ABSTRACT
TWO MAJOR EVENTS HAVE TAKEN PLACE over the past three decades that have dramatically affected the life chances of Latinos in the labor marketplace. First, the Latino population has increased dramatically to the point where, between 1980 and 1990 Latinos comprised 30 percent of the nation’s population gain (see Part II). Second, the U.S. economy underwent a wrenching shift from a manufacturing to a service economy, eliminating huge numbers of high wage blue-collar jobs in manufacturing, mining, and industrial production. Affirmative action programs and other civil rights legislation passed during the 1970s made it possible for larger numbers of Latinos to earn a college education and for some Latino workers to move up to middle-level management positions and other desirable white-collar jobs. However, the latest round of economic restructuring, euphemistically termed “downsizing,” is eliminating many middle-management and white collar jobs. The old rules of last hired, first fired mean that hard-won and precarious footholds in the new economy are at high risk. While some of the new service sector jobs have been high-wage, high-tech positions in the information economy, the largest number have been low-wage, temporary, or part-time jobs in industries like tourism and food preparation. Moreover, when some of the traditional positions are eliminated they are replaced with temporary, part-time, or contract labor. These new positions seldom have job stability or benefit packages. Researchers estimate that the weekly wage has dropped from $315 to $258 from 1973 to 1990. 1 Thus, like many other workers, Latinos have experienced the last twenty years of economic restructuring as an increase in economic insecurity, the loss of stable family-wage jobs, a decline in real wages, increasingly unsafe working conditions, and a declining social infrastructure. Signs of economic restructuring in Latino communities in the U.S. include an increase in the number of sweatshops in Miami, Los Angeles, and New York City; Spanish-speaking hotel maids and restaurant workers in Washington, D.C., Boston, San Francisco, Denver, and Chicago; and the elimination of white collar jobs through downsizing at huge companies including AT&T, IBM, and state and local government.
