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New
Workforce
Investment Act
A tool to build
High Road economies?
It's all in the state and local decisions now.
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The
new Act is intended to serve all job seekers and employers.
It is intended to establish the systems and structures
that will funnel workers to jobs and as needed out again
to other jobs.
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Background
Signed into law on August 7, 1998, the Workforce Investment
Act (WIA) provides increased flexibility for state and
local officials to establish broad-based labor market
systems using federal job training funds. For the first
time, job training is linked to economic development.
Labor market systems are meant to support businesses and
the economy, not just individual workers.
While the Act did not "block grant" all training
programs as some had hoped, the law does mandate coordination
among a range of federal job training programs, including
the adult and dislocated worker training, Employment
Service, adult education and literacy programs, welfare-to-work,
vocational education and vocational rehabilitation.
Other funding streams, like state incumbent worker training
programs and some economic development funding, may
also flow through the local workforce development boards.
In another major change, authority to set policies
and control of funds is shifting from the federal government
to the states and even further to local areas. The local
workforce development board--with business majorities
but also labor representation--will have much more power.
WIA's stated goal is to provide effective workforce
development services to both employers and workers through
a universally accessible, information-driven, one-stop
career center system. Unfortunately, what it might actually
lead to may be less positive, especially if labor and
community voices are not heard during the 14 months
ahead of state and local implementation.
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What
is implementation?
While many states have already been shifting to new One
Stop systems, all states must go through the following
implementation process to set WIA policies, establish
WIA procedures, and prioritize who will get funded in
each state and local area. Unlike JTPA, WIA will look
very different from state to state. There are a number
of places within implementation that labor input is allowed
by statute. It is important to take advantage of these
opportunities. In addition, it is important to get in
on the informal planning process that is happening in
every state to the extent you can.
- States must pass enabling legislation
- States must create a five year plan
- Local workforce boards must create a year plan
- Local boards must establish Memoranda of Agreement
with the agencies and providers who make up the One
Stop partnership in their area, defining the One Stop.
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All
states must have completed implementation by July 1, 2000.
To see how important these steps are, we need only look
at two states that are now developing state legislation
and plans. In the first, labor is grandfathered in with
a third of all seats on state and local boards. In the
second state, the new business-only boards are created
to oversee incumbent worker training, with no labor representation
at all. These boards will control millions and millions
of dollars a year.
State and local
implementation decisions will determine impact of new
law on workers
While the Job Training Partnership Act (JTPA), the Workforce
Investment Act's precursor legislation, was intended to
serve a limited number of individuals on the margins of
the labor market, specifically dislocated workers, adults
with barriers to employment and some youth, the new Act
is intended to serve all job seekers and employers. It
is intended to establish the systems and structures that
will funnel workers to jobs and as needed out again to
other jobs. Whether it will help people get jobs with
family-sustaining wages and benefits, with career paths
and stability, or whether it will simply help provide
employers easy access to a pool of skilled, low wage workers
is not yet clear.
The flexibility, outcome focus, and connection to economic
development in the law provide opportunities to workers
and communities, but achieving the potential of the law
will not be easy. Under WIA, there is greater employer
dominance of the policy-setting state and local boards
than under JTPA. Resources are limited and will remain
limited. JTPA programs have had limited success in moving
people from poverty and unemployment to living wage jobs
or helping people get jobs that replace their pre-layoff
wage level. |
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There
are considerable expectations among policy-makers that
the new system will be more successful in helping employers
find qualified workers and helping workers find better
jobs, increase skills and upward mobility.
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Decisions
that matter during implementation
Governors, state workforce investment boards, and local
workforce investment boards will make key decisions during
the implementation phase that will impact union members,
workers, and communities. Local boards in particular will
have increasing influence in the new system.
Training for employed workers will now be an allowable
activity. There are no standards in the law that define
the purpose of these services. Those decisions will all
be made state-by-state during implementation, too.
State legislation, state and local plans, and Memoranda
of Understandings (called MOUs) between the One Stop partners
will codify these decisions.
- Will policies at state and local levels require
that people receive the services they need to get
a living wage jobs and maintain their pre-layoff income...or
will they require that people take any job, no matter
the wage level?
- Will policies subsidize low wage, substandard employers,
paying their recruitment and training costs, without
any requirements that the workers receive a fair wage
for their new skills? Will the outreach exist so the
high wage, union employers get their fair share of
these resources?
- Will we maintain a public employment service for
all job seekers, rather than shift to a system or
private providers who are concerned with profits?
- Will union programs continue to receive funding,
as the system moved to vouchers for training (called
Individual Training Account--ITAs--in the Act)?
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There are considerable
expectations among policy-makers that the new system will
be more successful in helping employers find qualified
workers and helping workers find better jobs, increase
skills and upward mobility. In keeping with past policies
under JTPA (and over the objections of the AFL-CIO), Congress
determined that employer domination and leadership of
state and local workforce boards was essential to make
the system more efficient training and placing workers
to meet labor-market demands. Under the new law, the many
partners required in the one-stop delivery system are
to work in close coordination and to achieve the performance-driven
goals mandated in the legislation.
These are high expectations for a system that, in the
past, has had limited resources and limited success in
moving people from poverty and unemployment to living
wage jobs. Increases in budget authority for adults, dislocated
workers and youth may help the system move closer to achieving
the goal of universal access. However, it will take partnerships
among organized labor, signatory employers, government
as well as community and faith-based organizations to
build WIA-created labor market systems that are worker-centered
and support high performing employers, family-sustaining
wages and strong communities.
Provisions for labor
representation and rights
Some labor provisions contained in JTPA were weakened
or eliminated as a result of the new legislation. Requirements
that appropriate unions be consulted on specific skill
training proposals were eliminated. Also eliminated were
provisions that required consultation with union on dislocated
worker programs serving their members as well as Davis-Bacon
requirements. While these rights are no longer in the
federal statute, they can be put back by getting them
into the state legislation or state or local plans!
The new law does retain some important rights that we
need to exercise:
- Representation on state and local workforce investment
boards as well as nominations to these boards by state
and local labor federations
- Input and comment on state and local plans
- Comment on state procedures to certify training
providers
- Labor concurrence on programs affecting bargaining
agreements
- Prohibitions on the use of WIA funds to deter, promote
or assist union organizing
Several important labor standards were also included
in the legislation, including:
- Comparable pay and benefits
- Anti-displacement protections
- Health and safety standards
- Limitations on subsidies for relocating businesses
- State and local grievance procedures
The ultimate challenge for labor leadership in the
new system is to develop strategies that bring labor's
connections with the workplace and the community to
bear in state and local decision-making.... to bring
labor's vision of a workforce development system that
connects employment and training investments with "high
road" economic development strategies that result
in family-wage jobs and sustainable communities. 
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Key
Issues
As this new legislation
is implemented the labor movement will have to be particularly
active and involved in several key issues including:
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Make
sure there is full labor representation and participation
on state and local workforce development boards.
There should be at least two labor representatives
on each board nominated by state and/or local labor
federations. Boards should adopt decision-making
policies, such as consensus decision-making, that
will facilitate the full participation of labor
and community representatives.
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Protect
the role of the public Employment Service as the
"honest broker" of labor exchange services
in the WIA One-Stop system. Efforts to contract
out and privatize the functions of the Employment
Service as well as efforts to award contracts to
for-profits for one-stop administration should be
vigorously opposed.
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Insist
that all workers receive customized, individualized
services including information on workplace rights
and protections under the Fair Labor Standards Act,
the Occupational Health and Safety Act, the National
Labor Relations Act, the Civil Rights Act and others.
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Insist
that workers are not subject to "work-first"
requirements and have access to individual training
accounts based upon their needs and interests.
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Demand
performance standards for all programs including
on-the-job training and customized training programs
that reward training and placement in high-skill,
high-wage/benefit occupations.
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