 
|
|||||||||||||||||||||
              
|
Op-Ed: Take the high road - Labor's role in training the work force for decent jobs
Thursday, April 30, 1998 By William M. George
Over the past 25 years, Pennsylvania's "old" economy, centered in manufacturing, has gone through a radical restructuring. Workers and their families in Western Pennsylvania paid a heavy price.
Reform of the Pennsylvania employment and training system, now on the legislative table in Harrisburg, offers a long-overdue chance to begin building a new economy with enough good jobs and widespread opportunity.
The state's current employment and training system consists of a smorgasbord of training and education programs for specific categories of workers (such as at-risk youth, welfare recipients or workers replaced by imports) that have a combined budget of roughly $750 million. It is widely accepted that these programs do not really make up a system at all: The whole is less than the sum of the parts.
But there is no guarantee that reform will actually create a system better able to generate the skills employers need and the security and upward mobility that workers want. Whether it does depends on the philosophy underlying legislative and administrative reform, on who has a voice in overseeing the new system, and on what government spends money.
Economic philosophy: the high road, not the market. Consistent with traditional conservative emphasis on the market, early drafts of work force development legislation called for extensive privatization and competitive contracting of employment and training services.
A central problem with employment and training programs, however, is not too little market but too much. Large numbers of providers today deliver overlapping and uncoordinated training programs and other services. Workers and firms end up bewildered about which providers are good value for the money and which training programs might actually lead to family-sustaining careers.
Given this confusion, the guidance of experienced government career counselors and case workers can be a life raft for workers receiving services. In this context, privatization would worsen the fragmentation in the current system and waste the knowledge possessed by government workers.
Instead of ritualistic advocacy of privatization and competitive contracting, work force development legislation should commit the state to an economic strategy based on improving productivity, quality and service -- the high-wage, high road. It should explicitly note that public money will not be given to firms that compete by cutting wages and benefits. Only the high-road path offers a future in which firms, workers and communities could all prosper.
Who will govern the new system? Proposed legislation calls for a Human Resources Investment Council and work force developments boards constituted at the county or multicounty level.
Who should sit on these policy-making and oversight boards?
The standard answer is employers, employers and more employers. Firms, after all, are the ones with the jobs.
Of course, employers must be central players if government programs are to connect to recruitment for good jobs. But not just any employers, only high-road employers that pay good wages by the standards of their industry, invest in their workers and achieve high levels of performance.
Alongside model employers, labor and civic and community leaders must be equal partners in statewide and local boards. Union representatives, by contrast, have a strong interest in investment in longer term, portable skills that give workers career security. These deeper skills are the key to rising living standards.
What should a reformed system pay for? Corporate restructuring and the large number of small establishments that exist in service industries have reduced security and promotion opportunities within firms. State policy must try to strengthen career ladders and training consortia that serve groups of firms.
New multifirm partnerships should be built within Pennsylvania's strongest regional industries and occupational labor markets. "Community-based" career ladders should also be built that give workers in dead-end jobs a chance to work their way into higher-paying jobs at other employers.
Labor's vision: Done right, work force development reform can be a central component of a strategic shift toward a high-road economic strategy.
It is also an area on which increasing agreement exists about sensible policy. Many employers are more eager than ever to think about forming partnerships to solve pressing skill shortages.
The labor movement looks forward to joining with others to craft this system. We think we have much to contribute. Indeed, we think we have perhaps the clearest vision of a new system that would be in the best interest of the state.
The more that people think about a new work force development system, the more they will realize that a strong labor movement is as essential in the new economy as it was in the old.
|
||||||||||||||||||||
