PEP, November 2011: Economy hits minorities worst

Public Employee Press

Part 2 of a series on how the economic crisis is affecting working families
Economy hits minorities worst

By JANE LaTOUR

"Everything is for the rich. There's nothing for the poor. This is why people are camping out on Wall Street."
—Junior Custodian Juan Pena, Local 1482

Amid the bleak national economic scene, an even grimmer picture faces black and Latino workers. Unemployment nationwide has been stuck at 9.1 percent, but for Hispanics the rate was 11.3 percent in September and for blacks, it was the highest in 27 years - 16.7 percent.

Another one-in-four black and Hispanic workers is underemployed - working part-time but needing a full-time job. The deep recession has reversed earlier gains and driven minority workers farther to the bottom of the economic pyramid, as work-hours shrink, second jobs disappear and even once-secure jobs are wiped out - as just happened to almost 700 mainly minority DC 37 members in city schools (see Mayor defies labor, parents, City Council: Bloomberg fires 642 in schools).

Local 372 member Chester Small feels the effects of the cutbacks every day. A 15-year veteran Senior School Lunch Helper at Brooklyn's IS/PS 328, he unloads trucks heavy with food and supplies. "This was always a two-man job, but now they've taken away one man and one man has to do it," Small said.

"A lot of people get hurt in the kitchen. I get the job done but it's hard on my health," said Small, who has had two hernia operations. He finds his salary just doesn't provide enough income and twice he has gone to the union's Municipal Employees Legal Services for help with rent problems. "They helped me out a lot," he said.

Junior Custodian Juan Peña is a member of Brooklyn Public Library Local 1482. "The most important thing about the economy is that the price of everything is going up, while our wages stay the same," he said. Increases in rent, electricity, fuel and food prices hit Peña hard, especially since a 23-year-old son is living with him.

"Everything is for the rich and there's nothing for the poor. This is why people are camping out on Wall Street. They are suffering every day - and it's not just in the United States. This is a global crisis!" Peña said.

In New York City, over 20 percent of the population lives below the poverty line, and the racial disparities are severe. While 15 percent of whites are poor, 28 percent of Hispanics and 23 percent of blacks live in poverty.

Chester Small, a resident of Crown Heights, is a poet. The homelessness around him captured his imagination and he wrote, "You may see me on subways, stairways, on the corner; neon lighted boulevards, avenues, streets and alleyways. I may be misfortunate and homeless."

A key resource for minority workers has been government jobs, where equal employment opportunity has been enforced to a greater degree than in the private sector, where continuing discrimination is a barrier. But now the Republican assault on the public sector is having a disproportionate impact on minority workers. AFSCME Secretary-Treasurer Lee Saunders has written movingly on this subject. Both parents in Cleveland were public service employees, his father a bus driver and his mother a community college teacher. Along with the jobs and the salaries came respect and pride.

"My family was far from unique," writes Saunders. "Twenty-one percent of all black workers are public employees, making the public sector the largest employer of black workers," he said, citing a recent study from the University of California at Berkeley.

Struggling to survive and getting along are essential coping skills for minorities and working people in America. "I don't let the economic problems bother me," said Small. "You have to be really focused when you are serving children."

Peña is eloquent about the lives of people who live paycheck-to-paycheck: "Things are going up so fast and the salaries stay the same. Everybody is feeling the pressure."

But minority communities are feeling it more, and the devastating results of poverty and unemployment affect individuals, families, communities and even future generations.