Label Says ‘Made in Watts’ : Local corporations need to share their wealth by creating jobs in the surrounding communities, not sending jobs abroad.

John T. Johnson, a 50-year resident of Los Angeles, is a retired administrator for the county Department of Welfare. He served 30 years with the department before retiring in 1977. He lives in the Mid-City area and golfs, sells real estate and is a community services housing counselor.

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Rebuilding South-Central Los Angeles has been a major problem for the past 30 years. The question remains: Do we really want to rebuild without understanding what the problems were before it “got like this”?

The failed project of restoring Watts after the 1965 riots should serve as an example of misplaced emphasis. The major destruction of the Watts business section ran along 103rd Street between Central and Wilmington avenues. The businesses were mainly replaced with residential properties. The homes and apartments along 103rd Street are still well-maintained and give an appearance of success.

However, if you continue east on 103rd Street, between Wilmington and Alameda avenues, you find Jordan Downs and three or four other housing projects only a few miles away that are no better than they were before the riots.

The same problems of unemployment and black-on-black crime have persisted since the ‘50s.

The development of Jordan Downs, Nickerson Gardens, Imperial Courts and other projects began the development of “welfare zones,” concentrations of low-income tenants. With this element being a large part of the communities’ economic base, you have a city designed for failure.

Historically, cities have grown up around thriving industry. Their survival has been commensurate with the success of those industries. When industry fails, ghost towns follow.

The skyline of Los Angeles would lead one to believe that prosperity abounds. Yet, the homeless on Skid Row less than a mile from the new high-rises will attest to the fact that the corporate enterprises do not share their wealth toward creating local jobs. Local politicians seem oblivious to the influence needed to cause such sharing of concern.

Every facet of our lives is controlled by government. Our actions at homes and in the streets are subject to control by our police. Our earnings and possessions are subject to involvement of tax collectors. Yet we helplessly watch jobs being shipped out of the country by major manufacturers to satisfy their profit motives under the guise of free enterprise.

We tend to overlook the fact that the participants of the April-May riots represented a cross-section of the city. This seems to illustrate that unemployment is not only a problem of the black community. When manufacturers transfer their factories overseas, they deprive all segments of our population.

Governments’ main response to the riots has been commitments to low-interest loans to affected property owners. Some manufacturers are willing to contribute millions of dollars to reconstruction plans. Grants and loans are earmarked to rebuilding liquor stores, markets and mini-malls. Business owners will be able to re-establish their previously thriving business, but joblessness will remain.

The most effective way to provide meaningful jobs in economically depressed communities is to have government representatives commit to encouraging manufacturers to put their jobs in the depressed areas of America rather than foreign countries.

I suggest that jobs be created by revitalizing the riot-torn areas with industrial centers making essential parts of products sold by their mother companies. The satellites would only rely on the surrounding community for manpower and initially be structured as on-the-job training centers.

The initial employees would be key personnel from the mother companies who would train new employees. In time, trainees would advance to comparable positions in their mother companies.

Such a program would provide a new beginning to the surrounding communities. People who have never learned mechanical and technical skills would have hope.

And instead of “Made in Taiwan,” products would carry labels that say “Made in Watts.”