If you have never had to struggle from paycheck to paycheck or wondered if you will still have a job next week or tomorrow, you don’t know how way too many Americans feel.
In my early twenties, I worked at a refinery in Corpus Christi, Texas. It was a summer job for me while attending Oklahoma State University, but for almost everyone else, it was their primary job, including a contract workers crew. They were assigned the dirtiest and most dangerous jobs. They were also the ones that were paid the least. I recall talking to the crew leader and asking why they took the abuse. I still remember his words: “I have a family to care for.” Those words changed my life as I did not choose to have children till I was in my late thirties. I wanted to ensure that I had a job and sufficient money to support a family.
While people may not stop to think about why they are doing things, if they have a family they must support, that becomes the most essential thing in their lives. So if you threaten the industry in which they work, don’t expect them to support you, even if you promise an equal job in the future. As they say, a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. That is common sense, and one does not need an education to come to the same conclusion.
Below is a small excerpt from an article in the Washington Post:
U.S. Treasury Department sanctions imposed on Guatemala’s nickel mines in November 2022 were meant to help workers like Trabaninos and Alarcón. For decades, mining operations in Guatemala have been accused of abusing employees, polluting the environment, violently evicting Indigenous groups from their lands and bribing government officials to escape the consequences. Many activists in Guatemala long wanted the mines closed, and a Treasury official said the sanctions would help bring consequences to “corrupt profiteers.”
But the economic penalties did not alleviate the workers’ plight. Instead, it cost thousands of them a stable paycheck and plunged thousands more across an entire region into hardship. The people of El Estor became collateral damage in a widening gyre of economic warfare waged by the U.S. government against foreign corporations, fueling an out-migration that ultimately cost some of them their lives.