JOBS
Workers in DC are facing the worst jobs crisis in decades, yet Mayor Fenty and his allies on the DC Council – including At-large Councilmember David Catania – have refused to take necessary and urgent steps to address the crisis. As described below, I have a detailed and comprehensive plan to expand employment for all DC residents, including:
· Enforcement of the First Source Act and the Living Wage Act, shutting down projects that do not hire DC residents and pay them a decent wage, and using fines against these violators to fund job training and apprenticeships.
· Passage of Ban the Box legislation to end discrimination against people with criminal records.
· Implementation of the “Green Jobs” Campaign to train DC residents in jobs for the economy of the 21st century.
· Support for expanded unionization and implementation of the DC Jobs with Justice Agenda.
The DC Employment Crisis
DC’s unemployment rate increased by more than 40 percent in 2009, rising from 8.4 percent in January 2009 to 11.9 percent in December 2009. These figures, as bad as they are, reflect only the official unemployment rate, the so-called “U2” rate that does not include so-called “discouraged” workers and those who are working part time but are seeking full time work. If we include all unemployed people, the unemployment rate hovers around 15 percent.
It is much worse in some parts of DC. In Ward 8, the “official” unemployment rate was more than 28 percent at the end of 2009 and 19 percent in Ward 7, while Wards 2 and 3 had rates at or below five percent. In many parts of this city, we are experiencing an economic depression not seen in decades.
But this is nothing new for DC. African-American residents are five times more likely than white residents to be unemployed. This gap was greater in 2006 than in any year since 1985. Employment among African-American adults has been falling since the late 1980s. Some 51 percent of African-American adults had jobs in 2006, compared with 62 percent in 1988. Employment among residents with a high school diploma is at the lowest level in nearly 30 years. Just 51 percent of DC residents at this education level are working. In the late 1980s, by contrast, nearly two-thirds of residents with a high school diploma were employed.
The gap between high-wage and low-wage workers in the District is at an all-time high. Wages have barely changed in 30 years for DC's lowest-wage workers, after adjusting for inflation, while DC's top earners have seen large earnings gains. Income inequality in the District is greater than in nearly every large U.S. city.[1]
What can we do?
Enforcement of the First Source Act and the Living Wage Act
In recent years, the DC Council has passed legislation requiring a majority of workers on government contracts be DC residents, known as the “First Source Act.” The Living Wage Act mandates that workers on government contracts be paid at a rate substantially higher than minimum wage. Scandalously, the DC government – the Mayor and the Council – have refused to monitor and enforce compliance with these important laws.
DC’s First Source Act requires most contractors on projects funded in whole or in part with at least $100,000 in District funds to hire D.C. residents for at least 51% of all new jobs created by the project.
The Living Wage Act requires most, but not all, companies that provide services to the District under contracts worth at least $100,000 and those with subcontracts worth $15,000 or more to pay employees working on the contracts a “living wage.” This requirement also applies to businesses that receive at least $100,000 in D.C. government assistance, e.g., a loan, grant or other tax assistance.
The law defines a “living wage” as $11.75 per hour and directs the Department of Employment Services to make annual adjustments in the rate, based on increases in the Consumer Price Index. The current, adjusted “living wage” for DC is $12.50/hour.
This summer, we learned from the DC Department of Employment Services (DOES) that there has been no monitoring of the First Source Act. Never. The Mayor had in fact refused to spend the money appropriated for monitoring. Perhaps even outrageously, there had been no implementation of the Living Wage Act because the Mayor had refused to issue regulations.[2]
This refusal to enforce or even monitor compliance of these important laws reflects the consistent pattern of disrespect shown by our Mayor and his allies to our low income and working class majority. Instead, their support of big developers in their economic development programs has furthered gentrification and the growing lack of truly affordable housing.
I support the following action steps to force compliance with First Source and Living Wage requirements:
1. Require shut-down of active projects for developers not meeting these requirements until DC residents are hired at living wages in union jobs (an approach utilized in other cities).
2. Fine violators at meaningfully high levels consistent with their multimillion dollar assets. Target revenue from such fines to fund job training and adult education.
3. Prioritize First Source hiring in Wards with the highest unemployment, specifically Wards 5, 7 and 8.
Ban the Box
While unemployment rates continue to soar in DC’s poorest Wards, unemployment among people with criminal records is even worse. Of the 340,000 people in the labor force in DC, at least twenty percent have criminal records.
In a city where law enforcement targets people of color and low income areas, more than 90 percent of those with criminal records in DC are African-Americans. Selective enforcement in certain neighborhoods leads to more criminal justice involvement for residents of those areas, resulting in higher incarceration rates and negative impacts on communities. For example, nearly half of arrests for drug offenses occur in wards 7 and 8, where most residents are African-American and have the lowest median incomes in the city. DC has the highest rate of incarceration of any state in the US, with more than 1 in 50 adults in prison or jail. [3]
People with criminal records face severe discrimination in employment. Job applications for most entry level and many professional positions in DC routinely ask “Have you ever been convicted of a crime?” In this way, employers are able to screen out anyone with a criminal record, regardless of the nature of the conviction or how long ago the conviction may have occurred. As a result, at least twenty percent of our workforce – overwhelmingly African-Americans – are simply excluded from most employment opportunities.
We need to immediately pass “Ban the Box” legislation that would ban discrimination against people with criminal records in private and public employment, and housing. Ban the Box legislation would open up opportunities for people bearing the brunt of the discriminatory criminal justice apparatus in this city. It would enable employers to check a potential employee’s criminal record, but only after the employer has made a conditional offer of employment. In this way, a job applicant can be judged on his or her abilities and qualifications, not stereotypes. Only, if the background check reveals a conviction relevant to the offered position (for example, an embezzlement conviction is relevant to certain banking positions), the employer may be lawfully permitted to reject the applicant.
Such legislation has been introduced for the last four years in DC, with major opposition from corporate interests. In 2009 and 2010, Mayor Fenty and his allies on the DC Council have effectively killed efforts to enact this important legislation. This is unacceptable. I will lead efforts to win passage and enactment of Ban the Box legislation.
The “Green Collar Jobs” Campaign
A new, multi-billion dollar economic sector is emerging, bringing new opportunities in green construction, clean technology, urban agriculture and energy. Our goal: ensure that this green economy is strong enough to lift people out of poverty.
Green-Collar Jobs Campaign creates opportunities in the green economy for poor people and people of color through policy advocacy, public outreach, and an employment pipeline - the Green Jobs Corps.” Nearly a decade ago, activist Paul Pumphreys practical plan to create such a campaign. The plan is detailed on my website.[4] This approach is both practical and essential, and should be implemented immediately.
Some of the highlights of the Green Jobs Campaign include:
· Making public education more responsive to the community it serves by establishing a school-based training program that links acquired skills to specific jobs in the Washington metropolitan area. Starting in the ninth grade, students would have the option to enroll in comprehensive training programs that include counseling, job specific courses, and certification, filling a void in the educational system.
· Making training programs available to adults in an expanded adult education system, focusing on the needs of unemployed and underemployed workers.
· Development of partnerships between private industry and the District’s educational system in developing educational programs that will prepare our youth for the demands of today’s job market.
· Creation of an Apprenticeship Council that will work on developing the curriculum for each of the skills needed in the different trades. The Council will also work with the Board of Education, ensuring that the courses are current and the objectives identified are those skills, which are required for proper performance of the jobs duties and descriptions.
· Companies would be responsible for working with the Mayor and Schools Superintendent to help earmark job skills that can be taught in the public schools and adult education programs that will be needed in today’s labor market. Each Spring, these companies would participate with the public school’s annual summer job fair where they will interview potential candidates for summer and permanent employment.
DC Jobs with Justice
Of course, expanded unionization should be strongly encouraged to secure real gains in wages and benefits for working families. I am a proud supporter of DC Jobs with Justice, a coalition of labor organizations, community groups, religious organizations and student groups dedicated to protecting the rights of working people and supporting community struggles to build a more just society.
Other Important Steps to Address the Employment Crisis
Enforcement of First Source and the Living Wage Act, enactment of Ban the Box legislation, and the Green Jobs Campaign will improve the short-term and long-term employment climate for DC residents, but other steps are also necessary:
· Increase funding for all kinds of job training, partnering with unions.
· Given the fact that so many of our residents now live in depression-level economic distress conditions, it would simply be unconscionable that our City Council and Mayor would not act now to restore and expand the so-called survival budget. Restore funding for essential programs immediately, in particular those programs cut by the Council in the FY2011 budget, namely adult education, child care, interim Disability Assistance and Emergency Rental Assistance, as well as the $50 million cut in the FY2010 budget for affordable housing and other essential programs.
· To support these employment initiatives, multiple revenue sources should be tapped, including that generated from a fair progressive individual tax structure[5], full and timely access to federal grants, and mandatory set asides for job training for all economic development projects.
[1]The Progressive Review, 2009. http://prorev.com/dctrends.htm
[2] http://povertyandpolicy.wordpress.com/2010/08/19/dc-living-wage-act-not-...
[3] Rates of arrests for offenses such as drug law violations tend to have strong correlations with the number of personnel assigned to police those specific behaviors41 and the amount of money spent on law enforcement. The number of sworn police officers in D.C. increased 6.6
percent from 2004 to 2008 and the District now has over 4,000 police officers in its department.
During this time, index crime dropped 11 percent, while the number of arrests for drug offenses increased 11 percent; when drug arrests are taken out, all other arrests fell 3.2 percent.
Justice Policy Institute, Money Well Spent, September 2010. http://www.justicepolicy.org/images/upload/10-09_REP_MoneyWellSpent_PS-D....
[4] (http://davidschwartzman.com/Issues/Green_Collar_Jobs).
[5] http://ds.tns.campaignfoundations.com/RealSolutions/My_Testimony_on_Fair...
