By Peter Gellert
MEXICO CITY — Miguel, a 50-year-old unemployed father of five, is a Mexico City street vendor. He sells corn-on-the-cob from a card table. Miguel works 70 hours a week, and on a normal day brings home $15, only half of which is profit. Out of his earnings, he must pay a small amount to a self-appointed leader who rents out public footpath space.
The proliferation of street vendors here has become impossible to ignore.
While there have always been street vendors on the streets of the capital, the economic crisis of the '80s pushed hundreds of thousands of working-class and recently arrived peasant families into the so-called informal sector of the economy.
There is little that cannot be bought on the street: food, shoes and clothing, videos, children's toys, cosmetics, nintendos, ninja turtles and even sophisticated, expensive electronic equipment.
Few areas of the city are exempt from the phenomenon, but especially saturated are the downtown area and the metro system.
Exact statistics are hard to come by. The National Chamber of Commerce estimates 280,000 street vendors or ambulantes, as they are called. The Employer Confederation of the Mexican Republic — the country's main business organisation — puts the figure at 530,000.
However, Marco Antonio Velasquez, a leader of the urban popular movement in Mexico City, told Green Left Weekly that the real figure is closer to a million. He said that during the past Christmas season, 600,000 permit requests were received by the city government for street vendors just in downtown Mexico City. Only 7000 were granted.
The National Institute of Geographical and Informational Statistics and the Economic Commission for Latin America estimate that street vendors account for 36.7% of business in downtown Mexico City and that in the past eight years the informal sector has grown by 82%.
There are several serious problems resulting from the growth of the informal sector.
For shopkeepers and businesses, the complaints are obvious: street vendors do not have the overhead costs of rent, insurance, taxes or salaries and can thus undercut store owners. For the city government, the informal economy means millions of dollars in lost tax revenue. In addition, a good deal of the merchandise is illegally imported through daily trips to the US border.
For consumers, much of the merchandise is of lower quality, often rebuilt or discontinued models from the US no longer sold in that country because it does not comply with US legal requirements. In addition, warrantees are few and far between. For the street vendors, in addition to health and security problems, such as working outdoors in all sorts of weather and lack of sanitary facilities, their profession has spawned a legion of corrupt officials and functionaries.
While most of the informal economy is illegal, street vendors can usually stay in business by paying often exorbitant dues to self-appointed leaders who, in turn, establish a modus vivendi with police and city authorities.
The leaders rent public sidewalk space or a place inside metro stations. The best locations and biggest spaces depend on seniority, friendship or family relations with the leader and, above all, money.
According to Velasquez, while the worst off pay less than $2 a week, in more profitable areas the cost can rise to as much as $300 per square metre per day. The leaders themselves often earn up to $3 million dollars a month.
However, others do not fare so well. Those selling tacos, deep fried pork rind known as chicharron and other food items bring in far less than vendors selling electronic equipment — $10 or $15 a day. At the bottom of the ladder are the impoverished Indians selling chewing gum and tourist trinkets.
A constant problem all face is corruption. Police officers, highway patrols, metro station supervisors and footpath and health inspectors all must be paid bribes, known as mordidas in Mexican slang.
Alfonso, who sells pet birds and chicks on a street corner in the Guerroero neighbourhood near downtown Mexico City, must give a part of his $30 a day sales as bribes to inspectors from the Ecology and Urban Development Ministry since he sells many protected species in violation of the law.
Street vendors also complain that to stay in business they are forced to participate in election rallies of the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). Lucia, whose children's toy stand takes in a mere $5 a day profit, says that she and others were forced to join the PRI. If not, they would not be able to work the streets.
The urban popular movement in many places has made efforts to organise street vendors. It has not been easy. Many vendors do not set up shop where they live; their work day is long and tiring and they usually work seven days a week; the solidarity of the workplace is largely absent.
However, in cities such as Mexico City, Puebla, Monterrey, Durango, Acapulco, Tampico and Veracruz, strong, independent organisations have been built, usually as part of the urban popular movement.
The Union de Pochtecas de Mexico organises street vendors in Iztacalco, in eastern Mexico City. Pochteca is the Nauahtl term for salesman and was a god in the ancient Aztec religion.
Pochteca president Pedro Lopez Osorio told Green Left Weekly that the situation of street vendors is now endemic in all Mexico America, because of the fall in real wages and the effects of the economic crisis. In most places, it is a structural problem of the economy.
The Union de Pochtecas helps street vendors overcome their problems, particularly with authorities.
"We also have projects for constructing homes for street vendors and health programs, particularly using traditional medicine", Lopez said. The union also advises street vendors on different questions relating to their commercial activity.
Velasquez, leader of the Union Popular Nueva Tenochtitlan, a neighbourhood organisation that emerged in downtown Mexico City following the 1985 earthquake, said the situation is now coming to a head. "The authorities are beginning to act under the pressure of large store owners, big business and the desire to charge taxes. Evictions are now the order of the day", he said.
In downtown Mexico City, known as the historic centre, authorities plan to convert the area into a zone for middle and upper class housing and fashionable tourist-oriented shops. Such a plan is obviously incompatible in the long run with the massive presence of vendors on every major street.
Talks began last month between city authorities and street vendors on possible relocation and other solutions. Authorities speak of evicting 6000 vendors from just a nine-block area. Alejandra Barrios, street vendor leader, says her group's members will physically defend themselves if necessary.