‘We’re Competing Against Everybody Just Like You’: Voices on Manufacturing in Mexico<br />At a time of uncertainty over the fate of the North American Free Trade Agreement, what does it feel like to work<br />in a manufacturing plant in Mexico, where a surge of American companies have taken advantage of low labor costs?<br />The son of an artist and a nurse who has struggled to make ends meet, Mr. Torres Romero put himself through<br />college by working the night shift as an assembly operator at a factory that made consumer electronics.<br />My dad was the plant manager for this company and his bosses would call him every day<br />and say, “If you don’t reduce the costs by this much, we’re going to move.” We didn’t celebrate my 12th birthday because of the stress.<br />He rose through the ranks, becoming a technician, an engineer and finally a plant manager at an electronics factory in Tijuana.<br />Douglas Naudin, 75, of Laredo, Texas, worked as a human resources manager in the maquiladora industry from 1983 to 2007.<br />Today, she lives in Tijuana and works for an American software company that markets to Latin American customers.<br />He was thrilled when an American company based in Carrollton, Tex., hired him<br />in the 1980s to work in a newly built electronics factory in Juárez, Mexico.<br />Mr. Naudin became head of human resources at that plant, which made LED bulbs for automobile dashboards.<br />David Treviño, 56, worked for 12 years as a production manager at a plant in Mexico City that made electrical bundles
