THE OTHERS - " THE WORKERS "

It is said that there are about 110 different nationalities present on St. Martin within these groups. There are however, two them who make up at least two thirds of what I call "the others", Dominicans and Haitians, people of what is the second largest island in the Caribbean area, whose populations number in the millions, even though they leave their countries by the thousands each year.


These many people of other nationalities have come to St. Martin to 'make a better life' for themselves as people like to say.


They run the gamut from from highly educated to illiterates, from highly skelled and trained to totally unskilled.


When tourism began taking off in the sixties there were jobs available for all, some even had two and three jobs, if they could handle it at one time. As far as money was concerned , life on St. Martin was sweet. The whole world had not yet heard of us. The vast majority of the tourists were Americans who were well-off and Caribbean people who were looking for work.


And then France and Holland "rediscovered" us in the late seventies and Europe became more and more present along with the rest of the world.


This has put us in a situation where we are now swamped with thousands of unskilled workers - our own, since it is a fact that EACH country has unskilled workers, and those from outside. That means we need a double supply of jobs available, which are not there, and one of the results is that outside labor gets the greater share of jobs, some because they accept conditions that are not allowed by law, but which are allowed to exist, and some because some groups only hire their own people. They send away for family members to fill positions that become available.


Something that happened to me this week is that my daughter had to be taken to the hospital emergency room this week. The hospital, because it is public, has to accept whoever docks up, was overflowing, there was no room for her, she spent the whole night in the corridor on a gurney, the next day she was sent home even though the doctor said he wanted to keep her another day or two. What would have happened if it had been something for which she had to remain in hospital? Now, having said that, I do not mean that Saint Martin lives are worth more than any other lives, legal or illegal. However I do mean that something needs to be done about the influx of people into this island because there are contagious diseases much more lethal than the dengue and the Chikungunya, and should one of them break out on St. Martin and the hospital overflows, it will be spread worldwide in a few weeks because many people here have money to take the next flight out.


Let those who have ears to hear, listen and hear!