In American terminology Mexico’s iron triangle consisted of businesses “too large or too important to fail”, entrenched labor unions/labor aristocracy and politicians that pandered to aristocracy. One of the unique features of Mexico’s iron triangle which relates to its draconian stance on illegal immigration and outsourcing is its’ desire to “not see money flee the country”. Much like an injured man whose internalized physical injuries has resulted in blood loss, one internal socio-economic stressor akin to a country bleeding like an injured man is a country’s ability to bleed money. One way for a country to bleed money is through the legal, yet harmful practice of remittance.
Rampant illegal and legal immigration has resulted in the socio-economic phenomenon known as remittance and is often a sign that entrenched labor unions have made labor too expensive to be affordable by corporations, or state and local governments. These entities may then attempt to alleviate the strain caused by labor unions by investing in laws that undermine their nation’s immigration policies and inadvertently job seekers. To add insult to injury immigration activists that mistakenly champion illegal immigration neglect the fact that Mexico and Argentina possess draconian immigration laws that make immigration into their country almost impossible for all but the most ideal legalized immigrants; usually those possessing wealth. They also neglect the fact that rampant immigration not only causes the country to hemorrhage money, but displaces millions of job seekers regardless of their minority or non-minority status within the U.S…
The problem is how to correct this situation in the midst of an economic meltdown. One means of correcting this is obvious – enforce the present immigration laws while seeking a moratorium severely limiting immigration into the U.S.; the second is to create a specialized workforce to replace illegal and legal immigrants, and who is willingly to work at a reduced wage during our current fiscal emergency.
Provisional Public Workers which consist of individuals that are considered unemployable within the job market are able to provide their state of origin with inexpensive labor in exchange for on job training (OJT), basic social health benefits: housing, medical care, food/clothing vouchers, etc. benefits that the state formerly provided through various programs such as SSI/SSDI, Food Stamps, or General Assistance and may now be unable to do so due to our fiscal climate. Private and Union workers are not willing to work under this type of arrangement; thus they may prove more expensive than their state of origin can afford. This decreased labor cost allows the state to initiate and complete much needed repairs to public infrastructure during a time of serious socio-economic impairment which could not be done under the cost required to employ both Private and Union workers.
There are currently 54 million disabled individuals existing within the U.S. that are native citizens; 24.3 percent of that population is composed of African and Native Americans (et. al., Funders Disability Network 2005). Another way for a country to bleed money is by impacting its social service net as its state and local government lays off workers while engaging in outsourcing. Through these practices state and local government as well as corporations increases their country’s unemployment rate while forcing service networks to borrow more money from the federal government in order to provide various social services to their populations. This also increases tension between disenfranchised groups living within the country as they are forced to compete more fiercely for socio-economic resources and shrinking political power.
20 years after the Americans with Disabilities Act, education, job training and employment challenges still exist due to minorities dealing with various disabilities having to face a double stigma due to unspoken bias about how they received their disability, plus the lack of cultural competency and awareness of actual numbers concerning the population they are supposed to serve by outreach workers. Due to trickle down socio-economic policies there is a lack of appropriate training among outreach workers and inability to increase their numbers so that they may provide proper coverage of various underserved populations.
According to Fabricio Balcazar, Ph.D., (et. al., Strategies for Reaching Out to Minority Individuals With Disabilities 2001) “Department of Disability and Human Development Reaching out to minority individuals with disabilities should be part of a comprehensive service or intervention research program that ultimately attempts to improve their quality of life. This effort should be conducted as a partnership, with jointly determined goals and objectives, roles and responsibilities. Minorities with disabilities are tired of being “studied.” They want allies who can support their struggle for a better quality of life and social justice.”
The strategy of creating PPWs would decrease expenses within those areas to which the U.S Federal, state, and municipal governments provide services and amenities to private citizens; while making it possible for workers that are considered unemployable by regular employers to be hired into the public sector to perform labor in areas that do not require extensive skill training within a community college setting, but could be taught through OJT programs created for native U.S born disabled and displaced older workers; thus, successfully removing these individuals from chronic unemployment, SSI/SSDI and welfare lines.
It would also reduce strain on tax payers by reducing the amount of taxes needed to pay for these programs. According to Ron Miller “in 10 years public-sector wages and benefits have grown twice as fast as those in the private sector. Economist Barry Bluestone shows us that, between 2000 and 2008, the price of state and local public services has increased by 41 percent nationally, compared with 27 percent for private services (et. al. Aug, 8 2011). This was phenomena was also reported by the New York Times.
Steps for carrying out the strategy would consist of:
• Dispense with trickle down socio-economic policies; all necessary funding for this project should be injected into it at ground level within its’ chosen communities not outside of them.
• Focus on hiring qualified disabled minorities possessing the appropriate educational background, life experience, and work history to deal with issues of unemployment resolution, employment retention, resource management and urban renewal (not gentrification) to effectively enact and maintain this policy.
• Focus on meeting needs such as employment, education, healthcare and building/rebuilding green and brown infrastructure within the community; the questions asked should be how do we make employment indigenous to this community as oppose to developing employment opportunities outside of it where they are out of reach of the community; what does this community need to successfully survive without aid from other communities or outside sources such as state and local government in terms of job proliferation, continual educational of its community based workforce, and efficient managerial development of its green and brown infrastructure, who can this community be empowered and made self-sufficient as oppose to dependent and needy.
• Develop each project community in such a way that their inhabitants do not have to leave their community to obtain either goods or services in another community. This is what actually provides jobs within communities and decreases crime rates, as well as the number of unwed mothers, and urban violence.
By creating a provisional public workforce, state and local governments will be able to reduce the cost of repairing aspects of their infrastructure that require moderate levels of technical expertise and training with minimum cost; while successfully removing millions of people from their social service networks as they create healthy, vibrant consumers, workers and citizens.