Regional integration has produced important challenges for Mexican automobile workers and unions. From the point of view of plant managers,

Source: AMIA (1988, 2001)

the transition to export production could only be accomplished if labor productivity and quality in Mexican plants were raised to internationally competitive levels. To accomplish this task, companies demanded major concessions from union leaders and workers in the industry. Management reform campaigns were particularly successful in new export plants, where workers with no prior union experience were organized through the Confederación de Trabajadores de México (Confederation of Mexican Workers, CTM), a labor association incorporated into Mexico's former ruling party, the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (Institutional Revolutionary Party, PRI). The CTM came under strong pressures from government policy-makers to help managers adjust to export production. CTM leaders consented to below-average wages, and to work teams, job rotation, continuous improvement, and greater use of temporary employees (Arteaga, 1988; Carrillo V., 1990b; Shaiken, 1990; Carrillo V., 1998). As a result, labor relations in the export sector came to share some - but not all - of the practices associated with lean production.4 While flexible work arrangements helped boost productivity in the export sector, they also led to low wage growth, precarious employment, and high levels of job stress and turnover among workers (Shaiken, 1990; Arteaga, 1993b; Covarrubias V., 1997; Tuman and Morris, 1998b).