LOCAL COLUMN
OPINION: We showed up as New Mexicans. We were told we weren't worth listening to
I've spent my career in the trades, ever since someone took a chance on me with the Laborers' International Union of North America (LiUNA). I've spent my career trying to pay that forward, training the next generation, showing kids from my own community that there's a real future in this work. Steady pay. Health insurance. A pension. A career, not just a paycheck.
That's why I stood up at the Public Regulation Commission's hearing on the TXNM Energy, the parent company of Public Service Company of New Mexico, acquisition next to Pablo Aguilera, a 17-year-old who's on the cusp of starting his own career in the trades. I wasn't there as a talking point or because someone paid me to be there. I was there because this deal means real jobs, for real people, in a state that badly needs them. I was there to stand up for kids like Pablo, who deserve the same shot I got.
I didn't expect to be laughed at for it.
Earlier in that same hearing, someone stood up and told the room that unions like mine were fighting for nothing more than "crappy jobs." People clapped. When it was my turn, I looked at that room and asked a simple question: Aren't we all New Mexicans? Because it didn't feel that way. It felt like we were being told our work, the work that built this state, isn't good enough to matter.
That's not a policy disagreement. That's an insult that was met with applause.
I understand people have real worries about this acquisition. But somewhere in this debate, it became acceptable to talk about working people, and the jobs we do, like we're an afterthought. Or worse, like we're the problem.
Here's what I'd ask the people who cheered when our work got called "crappy": Come stand where we stand. Come find out what it takes to build a career out of an apprenticeship, to keep New Mexico running, to build something that lasts. Then tell us our jobs aren't good enough.
I made the choice to speak out on behalf of LiUNA Local 16 in support of the Blackstone acquisition of PNM because I wholeheartedly believe this is the best deal for New Mexico. It's time to invest in our trades and in our future. I've watched too many young men and women train for a career and then leave the state because there wasn't enough work here to keep them. That's the cycle investments like Blackstone鈥檚 can finally break.
Nobody, including some of the politicians we voted for, paid attention to our apprenticeship program or to young men like Pablo until Blackstone showed up. It shouldn't take a private investment for people to start caring about our kids trying to build a future. That's exactly why we're speaking up now.
We're not going anywhere. And neither is the next generation of tradespeople, as long as we keep fighting for them.
Andrew Mayorga is a field representative for the District Council of Laborers in New Mexico.
