Maricel is a young woman who lives in a village in Mayagüez. She saw 2 relatives die from COVID, has 3 children, two years of university and is a single mother. She is 27 years old. In the house both worked and earned between them 28 thousand dollars. «I had to get him out of here because our income did not allow us to qualify for this house but neither did we buy one. Finally he went to the United States. If she works with the pension, they take away her social assistance. ‘The money he sends does not give me to live». Like her, there are more than 83 young women who have studied and who live in a residence and have children. Thanks to a friend, she was able to get a 3-bedroom apartment in a residential complex with 116 other families. In order to be hired she had to put the previous address where she lived because if she said that she lived in a public project, they would think that perhaps she had a brother who was a rascal or a junky. I told them that the Family Department had a program to empower women and give them work. They laughed. They told me that when they went to the Mayagüez office, not even the employees knew what they were talking about.
I like to work, she tells me. Study to work in medical records. Work until the pandemic. She did everything in a doctor’s office, she even took care of her dog. She paid me well and tip me for cleaning the office.
Family Department offered me help to take care of the children, but the person has to have a clean record. My mom takes care of them for me but she had drug problems when she was young and she took on a case and now the Department of the Family program excludes her and they asked me for a lot of papers to finally tell me that she didn’t qualify. They told me «this are federal funds and they couldn’t pay her. My mother takes care of my children and she also takes care of my grandmother. My grandmother does not have social security and she cannot go to a care center. If she earns money, they take away her aid. She explained to me that she receives 543 dollars in food stamps for the children and her and medical Reform. If she were to pay for the medical plan and medicines it would be around 800 dollars monthly.
The House of Representatives unanimously approved the R of C 759 that expands the amount to earn so that people can work and allow them to take the PAN and the Reform. At present I do not know if it is Law but it would help small entrepreneurs and workers and SMEs. I think it’s a good project if they don’t start writing regulations that make it inoperative.
There are multiple reasons but the biggest problem my dear economists, recruiters and communicators is POVERTY, the discrimination of having had a fault even if you have been rehabilitated. How could she tell the story of friends who retired and who have to work because the pension doesn’t pay?
I found a list for those limitations that Maricel and her neighbors manifest.
- employers who pay a good salary but you do the work of 3 people
- they discriminate if you have an offense no matter if it is 10 years old (it costs more than 800 dollars to clean a record and it always appears) Those who have to be fired are shackled by law 54 on domestic violence
- having to attend to a sick person or take care of minors
- the pay is not enough to cover the expenses of working, breakfast, lunch, gasoline, tolls, parking, car repair and clothing
- fear for the safety of minors because the school sends them out at any time because they have training or a teacher is absent
- there is no adequate transportation for children to school or care center
- there is no transportation to work
- high care costs
- bad payers employers
- bad description of the functions to execute
- employers who require an “under the table” agreement to avoid paying the costs of having an employee
- lack of retraining
- the deal. There are employers who do not respect the worker and treat him in an undignified way
- the discrimination of how you dress and groom yourself
- application for many papers to employ you (in the usa they do not ask you for so many papers to work in a supermarket gondola)
- They want to employ you with the examination of a machine
- callous recruiters
- discrimination based on age, sex, etc…
I read this on Twitter that seemed very true and I have experienced it personally.
Gabriel Amill Millan said yesterday before the expressions of the invited panelists in the Hard Ball Program:
·«Today Hard Ball celebrated with that unfortunate prejudice of Puerto Rican laziness. They made statements that were very offensive to the dignity of our people. Puerto Rico has a high rate of university education, professionals do not want to be «janitors.»
They start from the mentality that if the poor are in need, they will work at anything. For a long time I decided to work on what I like and what I don’t like I do but for a short time.
To say that the unemployed is vague because he does not want to stand or sit for 8 hours without moving, putting up with a boss who has a title, but no education. They continue to criminalize poverty. “If you are poor, settle for a peso breakfast at home. Do not complain»
There are good traders but don’t understand that their biggest asset is the one that makes them money.
«A bad employer is one who wants to be robbed: said Don Francisco Unanue» RIP President of Goya. «A company with a union is because it is a bad employer» «I am the first to arrive at the company and the last to leave» «I know the names of everyone who works here and this company allows family members to work. Here the deal is familiar. «
Mega stores had to raise wages. The new Labor Reform is not complete and they are a burden because they do not adjust to the reality of the country. Young people want to work and older people too. Young people are not going to stay at work for 30 years, but those who stayed must be protected. Young people want to be better paid to enjoy and travel. The older ones work to make up for what they didn’t earn all those years. Some took advantage of the money from the PUA to undertake, others to pay debts. Others to fix up their houses and buy a car or repair the one they had. There are many well-prepared people who have to catch up with technology and there is the reality that more than half now prefer a remote or hybrid job to be able to attend to the things that they did not attend to due to living in the bottleneck and on a day-to-day basis without quality of life. I have retired friends who are having a really bad time. They do not qualify for aid and they do not give them work.
Electricians, refrigeration technicians, television technicians, mechanics, tractor operators, agricultural and construction workers, child and elderly care workers, computer technicians and network operators, cashiers, regular and heavy equipment drivers, waitresses, vendors in stores, sellers of solar panels are the most sought after. In a capital market where supply and demand prevail, these positions must be paid more or design things that satisfy them to stay. I tell you that 9 companies asked foreigners to import workers for construction and restaurants, offering them more money, housing, transportation and benefits that they do not offer to locals. The federal government did not pass them on. What they offer to imported people is supposed to be given to locals first.
Recruiters and analysts changed the rule. Journalists, photographers, communicators etc… we are in disuse haha. You see how newspapers and stations hire young graduates who are paid less and retire those who had to pay them more. We have to reinvent ourselves and that’s where we are.
If they don’t change the mentality and promote changes, they will only sacrifice quality, service as we see in many areas of government. The panelists last night on Playing Hard Ball are not ignorant. Those who hire them are not ignorant. They only want to stigmatize those who have limitations and are poor and those who have realized that their work is worthwhile. Who want to work to have a better quality of life. Adjust, let’s be good managers that creating a class problem will not solve the problem.