Today, we woke up early and headed to Ganso Azul which is a maquiladora that manufactures uniforms. I was very surprised to see how different the working conditions were. Before going I thought it was going to be more like a sweat shop, but actually it was very interesting and well run. It was so different than I expected. It was a huge space with workers spread out. Workers were singing to music that was being played on the loud speakers. We went on a tour of the place and were able to see the different lines. The workers work for minimum wage but get bonuses for meeting quotas and coming up with new ideas.

After our tour, we were able to sit with Gus and ask questions. We asked about reasons for why he chose Mexico and not China, questions pertaining to wages and labor laws. Gus chose not to go to China due to having a competitive advantage of being closer to the United States. With China it takes a lot longer to ship their products and it is never guaranteed that it will get to the United States in time. With Mexico it takes about three days to get to the United States. Also, labor in Mexico is still cheap.

He also spoke about Mexico's termination laws and how they cannot fire an employee without giving a severance package. So even if an employee is not meeting quota or not very good at their job they cannot be fired without a severance. The severance package usually consist of 3 months of pay, christmas bonus, and vacation days.

After our tour of Ganso Azul we headed to Queff for Lebanese cuisine. One might think that is weird since we are in Mexico, but Merida has a high Lebanese population. I tried for the first time a Kibby. Lets just say I wasn't too crazy about it.

Finally, we came back to the house and had our last presentation of the trip. Sital, John, and Brandon presented on immigration. Their presentation had the whole class arguing about immigration. We were broken up into groups with different sides to argue. It was a very cool presentation.

Lauren