obtenidas por el gremio durante décadas, planteó la organización.

Según la organización, la eliminación de prestaciones significa un atraco a lo ganado en los contratos ley durante décadas. Las siguientes generaciones quedarán fuera de los beneficios laborales alcanzados, lo cual quiere decir la extinción de los mismos.

El FAT hizo ver que el pasado 4 de diciembre los líderes mencionados renunciaron, en nombre de la coalición, a los mismos derechos en el ramo listones, elásticos, encajes y cintas, dejando prácticamente sólo la posibilidad de negociar el porcentaje del salario mínimo para quienes se contraten en el futuro y quitándoles cláusulas que amparan tabuladores, prestaciones y condiciones de trabajo.

Esto es una traición y burla. No se ha visto en ningún país, durante toda la restructuración económica y productiva, una negociación de esas características, en la que se vendan los derechos obtenidos durante años de luchas, llegando a la extinción a esos contratos, aseveró el FAT, y pregunta: ¿Qué fue lo que hizo aceptar la renuncia a los derechos de los trabajadores?

Para la organización, los dos contratos modificados perjudican a miles de trabajadores, quienes en el futuro no tendrán qué negociar.

TRW Workers Make History!

Mexican Labor Authorities Recognize the TRW Workers’ Coalition
A Historic Precedent!
Your letters and solidarity are making a difference!
Please continue supporting TRW workers by demanding accountability from TRW headquarters

March 10, 2010

  • Labor authorities responded to demands of TRW Workers in Reynosa, Mexico, by threatening TRW management with a fine if they fail to appear at hearing

  • TRW management showed up at the Labor Department hoping to negotiate with the Workers Coalition but without success

  • The Mexican government responded to CJM members’ letters that exposed the lack of enforcement of labor law and the complicity of labor authorities.
 Actions:

Ciudad Juarez Foxconn: Trabajadoras queman maquiladora- workers burn down a maquiladora

(English version below)

Trabajadoras incendian maquiladora taiwanesa en Ciudad Juarez en protesta por abusos
Anuncian huelga y señalan parcialidad de autoridades laborales
Despide maquiladora de Juárez a 300 obreros a raíz de protesta

Rubén Villalpando
Corresponsal
Periódico La Jornada
Viernes 26 de febrero de 2010, p. 33

Ciudad Juárez, Chih., 25 de febrero. La maquiladora de capital taiwanés Foxconn comenzó a despedir a alrededor de 300 empleados que la semana pasada participaron en una protesta en la cual quemaron el comedor de la empresa y apedrearon los dormitorios de los gerentes.

Jesús Sánchez, representante legal de Foxconn, dijo que a raíz de los problemas con los trabajadores, un cliente decidió cancelar un contrato de proveeduría, por lo que fue necesario recortar a los trabajadores del área que producía dicha mercancía.

La mañana de este jueves unos 70 obreros protestaron fuera de la compañía porque en el turno de la noche les notificaron sin explicación alguna que estaban despedidos, y para evitar protestas fueron desalojados por agentes del Centro de Inteligencia Policial de la Secretaría de Seguridad Pública estatal.

La maquiladora se encuentra a 20 kilómetros de la mancha urbana, en el sector de Santa Teresa, y ensambla computadoras.

El 20 de febrero, aproximadamente 300 obreros del turno nocturno quemaron el comedor y rompieron vidrios de los dormitorios de los directivos cuando éstos trataron de obligarlos a trabajar tiempo extra después de la medianoche. En esa ocasión no llegaron los autobuses que a las 12 llevan a los trabajadores a sus hogares y éstos dijeron que estaban retenidos contra su voluntad.

La empresa aseguró que no habría represalias contra los empleados, pero ayer por la noche dio a conocer el despido de todo el turno nocturno.

Jesús José Díaz Monárrez, secretario general de la Federación Regional de Trabajadores del Norte, de filiación cetemista, anunció que este jueves se emplazará a huelga a la maquiladora porque la planta ha violado los derechos de los trabajadores. Asimismo cuestionó la actuación viciada de la Junta Local de Conciliación y Arbitraje al averiguar lo ocurrido durante la protesta en Foxconn. La supervisión se llevó a cabo en presencia de los jefes inmediatos de los trabajadores, quienes se inhibieron para externar sus inconformidades por temor a que los despidieran, como sucedió hoy. El también diputado local priísta pidió que el Congreso local cree una comisión para defender a los obreros.

En Ciudad Victoria, Tamaulipas, más de 900 trabajadores están en la incertidumbre porque cuatro maquiladoras cerraron sin pagar liquidaciones, informó la Dirección de Trabajo y Previsión Social. Rogelio López Pompa, titular de la dependencia estatal, indicó que tres empresas desaparecieron a finales de 2009 y afectaron a 800 obreros de los municipios de Reynosa, Matamoros y González. La cuarta cerró este año en Reynosa, en perjuicio de 180 trabajadores.

La Junta de Concialiación en Reynosa aplicó un embargo precautorio de bienes y entabló un juicio. Si la empresa no responde se pondrá a la venta la maquinaria, advirtió.

Con información de Notimex

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Foxconn workers burn down a factory

Posted by Jeff Morgan (02/20/2010 @ 7:53 pm)


No one likes to be lied to by an employer, though few ever take that dislike as far as Foxconn workers in Mexico. Apparently a group of Foxconn employees set fire to their factory after management attempted to coerce workers into overtime labor without compensation.

Foxconn’s Juarez, Mexico facility uses transportation trucks to ferry workers to and from the plant every day. Yesterday, supervisors at the plant told workers that the trucks had been delayed at a military checkpoint and instructed the employees to continue working until the trucks arrived. As it turns out, the trucks were sitting in the parking lot, presumably parked-in on purpose. It wasn’t the first time the factory had pulled a stunt like this, so the workers decided to get even. They torched the gymnasium, which is where the plant keeps all of its finished cell phones and computers.

Don’t be surprised if there’s suddenly a bit of an iPhone shortage in certain parts of the country.


Foxconn Blasts Worker, Media after Mexico Factory Fire
Posted by: Bruce Einhorn on February 22, 2010


“Misleading and twisted.” That’s what Taiwanese electronics giant Hon Hai Precision is saying about coverage of a conflict with some workers at a factory in Mexico owned by its Foxconn Technology Group. Hon Hai spokesman Edmund C.A. Ding today released a statement saying that buses that usually transport workers back from the Foxconn Juarez Santa Teresa campus at the end of the night shift didn’t show up on Feb. 19. The statement said 30 people in the waiting area covered their faces with bandanas and started “spreading malicious rumors of how Foxconn would not give overtime pay for late bus to agitate the crowd.” The workers tried to prevent the bus from reaching the campus, the statement continues, and employees started a fire in a community center. The company said the incident had been planned in advance by a former employee with a “personal score to settle.” Foxconn says it will pursue legal action against the former employee only, and not any other workers involved.

As it has done in the past, Hon Hai also is targeting the media. “The Group will take legal action against any malicious manipulation of media to spread erroneous rumor to cause harm to the Group,” the statement says. Hon Hai has shown that it’s not shy about going after reporters. In 2006, the company sued two Chinese journalists for defamation, only to withdraw the suit following a storm of criticism from the Chinese blogosphere. That strategy didn’t work in a country not exactly known for being media friendly, though. We’ll see whether it fares any better in Mexico.

Sony sold Tijuana to Foxconn

Plunging TV prices challenge makers
Competition prompts Sony's Baja decision
By Mike Freeman, SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

Wednesday, September 2, 2009 at 2 a.m.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2009/sep/02/plunging-tv-prices-challenge-makers/

Sony's decision this week to sell its flat panel television factory in Tijuana to a Taiwan-based manufacturing conglomerate shows how TV makers are looking for new ways to compete as prices continue to plunge.

“I think from Sony's perspective, it has been a challenge in the U.S. market because it's so competitive,” said Paul Semenza, a senior vice president with Display Research, which follows the industry. “In certain regions like Japan, consumers really want a certain high level of quality and are willing to pay for it. In the U.S., it's a much more price-sensitive market.”

Stiff competition for liquid crystal display TVs, the flat-panel kind produced at the Sony's Tijuana plant, has caused prices in North America to drop about 30 percent over the past year, said Stephen Baker, vice president of industry analysis at NPD Group in New York.

“As prices go down, you have to be competitive,” he said. “A lesson to be learned from the computer business is there is an awful lot of costs in manufacturing that might be better left to somebody with more leverage when every penny counts.”

On Monday, Sony said it will sell a 90 percent stake in its sprawling TV factory in Tijuana to Hon Hai Precision Industry Corp. Ltd., a leading outsource manufacturer of everything from iPods to Playstation 3 game consoles.

The Tijuana factory produces the bulk of Sony's LCD televisions sold in the Americas. Hon Hai will continue to make the televisions for Sony at the site. According to Sony, Hon Hai will retain all 3,300 employees.

As a huge electronics contract manufacturer, Hon Hai can drive a hard bargain with suppliers because it purchases in big volumes. In addition, it makes some of the components used in LCD televisions itself, according to analysts, which could further lower the cost of the LCDs it makes for Sony.

According to industry research firm iSuppli, Sony ranked third in the U.S. for unit shipments of LCD TVs in the second quarter with a 12 percent market share. It trailed Vizio, with 22 percent, and Samsung, at 21 percent.

Opened in 1985, Sony's Baja plant helped provide symbolic legitimacy to Tijuana's maquiladora industry. Initially, it made TV cabinets. But over the years it grew into an important cog in Sony's TV manufacturing operations.

The transaction with Hon Hai, which is also known as Foxconn, is expected to be completed within a few months. The financial terms were not disclosed, but Sony said it is not expected to have a material impact on the company this fiscal year.

Sony's move to sell the plant to Hon Hai/Foxconn came as a surprise to some in Tijuana's maquiladora industry.

In June, Baja California government officials said Sony was adding 1,500 positions at the factory as it moved production there from two TV plants it was closing — one in Mexicali and the other in Pittsburgh.

Moreover, Hon Hai/Foxconn has been looking for land in Tijuana, presumably to build its own facilities, said Tony Ramirez, a partner in San Diego-based Made In Mexico and a longtime board member of the Tijuana Maquiladora Association.

“We knew Foxconn has been snooping around for some time,” he said. “Everyone assumed they were going to be setting up their own operation.”

In outsourcing its TV manufacturing, Sony joins other TV brands that use contractors to make their products. Vizio, one of the most aggressive price competitors in the flat panel TV market, has no manufacturing facilities of its own, Semenza said.

Large out-source manufacturers tend to have more negotiating power with suppliers and expertise in manufacturing that helps lower costs.

“This is not unique to Sony,” said Semenza, the Display Research analyst. “Other major brands do it. They tend not to do it at the leading edge of their product portfolio. They do it when the pricing has become more of commodity-type pricing.”


Sony Outsources Border Plant
Frontera Norte Sur
http://www.nmsu.edu/~frontera/ (See "Tijuana News")
Battered by multi-billion dollar losses, Sony Corp. has decided to outsource production at a large Tijuana factory. The Japan-based consumer electronics giant announced this week it will sell a 90 percent interest in a factory that manufactures LCD television screens to Hon Hai Precision Industry Co.of Taiwan. Production at the plant will be managed by Hon Hai’s Foxconn division.

The deal was given a political stamp of approval by Baja California Governor Jose Osuna Millan and other high state officials. In a Tijuana meeting earlier this week, Governor Osuna thanked Sony President Takahiro Kawamura for investing in the northern Mexican state. The National Action Party governor told Kawamura that Baja California is quite open to future dealings with Sony. After returning the appreciations, Kawamura said that Baja California has a proven track record in doing business.

No details of the Sony-Foxconn agreement were immediately disclosed, but initial reports suggested that the 3,300 workers at the Tijuana factory would still have jobs. Foxconn, however, is among many electronics manufacturers that routinely outsource jobs to temporary employment agencies which don’t pay the full range of benefits. The Taiwan-based industry leader makes computers and consumer electronics for companies including Sony, Apple, Cisco, HP, Nintendo, Motorola, and Nokia.

Enjoying nearly $40 billion in earnings in 2006, Foxconn emerged as the world’s largest electronics parts manufacturer, according to a report by the Guadalajara-based Center for Reflection and Labor Action (Cereal).

In addition to Tijuana, Foxconn is currently expanding production activities in Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua. Prior to the onset of the world recession, Tijuana was the center of television production in Mexico, dominating 70 percent of the national market share, according to the Cereal report.

Typically, electronics components used in the manufacturing process in Tijuana are shipped in from Asia for final product assembly on the border.

Sources: Frontera, September 1, 2009. Los Angeles Times/Associated Press, September 1, 2009. Juarez-El Paso Now, August 2009. Cereal report, October 2007.

Comment by Citygroup
see also http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/biz/archives/2009/09/02/2003452602

"Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) will buy the stake in a liquid-crystal-display TV unit based in Tijuana, Mexico, and the unit’s manufacturing assets...The sale signals that Sony — which is cutting 16,000 jobs and has shut eight factories to revive its profitability as it heads into its first consecutive annual losses since its listing in 1958 — may eventually stop making TVs, said Kota Ezawa, an analyst at Citigroup Inc in Tokyo."

Sony Sells 90% Of Tijuana LCD TV Plant, Forms Strategic Alliance with Taiwan’s Hon Hai Precision Industry

Sony Insider
http://www.sonyinsider.com/2009/09/01/sony-sells-90-of-tijuana-lcd-tv-plant-forms-strategic-alliance-with-taiwans-hon-hai-precision-industry/

Sony has announced that it has agreed to form a strategic alliance with Taiwan’s Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. Ltd. (also known as Foxconn) for the production of LCD TVs in the Americas. Based on this agreement, Sony will sell to Hon Hai Group 90% of its shares in Sony Baja California and certain manufacturing assets related to Sony Baja California’s Tijuana site in Mexico, which mainly manufactures LCD TVs for the Americas region. Following the sale, Hon Hai Group will hold 90% ownership of Sony Baja California and the Sony Group will retain a 10% share. The Tijuana site will remain a key manufacturing facility of Sony LCD TVs for the Americas region. Hon Hai Group will assume employment of employees at the Tijuana site.

Within its LCD TV business, Sony is concentrating internal resources towards areas that contribute to product differentiation, such as R&D, engineering and design, while also establishing a structure that enables the company to bring attractive products to market at the earliest possible opportunity. At the same time, by proactively leveraging external manufacturing resources Sony will also seek to reduce fixed costs, drive other cost reductions, improve profitability and achieve business expansion.

Completions of the transfers are subject to regulatory approvals in several countries. No material impact from the transfer on Sony’s consolidated financial results for the current fiscal year for the transfer is anticipated.