Dennis Cuddy Ph.D.
ECONOMIC ASSAULT ON AFRICAN-AMERICANS AND OTHERS IN THE US
Sat Feb 7 12:36:39 2004
67.1.149.229


http://www.newswithviews.com/your_govt/your_government63.htm
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 Smith" is
instructive:

Joe started another day having his alarm clock (made in Germany) set for
6 a.m., while his coffee pot (made in Indonesia) is perking. He puts on
his shirt (made in Bangladesh), and sits down at his calculator (made in
Mexico) to figure out how much he can spend today. He goes out the door
listening to his radio (made in China) and looking, as he has been for a
long time, for employment. At the end of another discouraging and
fruitless day, Joe sits down and watches his TV (made in Japan), and
once more ponders why he can't find a good-paying American job.
Unfortunately, many Americans could eventually suffer Joe's fate!

What's really going on is the triumph of the Southern elite's attitude
prior to the Civil War. Regarding these white elitists, in the 1863
book, Pictorial National Records: Embracing Descriptions of Europeans
and Asiatic Nations: A Statistic View of the United States of America;
and a History of the Great Rebellion, one reads: "The ultimate object of
the conspirators seems to have been, in the language of the historian
Motley, in his able letter to The London Times, 'To establish a Gulf
Empire, including Mexico, Central America, Cuba, and other islands, with
unlimited cotton fields and unlimited Negroes. This is the golden vision
in pursuit of which the Great Republic has been sacrificed, the
beneficient Constitution subverted.'" And what do we have today? We have
rule by an elite which cares little for the constitutional preservation
of national sovereignty. And in NAFTA and the guest worker program, they
have their unlimited cheap labor producing unlimited cheap products and
services.

© 2004 Dennis Cuddy Ph.D. - All Rights Reserved

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