Alabama AFL-CIO Explores Ways To Save Good Jobs

Jobs in key manufacturing industries in Alabama, like the paper or steel industries, can pay nearly twice as much as the state’s average wage for all industries. Nearly one in five jobs in the state of Alabama is in manufacturing; the state lost more than 13 percent of manufacturing jobs in the past two years. The Alabama AFL-CIO saw the trend and set out to stem the loss of these better jobs.

With the help of the Alabama Labor Institute for Training (LIFT), the AFL-CIO Working for America Institute and a $150,000 grant from the governor, it initiated an in-depth examination of both the state’s job prospects and its workforce to find where the good jobs are and how to keep them.

In May, LIFT released The State of Working Alabama: A Report and Agenda for Preserving and Growing Good Jobs, a look at both the economic supply and demand factors in the state’s major metropolitan areas and key industries, particularly manufacturing. One of its chief recommendations is that the state’s economic development system, which was spending more than $250 million, in some cases, to attract new manufacturers to the state, should spend some resources on helping the better employers in the state to stay there. The study also found that:

• 19.3 percent of Alabama’s jobs were in manufacturing in 2000, compared with 14.2 percent for the nation.
• While the state gained nearly 100,000 jobs from 1995 to 2000, it lost more than 34,000 manufacturing jobs.
• Alabama lost 13 percent of its manufacturing jobs from 2000 to 2002, while the nation lost 9.5 percent.

The state’s current economic development policies do little to assist firms in the state’s key established industries to retain good jobs while remaining competitive.These policies often preclude from receiving funds the companies that are trying to retain good jobs, because the money is dependent on hitting job creation numbers. As a result, most of the state money goes to firms coming from elsewhere rather than stabilizing the existing industrial base.

Despite recent troubles caused by the recession, the report suggests a number of state level policy recommendations that can help to relieve competitive pressures and preserve jobs in manufacturing. These include:

• providing economic development assistance to firms that offer high-quality jobs and are in industries that are key to regional economies in the state;
• investing in targeted research and development support for key industries in the state; and
• providing support to multi-employer partnerships which work to eliminate common problems that hamper the vitality of a key regional industry.

In May, the Alabama AFL-CIO, AL LIFT and the Institute convened a group of key unions, manufacturers and other employers to address the issues the report identified. Most important among the suggested strategies was a proposal for a high road partnership between labor unions and employers to develop programs to retain jobs. The Alabama State Partnership will implement the policy recommendations of the report.

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