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In
early March the Texas area
CSC's gathered in San Antonio at Brother Charles Andersen Residence for
the monthly meeting. Larry LeVasseur and
the community hosted us. Every year we have one meeting there.
Sister Susan Mika, O.S.B. did a
presentation on the maquiladores. Sister Susan is the director of
Socially Responsible Investment Coalition (S.R.I.C.), which is made up
of religious communities who use their investments as a way to make
social change. Our province belongs to SRIC, and Brother Thomas is
our representative.
Most, but not all, of
the maquiladores are on the U.S.-Mexico border; some of them are further
into Mexico. You can see a good number of them just outside
Monterrey. They are well known for their very low wages, poor
safety, environmental pollution. Perhaps we need to question
ourselves as to how much of our prosperity should be created on the
backs of workers and by violating the earth's resources.
The Industrial Areas
Foundation (I.A.F.) Southwest Network met in Austin on the first
week-end in March. More than 1,500 people came from New Orleans,
Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, and California. The theme was the
growing inequality in the U.S. Many middle-class people are losing
ground. Workers and families often have to "downsize"
their expectations and change their lifestyles. The issues
included Alliance Schools and education reform, organizing in
congregations and public schools, creating a living wage, organizing
immigrants, creating workers' associations.
Father John Korcsmar
and parishioners from Dolores Parish in Austin were there.
They
have been working on:
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Summer
Youth Employment: Austin
Interfaith is able to provide pre-employment training and has gotten
the City of Austin, Travis County, and private employers to hire
over 1,100 youths in jobs that help them to understand what the
workplace requires. Dolores Parish has the largest single
group of youths in the program each summer.
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Alliance
Schools: The IAF network
has worked with public schools to improve education. Alliance
Schools work closely with IAF organizations like Austin
Interfaith and develop a collaboration among the teachers,
parents, community, schools administration and staff. TASS
scores have increased dramatically in Alliance Schools, such as
Allison Elementary in Dolores Parish.
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Adult
Job Training: The IAF
organizations have discovered that job training has to be adapted to
the needs of the employers and the students. Dr. Paul
Ostermann from M.I.T. did a study on job training programs all over
the country. He said that Project Quest in San Antonio is the
best training program in the country. Students who are in the
program will earn between $3,000--$5,000 per year more for the rest
of their lives. Father John Korcsmar
is the chair of Capital I.D.E.A., a
collaboration of Austin Interfaith and some major employers in
Austin (such as Sematech, Motorola, AOL Time Warner, Seton
Hospitals, St. David's Hospital, several banks) , is modeled after
Project Quest. After two years, there are now over 400 people
in training and in employment through Capital I.D.E.A. in Austin.
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Living
Wages: Wages have dropped
in terms of their real earning power. For instance, for many
years the minimum wage was indexed to the cost of living. In
1968, minimum wage was $1.25/hr. If minimum wage were still
indexed, today it would be $7.53/hr, instead of $5.15.
Training is essential for people to have the skills to have jobs
that will support a family.
Also at the Southwest
IAF Network gathering were Brother John Paige,
Dick Kinsey, and others from St. Edward's
University. With the ENLACE project St. Edward's is
collaborating with Dolores Parish, Austin Interfaith, and the public
schools serving the Montopolis area (Dolores Parish) to improve the
educational "pipeline" of K-16.
Congratulations to Brother
John Paige who was recently appointed as Dean of the College of
Education at St. Edward's University. Congratulations, Brother
John!!
Dolores
Parish and Austin Interfaith
recently had a meeting at the Dolores Family Center. The
topic was finishing the Little League fields. This is a project
that has been in process for thirty years, including a bond election in
the early 1990's. It is the only project of that election still
not finished. Olga Ruedas, Estela Fabian,
Bea Lucio and other leaders invited two city council members and
the City of Austin Parks and Recreation Director to the parish.
When the city officials arrived and were escorted to a classroom, there
were only a handful of parishioners in the hall. In the classroom
they said that it would be impossible to finish the Little League fields
on time. When they left the classroom and saw 150 people there at
the meeting, they changed their tune and said that the Montopolis Little
League fields would be the top priority. They have worked on the
fields every day since then.
Immigration continues
to affect life, certainly in Austin. Recently, the Mexican
consulate did an information session at Dolores Parish. Over 1,300
people crowded into the Family Center. Fr.
John Korcsmar wanted to welcome the people to the session, but he
literally couldn't get into the place!! The hall started to fill
up, so people removed the tables. Then they opened the classrooms
around the hall and started to fill them too. It's a sign of the
size of immigration in Texas. The population of Texas increased by
4 million in the last 10 years. According to the Texas Education
Commissioner, Jim Nelson, half of that
increase is due to immigration. |
