Country and Capital of Mexico

North American workers find their jobs more pressured and precarious but turn on the tube and find pundits praising the glories of the global economy. Their counter-parts south of the Rio Grande find themselves forced into the arms of global corporations that barely pay them their daily bread for work in dangerous plants that refuse to observe minimal safety or environmental standards. No wonder inequality is increasing in both countries. Although North Americans are told that Mexicans are stealing their jobs, workers can find "allies across the border." Like the U.S. labor organizers in the early part of the 20th century who created the C.I.O. in response to A.F.L. corruption, Mexico's F.A.T. (Frente Autentico del Trabajo or Authentic Workers' Front) is building a historic movement to create an alternative to Mexico's notoriously co-opted labor unions and collusion with government sellout to international capital. Allies Across the Border, the first book on F.A.T., analyzes this important group in the context of the globalization of capital and the necessary globalization of labor struggle. Dale Hathaway shows how F.A.T.'s dedication to worker education and self-management, union independence, and community development are key, not only in Mexico, but worldwide. Allies Across the Border includes detailed descriptions of F.A.T.'s growth from its liberation theology origins, through the Worker's Uprising and student movements of the late '60s, Mexico's debt crisis of the '70s and '80s, and F.A.T.'s work with women's groups, peasants, and consumer co-ops in the '90s. Hathaway's Allies Across the Border shows how F.A.T.'s dedication to worker's dignity offers lessons for North Americanworkers who are fighting to keep corporations from pushing for greater exploitation of workers and environment in their home countries and worldwide.

The 1990s witnessed several acute currency crises among developing nations that invariably spread to other nearby at-risk countries. These episodes--in Mexico, Thailand, South Korea, Russia, and Brazil--were all exacerbated by speculative foreign investments and high-volume movements of capital in and out of those countries. Insufficient domestic controls and a sluggish international response further undermined these economies, as well as the credibility of external oversight agencies like the International Monetary Fund. This timely volume examines the correlation between volatile capital mobility, currency instability, and the threat of regional contagion, focusing particular attention on the emergent economies of Latin America, Southeast Asia, and Eastern Europe. Together these studies offer a new understanding of the empirical relationship between capital flows, international trade, and economic performance, and also afford key insights into realms of major policy concern.