Times evolve, but in some ways remain remarkably similar to the past

I couldn’t help but be amused by a story the Chicago Sun-Times published recently – one about restaurant help being taken advantage of because of their position on society’s fringes due to their ethnic status.

An ethnic mixture that's truly all-American

In this case, the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism worked with the newspaper to prepare a lengthy story about all those workers doing the labor in Chinese restaurants and buffets located across the Midwestern U.S.

IT SEEMS LIKE an old tale – Chinese immigrants being used and abused as cheap labor who can’t really complain about their treatment. If they don’t like it, they can go back to China.

Except these weren’t Chinese immigrants. For it seems the kitchen help consists largely of Mexican immigrants. These are people who got these jobs though employment agencies that tend to cater to providing labor for Chinese-oriented businesses, including restaurants.

And in many cases, the news organizations reported, the decision to seek out Latino-oriented workers was a conscious one by the Chinese businesses.

One could try to put the spin on things by saying these businesses know hard workers when they see them, so the conscious decision to seek out Mexicans in need of jobs is a fully-legitimate one.

ALTHOUGH LET’S BE honest. What it really amounts to is the reason why many businesses in our society seek out individuals of ethnic origins to do the physical labor that needs to be done in order for a business to operate.

Not all jobs involve sitting around on one’s duff and tapping out a few keys on a computer of sorts.

They really do want people who might be trying to draw as little attention to themselves as possible while managing to earn an income in order to survive.

Past attitudes towards Mexicans not all that different … 

Finding those people whose immigration status makes many question their presence means you can have a work force inclined not to complain – even if one is treating those workers with less than proper respect as people and as a labor force.

BUT PERHAPS THIS is merely evidence of our society evolving – albeit in a manner that is rather embarrassing to all of us.

For there was a time when it would have been Chinese workers being brought over to this country to do the work that no one else wanted to do, and treating them in a demeaning manner.

Now, we get the image of Chinese ethnics seeking out Mexicans to do the work of maintaining those restaurants that can be quite popular with the bulk of our society. What comes next? Mexican business owners finding hard-working African Muslims in need of work and willing to put up with nonsense when it comes to human rights?

It’s embarrassing to see that on one level, our society isn’t evolving in the least. The idea that some people think exploitation of one’s labor force is the only way to manage to make a profitable business entity truly is appalling.

PARTICULARLY SINCE THE news organizations reported the degree to which these businesses are providing inadequate housing for their labor (which is part of the deal by which they get these workers to take jobs with them). And also that while the restaurants and other businesses pay these employment agencies a fee for finding the workers, the laborers then have money taken from their wages to reimburse the business for that fee.

… from those toward Chinese

Almost as though one has to “pay” for the “right” to hold a crummy job that manages to take advantage of their situation in life – which is to be in need of a job so badly that one thinks someone else is “entitled” to take advantage of them.

As one of Mexican ethnic origins myself, I’d like to think we’re somehow above this and will never be in a status where we choose to exploit other individuals in such a manner. Although in this Age of Trump, I wonder if there are those who would say that such status is evidence that we’re (as “The Jeffersons” of TV fame on told us) “Movin’ on Up.”

Although as we Chicagoans all know, there’s no “East Side” of the city to move up to – unless you count the 10^th Ward neighborhood where many of us already live.

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Better late than never, but I’m sure some will still complain it inadequate

I’m sure the Chicago Police Department has fantasies about being able to put to rest all those people who have spent months complaining (years actually, but it’s only recently we’ve started listening) about the treatment of black people by law enforcement personnel.

 

JOHNSON: Collected 7 badges and guns from officers

Yet anybody who believes that the decision announced Thursday to fire seven police officers because of their connection to the October 2014 shooting death of Laquan McDonald will in any way ease the tensions that have arisen is living in a serious fantasy-land.

FOR THOSE WITH the short memories, the McDonald shooting death by police is that one captured on a squad car video camera – the one for which officer Jason Van Dyke now faces criminal charges of multiple murder counts and only remains free now because he had friends capable of posting the $1.5 million bail that was set for him.

But police Superintendent Eddie Johnson sent out an e-mail message to police informing them that seven other officers will face the ultimate professional discipline – they’re going to have to relinquish their badge and gun and be reduced to the role of mere mortals.

No longer will they have a special claim to police powers, or the authority to legally carry a weapon for their use in protecting the public from danger.

Although there are those who’d argue that the police themselves are the dangerous element because it is one way too willing to make presumptions based on race about who represents a danger to the public.

JOHNSON SAID HE made his decision to try to terminate the seven officers based on his belief that the statements they made about what happened the night McDonald died from 16 gunshots were not totally truthful.

As if we could have resolved this matter much sooner if those officers had come out and told the truth about what happened between Van Dyke and McDonald.

Yet considering how entrenched the mentality is within law enforcement of an “us versus them” paradigm, I doubt that knowing a few police officers will lose their jobs will pacify anyone.

I already can envision police officers and their supporters claiming that these cops were being sacrificed to try to appease troublemakers, while let’s not forget that the Black Lives Matter movement consists of people who seriously call for the abolishment of law enforcement.

LARGELY BECAUSE THEY mistrust the motives of anyone who would want to be in a position of authority over other individuals.

Trying to claim that letting seven cops go (even though the city’s Inspector General did its own investigation that concluded 10 cops should lose their jobs) will somehow resolve the situation just won’t do.

This attitude we have in our society, the split between police and a portion of the public, goes beyond any one case. It certainly isn’t limited to Chicago – which is why I have always thought those people who try to place blame on Rahm Emanuel are being just a tad absurd.

Heck, a large part of the dynamic that is spurring the presidential campaign of Donald Trump to linger on even though his own actions would totally devastate a lesser candidate is those individuals who want to rant and rage about the need for law and order.

AS IN THE people who will complain the loudest should the day come when Van Dyke is found guilty of murder; the ones who wish they could follow through on Trump’s response to recent rioting in the Milwaukee area by shooting the troublemakers – most of whom in that instance were black people.

And for whom their “bullet” will be the ballot they cast on or before Nov. 8 (if they go early voting) for Trump as president.

 

TRUMP: A symptom of real problem?

Trump has tried to tone down his talk by saying his talk of “law and order” is aimed at black people, who often suffer from the violence. Although it is spoken to white people who want to knee-jerk react to the sight of African-American individuals by lashing out in some violent form.

Until we can overcome that attitude in our society, the only thing that firing a few police officers will accomplish is adding to the ranks of the unemployed.

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Premature prediction, or just part of the process for Chicago public schools?

It appears I jumped the gun last week with saying there was evidence that the Chicago Public Schools had averted a strike from its teachers' union.

There was an offer being taken seriously by union leadership. But earlier this week, the union's Big Bargaining Team decided that the offer -- including dinky pay raises for teachers, a promise of no layoffs and limits on charter schools -- wasn't serious enough to take to membership.

SO THE IDEA that all the teachers will soon be gathering to approve, or reject, a contract isn't going to happen. Not anytime soon.

In fact, the rejection by the Big Bargaining Team starts the clock on a process that could end with teachers taking to picket lines and spouting off all the negative things they can dream up of saying about Rahm Emanuel.

Whom to many Chicago Teachers Union members is evil incarnate!

But the thing about that clock is that it does not run out of time until mid-May. There's no way a strike could begin before then -- no matter how negatively things get between now and then.

IN FACT, I find that time process to be intriguing. Since I've never heard of a school strike beginning at the end of the school year. It always comes at the beginning in September. The idea of delaying the beginning of the process is what puts fear into Chicago Public Schools officials.

Particularly since those first few days are the ones in which state and federal education officials use to determine the legitimacy of all school districts. Delays then have serious consequences in the level of financial aid the school districts receive from government.

A mid-may strike would merely cause an early beginning to summer vacation -- a concept that would bother the parents because they'd have to make their summer day care plans for their kids a couple of weeks early.

But an early beginning to summer break might very well make Rahm Emanuel the hero to school kids all across the city of Chicago.

EMANUEL: Back to the drawing board

NOW ON A serious note, I'm sure this rejection is going to make it harder for the public schools to ultimately reach a deal. Because the reality is the schools have financial problems and there isn't a whole lot of space for them to give and take.

This might have been the best offer they could come up with to appease the Chicago Teachers Union -- whose biggest fear is that hundreds, if not thousands, of jobs will be cut and massive layoffs of teachers will result. In fact, union officials said Tuesday they were advised of the possibility of at least 1,000 positions being cut if no contract agreement was reached.

But I couldn't help but notice those union officials who were skeptical that the Chicago Public Schools could keep all the promises that were being made.

It could be an acknowledgment that the schools' proposal was something simply too good to be true. So why get worked up over a contract offer that would never become reality.

NOW I HAVE to confess a bias in all of this. My late aunt Charlene was an educator in Chicago and a teachers' union member. I can hear her voice in my head making the union arguments, even though she was retired at the time of her death a couple of years ago.

I know how furious she'd get if I tried arguing against the teachers' union. Then again, I also realize this is a financial situation in which neither side is really going to win.

It's going to be more about maintaining each others' existence. And for those who'd just as soon see the whole process come crashing down, let's remember it is the school children who ultimately will be impacted by the results.

So here's hoping that the next three-and-a-half months can pass with the two sides somehow finding a common ground. The last thing anybody needs is city school students falling further behind their counterparts in suburban districts -- or those urban youths whose parents are able to handle tuition in the private schools.

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EXTRA: No school strike? A miracle!

So what should we think of the possibility that the Chicago Public Schools has actually reached an agreement with its teachers’ union toward a new contract.

 

EMANUEL: One less headache

Thereby avoiding the image of striking school teachers further blotting the public image of Mayor Rahm Emanuel – who already has endured one teachers’ strike during his mayoral stint and surely would like to avoid another.

IT HAS BEEN for so long that Emanuel and the Chicago Teachers Union have been enemies, doing whatever they could to undercut each other. So much so that it was the teachers’ union that was the reason Jesus Garcia was able to run a serious campaign against Emanuel last year for mayor.

But this week, the teachers union said they received a “serious offer” from the Chicago schools. They’re not saying what it is. But say it will be contemplated by the union’s Big Bargaining Team on Monday, and could soon get a recommendation to the union as a whole to support.

An actual contract in place, instead of the teachers’ strike that too many people had presumed was inevitable.

In terms of specifics, the union would only say they would have to make financial concessions in exchange for protections of education quality and job security. Which shows that the union can spew political gobbledygook as well as any politician.

BUT THE CHICAGO Public Schools says significant concessions are being made by both sides. Which if accepted would ensure the current school year does not get interrupted – which would be a massive headache for parents.

And you don’t mess with those parents. It is the reason why the one part of the state government budget for Fiscal 2016 that Gov. Bruce Rauner did sign into law was the part for public education.

He knows how deep in doggie doo he’d be right now if he had school parents peeved at him along with everybody else.

And if there really is a contract, then it is one less headache for Emanuel to have to cope with – no matter how intense the headache caused by his police department’s behavior may be.

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