We haven´t yet hired our maid here but we are asking around a little. Like I said it was a big step on my part to even think of having a person in our house so I´m going to be taking my time making sure that the person meshes well with me and our family. I want to find a grandmotherly type who adores kids and babies.
A friend of mine posed a curious question that has been nagging at me for several days. She asked why we don´t just pay the maid a higher salary, more in line with a what a maid earns in the US and Europe. I couldn´t answer her. I wasn´t sure how to answer. Should I pay this person more money? Should I offer them a higher base salary than the average person pays? The minimum wage in Mexico is about five dollars a day. That´s what a bricklayer makes. That´s what a young teen in construction makes. It´s a ludicrous wage, I´ll agree. Domestic help pays between twelve and fifteen dollars a day. We will probably pay that wage and offer her a tip that rounds the salary out to twenty a day.
I don´t know if it´s right to come into a country like Mexico and start paying higher wages that are out of line with the economy. Is it our job as expats to disrupt this system? I think its the Mexican people who need to invoke this sort of change. It´s them--they need to learn to help themselves through education and not just arbitrarily be handed more. I don´t mean that to sound flippant. It´s just the reality of life for a poor country. Education is the only way to change things...ever.
I think we will offer our maid the highest end of a normal wage plus of course tips and bonuses. We will probably try to help her in other ways. For instance she will cook dinner on those days she is here with me and she will be able to cook for her family as well and take home the food she makes for them. And I intend to pass on all of my children´s old toys and clothes to her and her extended family--I already have two boxes set aside for this. I know I will probably give her things of mine too. And if I ever feel there is a need I will help her. But I think that paying a wage that is out of line with what everyone else is paying is somehow not right. Besides I could never afford to hire any help at regular European/American rates and so then she would have no job at all, right?
I´m still mulling over the question in my head. I looked up minimum wages in countries around the world and I was surprised. Well maybe not all that surprised. Most of the world is very, very poor and Mexico is right in the middle of the poorest. I poked around some other places on the internet. There was a good debate going on at Mexconnect.com. Here is what one person had to say which kind of summed up what I felt might be true about offering a higher wage:
"You should know that in a free capitalistic society, wages are not based upon need. Wage levels are dictated by the marketplace. You pay a wage level that is consistent with finding suitable employees for the task at hand.
If you do not pay enough then you will not be able to attract quality employees. Wage levels like other prices should be set by the marketplace. If you pay wages that are higher than an employees market value then you will cause distortions in the economy that will end up harming everybody via high unemployment and inflation. If you arbitrarily double everybodies income then you will have massive inflation resulting in high unemployment.
The very people that you are trying to help will now be worse off than before as will everybody else. This is already happening in areas like San Miguel Allende where the cost of living is becoming very expensive because of the influence of the foreign residents. I commend you for being a good samaritan but spread your good fortune in other ways that don't disrupt the local economy. Mexico is not the US or Canada. The US became the wealthiest nation on the face of the earth because of the free enterprise system that people like you are trying to destroy."
In the various forms I ran across by googling people made grand declaratins saying they would never contribute to the raping of the mexican people by hiring them as slave laborors ie. domestic help. Even if domestic help was cheap many couldn´t dream of wanting to employ someone so poor for such a menial wage. Is this a little abrupt? I like to think that we will be helping an entire family by hiring someone. I believe that we will touch not only her life but her extended family too. If I hire no one I am not participating in what I feel to be low wages whew! makes me feel better!, but I´m not providing the job that someone poor desperately needs and I am keeping all my money for myself (something I mentioned earlier which reflects the way the locals feel about not hiring domestic help)
Not long before we left France for Mexico a friend, or I should say acquaintance came over for drinks and dinner. When we announced our plans to become expats in Mexico she said "oh I could never go there and do that. How awful to be stealing from the mouths of those poor people! It would make me very uncomfortable to do that and I could never live with myself afterwards." Suddenly the room got very silent and I cleared my throat to break the tension. We changed the subject and went on with the evening. Incidentally I never heard from her again and she avoided all of my follow up calls. Clearly she thought we were horrid.
I wish I could see her again. My answer now would be "how can you know what poverty there really is unless you throw yourself into the middle of a country that has a long history of it and see for yourself?" I know about severe poverty now more than ever because I see it every day. I see the dead dog in the ditch outside the convenience store on the corner, the families out in the desert hills with tin roofed houses full of holes and free roaming pigs running across the national route and the man with one arm who washes car windows at the traffic light by the Holiday Inn. All these things I see each week and every day. She will never see them from her cushy armchair overlooking the French Alpes as she sips Evian water, purchases organic baby food for her child at the local market and reads about countries like Mexico in Le Point magazine.
I hope to touch even just a few lives while I´m here. I´m not in Mexico to simply get rich and ravage the economy. I am here to learn about what the rest of the world experiences--to leave my little corner of paradise and maybe to make a difference however small.
7 comments:
Hmmm. Where do I start? Obviously, I relate to this on a very personal level. Not only do I have a history of living full time in Mexico, but I continue to have a home there, my husband IS Mexican, and thus my extended family is Mexican too. My in-laws all live in Mexico City, perhaps the most typical example of a working class Mexican family. I consider myself very much a part of the Mexican culture and economy, but I have also dealt with similar issues being an American living in the swanky part of town.
And I agree 100% with your feelings about this issue. I cannot emphasize enough the importance that you pay EVERYONE you hire for anything a wage commensurate with industry standards for Mexico and, specifically, San Luis Potosi. It would be extremely irresponsible to pay more than the top end of an average salary, for all the reasons you mentioned, as well as a few others I can think of. Yes, it screws the economy, yes it causes inflation, yes it increases unemployment and affects all sorts of socioeconomic issues.... Furthermore, it has a negative impact on what is already a very fragile balance between the expat (mostly north-American) community and the local community. Throwing money at people only widens the disparity between you and your lifestyle and them and their lifestye. It reinforces the stereotype of the "rich gringo" who can afford to buy anything, even people. It strengthens feelings of envy and the notion that ex-pats are so rich that stealing from them is justified. Believe me, I know first-hand--My husband himself had the feeling that he could take outright from gringos, ripping them off, and that it didn't matter because they deserved it, what with the way they walked around flaunting their money and emphasizing how different they are from the community around them. People who pay ridiculous wages or lavish money and things on others really have a ngeative impact on the sense of community and the cohesiveness of the economy. They in fact define a class system by their actions, and put themselves at the top of this system.
Obviously, tips are welcome and will be appreciated--and these extras will make a difference in the lives of those around you. But it should never be to a point where the amount is embarrassing to the recipient--it should never be more than what they feel they have EARNED with their labor and service. Any more than that is degrading.
I feel strongly about this after spending several years of my life trying to single-handedly convince my community to accept me as one of them, and to show them that I should not be ripped off every time I needed something just for being a gringa. I saw a lot of distrust and disparity in my community (also one with a huge expat community)and it certainly made my life much harder.
You have said it all in this posting, and I believe you're totally on track in your thinking.
By the way, forget that "friend" of yours who made the ridiculous comment. She sounds quite ignorant, and she obviously has absolutely no idea what she is talking about.
I just posted on this issue too and I agree with you wholeheartedly about the wages issue. We pay at the higher end of the scale and we give Christmas bonuses and I also give our cleaning lady half pay for the times that we are away. Next week we are off home for a month and I feel guilty that she will be without wages for a whole month through no fault of her own, so I will pay her for 2 weeks. I have thought about paying more because I feel guilty about how cheap it is but have heard the same opinions - that it will throw the balance of the economy out. If we all start paying more then many of the Mexicans won't be able to afford the inflated wages and less domestic help will be employed. I am going to add a link to your post to mine because I think it adds to the conversation so well. Good luck with finding your employee (I find it hard to use the word maid, it seems so much like "servant"). I'm sure you will overcome a lot of your reservations because you will be treating her well and helping her and her family by giving her employment. You are certinly giving a lot more consideration to this issue than most expats who trade their maids like property.
I'm really glad you posted about this. You've opened my eyes to a situation I knew nothing about. And it was nice to read my friend Aly's viewpoint in the comments!
You have obviously thought this through and made a conscientious decision. You should feel confident that you are arranging this so that it is as fair as possible for everyone involved. Clearly, you cannot single handedly change the Mexican economy.
Thanks for the comments.
I wanted to clarify because I think after rereading this post that it sounds like I don´t care about the low wages and so be it. You see I´m an outsider (about as outside as you can get being an American as Aly pointed out... we really have to tread very carefully here in Mexico because we tend to offend very easily). An outsider can try to change things by advising the people but it will take a true Mexican to start the revolution that Mexico needs to overcome its corrupt bueraucracy and pull it´s general population out of the gutter.
One thing that surprises us while here is that Mexico is really such a rich country with it´s major resources being silver, copper, petrol and tourism. Most outsiders don´t think Mexico is a rich country. The people need to find out just where all this money is going. To do that they need to educate themselves and band together to fight against the government so they can collect what is rightfully theirs.
I first came across this in Kenya, the maid came with the place I was staying, but in talking with other friends who had houses, saying it was so weird to have a maid and if it wasn't part of the deal,I wouldn't. The reprimanded me, reminding me that by hiring that person, I was in effect, taking care of their family. It would be irresponsible of me *not* to hire someone. I would, in effect, be 'hoarding' by wealth by withholding it from those who want to do honest work. It was my responsibility as someone from a developed country to hire someone to do these tasks, simply because I was in a position to do so.
The wage issue really hit me when I lived in Thailand. I often argued that I felt I had to pay higher wages, because I could. But my colleagues insisted that was wrong because I would be negatively affecting the stability of the region by doing so. On a smaller scale, I would be putting that hired worker in an awkward position amongst their friends and family by offering them much more than the standard. They were right. Even tips were an issue. I insisted on tipping, but learned to keep it within a reasonable range.
It was hard to adjust to, but was necessary. Now living in the US again, but in a place with many Mexican immigrants, the issue is also present. I pay the going rate for my housekeeper, with tips/presents/baby clothes & toys (she has a daughter 6 months younger than mine, although she's bigger than my DD). Anything more would be inappropriate.
People who insist otherwise have never lived in a developing country and don't get the way it works.
It's so reassuring to read that other people truly GET this, not just for Mexico, but also for the populations & economies of other developing nations, as well as for certain socioeconomic groups here in the United States. I was worried that I wasn't explaining myself well, but I see that I needn't have worried--it seems we get it!
And yes, Chris, Mexico is a VERY wealthy country. That shocked me too after I realized it. Natural resources abound, industry is vibrant and varied, and there is more than enough of everything to go around. So what's the problem? Obviously it comes down to corruption--the Mexican people are being robbed of their riches by an elite few who take everything and stuff it in their pockets and in their private bank accounts abroad. They do this while the majority of the children go hungry.
You're right on girl! And I can't tell you how incredible it is that you (and others who have included comments) actually THINK about these issues. Not everybody does.
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