Working For America - Workforce Investment Act of 1998

Are labor representatives involved in reviewing performance outcomes from certified training vendors? In particular, are they involved in reviewing the wage rate for program placements, as well as other employment related data (# of participants to gain full-time, permanent employment with benefits, for example)?

Youth Councils:

Has labor made an effort to get labor representation on the WIB Youth Council?

Has labor (particularly the unions representing teachers) been consulted in the design and delivery of services to youth?

Self-Sufficiency and Living-Wage Ordinances:

In those regions where living wage ordinances have been passed to help ensure that public tax dollars promote living wage jobs, are we attempting to use these ordinances to guide issues of job quality and standards for WIA funded services?
How is self-sufficiency defined in your region? Does it include permanent, full-time, living wage jobs that offer health benefits and the opportunity for upgrading and training?
Are performance standards that reflect self-sufficiency incorporated into the WIBs' MOUs? Are these standards included in the One-Stop overall performance evaluations?

Strategies

The following strategies were developed in discussions across the country.

Support job retention by demanding that funds go to union, higher wage, High Road firms.
Create a role for the union in the sectoral labor market by providing indispensable services including job recruitment/matching and skill training, creating links to workers and "carrots" for employers.
Use public resources to run programs and deliver services that connect the union to groups of unorganized workers.
Set standards for the use of funds to block subsidies to low wage competitors of unionized employers.
Block the use of the public funds by non-union, Low Road employers.
Demand that public or publicly funded programs be implemented by unionized employees, including by public sector unionized employees.

Goals

These goals also come from many discussions.

All services provided and funds expended lead to workers gaining good jobs that provide economic self-sufficiency for working families. Funds are spent to support High Road, rather than low road, employers. Funds are not spent to continue a cycle of dead-end employment and poverty or to support substandard employment and employers.

WIA and related funds are allocated to training, as well as core and intensive services, to ensure that workers can gain good jobs in an economy that requires new skills.

Nothing in WIA implementation reduces the number of good unionized jobs or infringes on rights under collective bargaining. A good public training system, with a goal of good jobs, is designed to support, rather than undercut, other major factors that lead to good jobs, such as unions.