When I lost my hands making flatscreens I can't afford, nobody would help me

[Liberal_in_LA]

Immediately, I started to worry about my children. I have six children at home, who were between the ages of 9 and 17 during the accident, and I am both mother and father to them. How would I take care of them now?

Working six days a week, I made 5,200 pesos a month ($400). Without my hands, I knew I wouldn’t even be able to make that much.

After five days in the hospital, I checked myself out. But I didn’t go home first. I went directly to the factory where I worked for HD Electronics. I asked to see the manager. He offered me 50,000 pesos ($3,800).

“I’ve lost both my hands,” I said. “How will my family survive on 50,000 pesos?”

“That’s our offer,” he said. “Stop making such a big scandal about it and take it.” I eventually got about $14,400 in settlement money under Mexican labor law, an amount equal to 75% of two years’ wages for each hand. But I knew I had to do better for my family. So I looked across the border, to Texas, where my former employer is based.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jun/11/lost-hands-making-flatscreens-no-help

[Warpy]

1. I wonder if she has applied to the IMSS

That's their version of Social Security and they should provide her with enough to pay the mortgage, at least.

This story is just a little incomplete.

She should also be able to re file a lawsuit against the company, this time without the technicality.

But yeah, $14,000 for cutting your hands off when the company makes billions? Disgraceful.

[xfundy]

2. People don't matter, unless they're customers.

Disgusting and inhumane.

[JDPriestly]

3. Now if she were a corporation, she could ask for damages in the NAFTA court.

Too bad. She is only human. Or how about the TPP court once that agreement is signed. There will be a TPP arbitration court, and plaintiffs, corporations, will be able to pick one judge and help pick the second of the three that will preside (as I understand it from what I read on the internet). As it is, she has to use the civil courts of Mexico or the US. And she does not get to help pick the judge in her case.

Corporations get all the advantages. People who work, not so much, when it comes to international trade.

[Rex]

4. Good thing we got NAFTA! That should help her...oh right, she is not incorporated.

Hmm..well no doubt things will get better if we just wait a long time and do nothing but expand the problem to new markets that have untapped disposable labor just waiting to make LG TVs for rich foreigners.

Free trade is such a great thing for people like investment bankers and factory owners.

[Recursion]

5. LG (Zenith at the time) opened the Reynosa factory in 1983

So...

[TheKentuckian]

6. Wouldn't have if there where serious tariffs in place rather than a job and wage killing

"free trade" fetish that has only grown more feverishly insane since.

[Rex]

8. Yes and the cult of money worshipers are gross and pathetic.

They make me sick to my stomach.

[Rex]

7. And?

[Recursion]

9. 11 years before NAFTA, Zenith shipped those jobs to Mexico where the safety standards are lower

Maybe I should just accept that the five letters "NAFTA" have now become a symbol of something much bigger here, but I keep on fighting that.

[Rex]

10. The article is not about a women from 1983.

Just saying.

You can pretend NAFTA was a great thing all you want to...nobody is buying your attempts. Sorry.

[Recursion]

11. True, it's about a woman who lost her hands in a factory built more than a decade before NAFTA

Which leads to my larger point I keep trying to make that this is going to happen whether we sign trade agreements or not. They're the symptom, not the disease.

[Rex]

12. Nonsense you are just guessing that based on nothing.

NAFTA hurt the labor force and you cannot admit it at all. Not my problem.

[Demonaut]

13. Zenith had no affliliation with LG (Lucky Goldstar) until 1990

[Recursion]

14. I know. But that plant was built, and those jobs were shipped, in the 1980s

LG bought them in 1995.

1983 was before NAFTA.

Korea is not a party to NAFTA.

The problem here is not NAFTA.

[Rex]

16. Okay so how did NAFTA help this lady without hands? It was in place for decades

and helped raise the standards of living for her and others like her? She made more money because of NAFTA? Had better safety protocols in place in the factory she worked at?

I guess you don't get it, but you just hurt your argument worse and worse by bringing up NAFTA. Ross Perot was right and you are wrong. NAFTA...any free trade deal...is total garbage for the labor force.

Great for investment bankers and factory owners.

[Recursion]

20. It didn't help her or hurt her

It has nothing to do with her.

You brought up NAFTA, not me. This factory was built before NAFTA, NAFTA doesn't govern her rights under Mexico's awful labor laws.

[Rex]

21. Thanks for admitting NAFTA has no benefit to the work force.

All I wanted to hear.

[Recursion]

24. I always said that (nt)

[Rex]

25. I know, I am just messing with you a little bit.

Seriously though, who will force poorer countries (The WTO?) to raise the standards of safety in the workplace? I know you know more about trade policy than I do and I keep hearing about 'worker protections' in the TPP...what are they and how would it work?

Why is there no mirror labor policy to go along with trade policy? Why is trade more valuable then the workers that make trade possible?

[Recursion]

27. Bluntly: they're taking the jobs whatever we do

With a trade agreement we at least get our pound of flesh in the process.

[davidpdx]

15. Well this just changed my mind

I was about to buy a new computer and it was going to be an LG. My last two computers have been HP and I was considering switching. I know none of these companies are innocent and I'm sure HP has plenty of problems in its factories as well. After reading this I can't buy an LG computer.

By the way in the past (given I'm in South Korea) I have bought several LG products (a refrigerator, laundry machine, air conditioner, humidifier, and both mine and my wife's phones are all LG brand). Here in Korea you are pretty much stuck with either LG or Samsung (and Samsung is just as bad).

[Rex]

17. I recommend LG monitors to customers, never again.

Nor will I buy any of their products, I own several. I was stationed in We Jon Bo for a year and a half.

[davidpdx]

18. I've been up there once near the boarder for a DMZ tour

That was back in 2007. My home is over in Bucheon and I'm about 26 km from the boarder.

Well I'm screwed now. I need to start my computer shopping all over again. I had narrowed it down to a few models as of last night. At least I have 6 weeks to get it done. I just have to hope nothing happens to my old one in the mean time.

[Rex]

19. Word of warning...don't buy anything with Windows 8...make sure it is at least 8.1

8 is so broken, you might have to ship it back if a few critical updates won't install (this has happened on ASUS, HP and Toshiba systems that I've worked on). It gets stuck in a loop and will never update nor roll back!

Was stationed at camp Bonifas for 6 months...a very nerve racking 6 months.

[davidpdx]

22. Yeah I wouldn't buy anything without 8.1

Hoping to get Windows 10 because Windows 8 was such a mess.

[Rex]

23. They are giving out free upgrades for Windows 10 right now for a limited time.

I still put Windows 7 Professional on all the computers I build, might get the upgrade just to play around with it and see if 10 is any good.

[davidpdx]

29. Yeah I got the notice as well

That's why I'm trying to get a computer quickly. I want to upgrade the new computer to Windows 10 and then wipe everything off the old one and reinstall Windows so I can give my old one to my wife and then upgrade hers as well. The old one is running so slow I figure it is probably worth it to just reformat the whole thing and start from scratch to increase the speed. While that's being done I'll ask them to give it a good cleaning as well.

[raouldukelives]

26. Coming soon to an America near you! nt

[MisterP]

28. after the '85 quake the soldiers cordoned off a sewing factory, shoved aside the survivors digging

out the trapped--and rescued the sewing machines and left the trapped seamstresses
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1985_Mexico_City_earthquake#Sewing_factory
the PRI was the "cartel party" decades before the cocaine started flowing