AN ECONOMIC ASSAULT ON AFRICAN-AMERICANS AND OTHERS IN THE US

Dennis Cuddy Ph.D.
February 7, 2004
NewsWithViews.com

On January 7, the Bush administration announced a proposal allowing even more guest workers from other countries to come to the U.S. to fill jobs for which American workers aren’t available (more than 8 million undocumented workers are already here). Obviously, if high enough wages are offered, an employer can find American workers to do any job. So the critical point will be whether employers can designate salary levels for which they can’t find American workers.

Most guest workers have and will come from Mexico and other Latin American countries. While Mexicans and other Hispanics are fine, hard-working people, guest worker programs are already resulting in hardships for lower income Americans, a disproportionate number of whom are African-Americans. And these programs impact industries in cities and even small towns all across America.

As a result of my being on national radio talk shows, I received a call from a man in a Midwestern state who said he was being economically undermined in his carpet cleaning business. To illustrate the point he was making, let’s take the grass cutting business in the city where I am located in a mid-Atlantic state.

Condominiums contract for grass cutting, which had been done largely by lower income African-Americans. Now their jobs are gone! Why? After years of loyal work in order to fulfill the American dream by perhaps purchasing a small home (mortgaged) for their family, they may be told they’re no longer needed unless they take a drastic pay cut. This is because the business owner can obtain guest workers who will work for minimum wage. The African-American worker could not meet all his financial obligations being paid a minimum wage, but the guest workers living perhaps 10 to a dwelling can live on a minimum wage, because they each pay only one-tenth of what the African-American worker would pay for housing, transportation, and other expenses. In addition, a lot of money is taken out of American towns and cities when the guest workers send a large amount of their earnings to their families outside the U.S.

Globally, transnational corporate leaders have expected there will be a leveling of wages around the world. Of course, this means as wages in the third world nations rise, American workers’ wages will be driven down. If African-Americans and others here are coerced into working for lower wages because of the challenge from guest worker programs, then both parents will have to work to make ends meet. This, in turn, will lead to an increased demand for government subsidized daycare, and increasing numbers of toddlers becoming latchkey children as they get older. And don’t statistics show more juvenile crime committed by latchkey children rather than other youth?

In case you think this all cannot effect you and your business, just remember that all it takes is for one of your competitors to obtain guest workers, and then in order for you to remain competitive in bidding for contracts, you will have to obtain guest workers as well. The guest worker program threatens all service industry jobs of U.S. citizens of every race and ethnicity from hotel, construction and farm workers to those in the fast food sector.

With the loss of many American manufacturing jobs already, and now this assault upon service industry jobs, the lesson of “Joe Smithâ€