Rewarding Work

As the federal government considers an economic recovery plan that will most directly address the needs of those suffering and revive the economy, expanding funding for and modernizing state-based unemployment compensation systems should be a central part of any recovery plan. 

While the financial crisis has received more of the headlines, there has been a growing unemployment crisis over the last year.  With unemployment at a five-year high, nearly 10 million Americans were officially unemployed last month, with nearly 500,000 workers applying for benefits each week.  And the problem doesn't stop there, with long-term joblessness rising:

The federal government is fixated on raiding workplaces in search of immigrant workers, but they have practically abandoned punishing irresponsible employers violating wage, workplace safety and child labor laws.  Demonstrating a remarkable commitment to punishing the victims, they've left it up to states to take action against the more pervasive problem of sweatshop labor conditions.

There are stark differences between the two presidential campaigns' approaches to federal-state relationships.  Differences range from the amount of funding appropriated for programs run by the states to whether the candidates would strengthen or weaken state regulatory authority.

In a case with national implications for state health reform across the country, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals this week in Golden Gate Rest. Ass'n v. San Francisco upheld the employer responsibility provisions of the San Francisco universal health care plan.  The decision follows a preliminary decision earlier in the year that allowed the plan to be initially implemented.

According to The Wall Street Journal, "Fed and Treasury officials have identified the disease. It's called de-leveraging, or the unwinding of debt. During the credit boom, financial institutions and American households took on too much debt."  But let's not buy into a false equivalence of "financial institutions" and those "American households" borrowing beyond their means.

Instead of allowing the right-wing to scapegoat undocumented immigrant workers, Progressive States Network will be working with progressive leaders across the country to introduce wage enforcement laws that emphasize that native and immigrant workers both suffer under illegal working conditions. See State Immigration Project: Policy Options for 2009 for the full range of immigration policies Progressive States Network is supporting in upcoming legislative sessions.

Reacting to a spate of recent farmworker deaths, both houses of the California legislature have approved a new "mediated election" process for farmworker unions. AB 2386 will strengthen farmworkers abilities to form labor unions and address workplace conditions.

Six farmworkers have died this summer of suspected heat illness and 15 have died since 2003 despite requirements adopted in 2005 that employers provide minimum heat illness safeguards. AB 2386, sponsored by Speaker Emeritus Nunez, proposes a new process that allows farmworkers to quickly vote by mail with two choices on the ballot to directly vote for the union on the ballot or to vote for a more traditional union election later, with the whole process overseen by a mediator jointly chosen by the union and the employer.

This November Coloradans will have a chance to vote on a simple proposition:  Should employers have to provide a legitimate reason before they fire an employee? 

Virtually all states already prohibit firings on the basis of race, gender, age or religion and many other criteria; Colorado's Ballot Amendment 55 would merely boil employer responsibility down to a simple requirement that they provide a "just cause" reason for terminating any employee.

Today, the Progressive States Network is releasing a new report: The Anti-Immigrant Movement that Failed: Positive Integration Policies by States Still Far Outweigh Punitive Policies Aimed at New Immigrants.   The Executive Summary is available online, as well as the full report in PDF and HTML format.