Leaving Home

Most people, if asked what the term NAFTA meant probably wouldn't know. But as this disturbing documentary points out, that five-letter acronym could have devastating effects on the future livelihoods of many working Americans. NAFTA, or the North American Free Trade Agreement, calls for a lifting of economic restrictions regulating commerce between the United States, Canada, and Mexico. Leaving Home offers a sobering explanation of what that would mean for U.S. workers. From the producers of the public television series We Do the Work, this vigorously investigative report is hosted by Ned Beatty, who opens the program by asking what happened to the community of Union City, Indiana. Not long ago, Union City boasted some 6,000 jobs for its residents; today that number has slipped to 1,000. Have the people left? Nope. The factories have. Under the maquiladora program, which encourages U.S. companies to set up shop just inside the Mexican border, many factories have been relocated to take advantage of $.85 an hour labor and essentially non-existent environmental and health regulations (some of the consequences of which have been chronicled in Stepan Chemical: The Poisoning of a Community, reviewed in our November 1992 issue). While the video doesn't explore the economic history behind current practices that made featured authors' Donald Barlett's and James Steele's America: What Went Wrong? such a damning indictment of corporate America and a look-the-other-way federal government, Leaving Home is much better at portraying the human cost. Janice Pratt, Rick Fry, and Jerry Wright are among the thousands who thought they had job security and found out otherwise virtually overnight. Westinghouse, Mattel, Zenith, Fisher-Price, and a number of other so-called "American" Fortune 500 companies have gone the multinational route, dropping thousands of Americans into the unemployment line without so much as a second thought. Ironically, the obvious beneficiaries of the maquiladora program--the people living near the U.S.-Mexico border--have not made out so well. The $50 a week paycheck barely covers living expenses for the Mexican factory workers, and other costs have been far more tragic: the phenomenon of 17 babies born without brains on the border has been linked to the shoddy toxic waste disposal of the transplanted U.S. factories. Leaving Home talks to the people both in America and Mexico, and gives equal time to proponents of NAFTA (such as economic advisor Alan Reynolds of the Hudson Institute, who argues that more jobs in Mexico coupled with free trade will mean a new market for U.S. goods: as in, now people in Mexico will want to buy computers and stereo systems at U.S. prices. The filmmakers don't even have to point out the idiocy of this logic; it's self-evident to the viewer.) A powerful wake-up call to the American people, Leaving Home is an outstanding report, and is highly recommended. Editor's Choice. (Available from: California Working Group, Inc., 5867 Ocean View Dr., Oakland, CA 94618; (510) 547-8484.)