Workfare Proposal

The prospect of long-term employment is real.

People have currently been on unemployment for 12 months and longer.

There are currently 5.5 people in line for every job (this statistic is oft-quoted of late).

People out of work for longer than one year have a tougher time getting back into the job market (at all).

Proposal

Workfare is a concept that has traditionally been used for welfare clients.

The proposal is to apply this to long-term unemployed claimants.

Operations

Do a lottery of people who have been unemployed for one year (random selection).

Those selected are obligated to perform workfare.

Workfare would require them to work for 20 hours a week – at community service, or for a nonprofit, or a public agency, or be enrolled in qualified training.

Benefits

Individuals would benefit by being engaged in productive work.

They would not be isolated, checking the job boards online in futility, in their homes.

They would be engaged in the community.

The community would benefit from services performed.

They would have an opportunity to network with others in the community, who could lead them to new career directions or possibilities.
They would have something to show for their time of unemployment besides paying the bills.

Options

The program would require workfare for those selected; it would optionally be available to others on a voluntary basis.

Sources

• Economist magazine – long term unemployment could become a reality – after 1 year of unemployment, 1 of 3 workers do not go back to work (ever).
• NY Times article – story about an artist – be willing to be engaged with people, and work for free. It could lead somewhere, network you, and it does keep you engaged and doing something useful for society.
• Neighborhood association in Beaverton – a group of unemployed individuals offering their house services to shut-in seniors.

Views

the view from Salem


the view from Hillsboro

Why Bill Sizemore Makes Sense – Part 1 (Education)

Many candidates running in the governor’s race lately seem pulled to the center. Why? Are Oregonians ready to listen to “compromise” and lengthy plans to get somewhere? I don’t think so (I am surely not patient enough for that). Instead of political pablum meant to satisfy the most number of people (or rather, offend the least number, leaving many of us numb), it is by taking strong stands that we wake up and form our own opinions. Only by opposing opposites does real policy happen.

Part 1 – Education
Bill Sizemore, in debates and in platform statements on his website, has come out in favor of education reforms. These things aren’t new, they aren’t rocket science, and they weren’t cooked up in some tea party lab either. In fact they have actually been used in Oregon! Sizemore has taken a stand in favor of education reform which includes merit pay for teachers.

Being the civil servant that I am, and moved by the concept of Pay for Performance, I have asked my management chain about this. Mumble, well its hard to do in government, they tell me. But! I’ve seen it! When I worked at Metro as a lowly intern I had amazing access to all levels of management as part of my gathering information for papers I was writing. Pay for performance was something Metro had initiated, and at that time (2004) was still in the process of implementing.

While I can’t say how well it played out there, at least an important government organization, albeit with some enterprise type operations it is responsible for (the Zoo, Expo Center) was able to look beyond government classification schedules, union contracts, and negotiate a grand new world. Why not set aside some “bonus” money so that collectively, when the group reaches certain goals, everyone is rewarded accordingly. How else do you expect to motivate government workers – on little chocolate donuts alone (this, sadly to say, does not work any more).

I worked in the private sector for many years, the “Silicon forest” out here in former farmland that now grows chips and machines to spit out chips and widgets and things. A competitive place, sometimes internally, always against competitors. A startup I was lucky to work for that later went public (yes! The 90’s were great!). Pay for performance is not the term they use in the private sector – its “incentive bonuses”. And we worked like mad to achieve those bonuses, since our payout (a bi-yearly bonus of as much as 100% of your quarterly salary) affected everyone in the company. There were company-wide goals (ship product X to customer Y by Z date!), and there were division goals (production release of product Q by N date!), that we did stress and work to make happen. And all were rewarded, top to bottom.

Why shouldn’t our education system, which currently does not really have to compete against any outside entity (more on that in a moment) have incentives to encourage excellence? Some teachers have been with local school districts for 30 years and are quite excellent; others are probably not as excellent. I have been quite fortunate to send my kids through the Hillsboro school system which beat the odds of the recently quoted “68% high school graduation rate in Oregon” at Century H.S. with a 99% graduation rate. How did this happen? They worked like mad, together, as a team, to make it happen.

It didn’t happen by closing high performing schools and bringing low achieving schools up (the current plan in Portland? Are they after mediocrity or what? Refer again to “only by opposing opposites does real policy happen”..)

I used to be opposed to charter schools – thinking they siphoned money away from our public schools. Yet without external competition what motivates schools to achieve? I have watched through news stories the transformation that is taking place in the DC school system – Chancellor Rhee, the change agent, against the public employee unions. I sense that real transformation is occurring, and the winners will be the schoolchildren of DC, their parents, the community, our nation.

Race to the Top – the federal grant with $600M available to states who embrace education reform – has been in the news lately due to Oregon’s relatively poor rating on its grant application. Interesting that anyone would expect anything different. Radical education reforms – well how exactly were they going to write anything about that – with the union organizations apparently intransigent to real change. Having not read the application, with its scoring of 7th from the bottom among all states that applied, I can only imagine it touched on “reforms lite” around the edges of the system. No surprise since I certainly don’t hear any leadership asking for change.

So ok, back to Mr. Sizemore and what he would like to do to reform education. But is he an educator – what is his standing on this issue? He provides a direction we can pursue. Not in a vacuum either. First, reform the ever-increasing part of the state budget that is the Public Employee Retirement System (PERS). Since 70% of local education dollars come from the state, taking a hard look at the pie that is the state budget is a critical first step. Along with PERS reform is a system of compensation changes which offer more flexibility to state workers (cafeteria style). I refer readers to his website since I am summarizing (www.sizemoreforgovernor.org).

Second, institute merit pay for teachers to encourage excellence. Mr. Sizemore is not an entrenched educator, administrator, or member of the education system. Yet with 5 kids and a clear vision he is able to see the system objectively. He has worked, sometimes successfully, and when not successful sowing seeds of change for later, towards some of the reforms needed to upgrade our education model in Oregon.

So lets hear a radical stance. Lets have it out, lets have a Real Policy Debate. Cause through incremental polite discussion we are never going to get there. A system at rest tends to stay at rest. No more resting.

A Liberal’s View of Bill Sizemore – 1:1

Interviewed by Courtney Brooks
April 16, 2010
Portland, Oregon

Bill Sizemore is one of the Republican candidates for Governor in the Oregon primary election which takes place May 18. He has been blasted in the press for his continued opposition to powerful teachers' unions in the state, who have taken it so far that only one week ago was he freed to be able to spend money on his own campaign. He still is under court order to submit all personal expenditures (such grocery receipts for buying food for his family). He has also sponsored more state ballot initiatives than any other individual, and Oregon has one of the oldest initiative systems in the country, having started in 1902.

In the interest of fairness I wanted people to see him with more humanity, and I was lucky to get a one-on-one interview with him, which follows. For the record, I am a registered Democrat in Oregon, and to the "dark blue" side of the spectrum.

(1) PERS funding and sustainability – why is this a problem?
Bill – 85% of the education budget is for salary and benefits. Money spent on PERS as a share of the state budget is getting larger, and could be spent on education expenses, including teachers, textbooks, school maintenance, etc.

Yes I would address PERS in a way that impacts Tier 1 employees too – ratchet back their PERS. The fix in 1994 that voters approved is not enough. Courts have said workers have an implied contract – but it’s not a contract. It can be changed by the employees voluntarily. My goal would be to create a total compensation package approach and let the employees decide if they really want that much of their money to go into PERS, because if they do it is going to impact their salary, which is the biggest part of the compensation package and is always negotiable.

I would leave the 110,000 retirees collecting PERS benefits alone.

(2) What has been your source of income?
Bill - Oregon Taxpayers Union is one organization – I have historically received a salary as part of their overhead. Some income I receive from political action committees who back me on certain initiatives, some foundations likewise have provided funding in the past. And I receive some income from political organizations for my activities. Note that the IRS has had no issues with my organizations. My foundation had an audit from the IRS right before the unions sued my organization and we received a clean bill of health.

(3) What drives you regarding initiatives?
Bill - When I ask donors to get behind a particular measure, they are usually motivated about issues that will make the state a better place for everyone – not about saving themselves money.

(3a) Where do the initiative concepts come from?
Bill – I think them up.. and I have dozens more rolling around in my head.

(3b) Why don’t you get credit for them?
Bill – unions get people – in the press, on blogs, etc. – to discredit me. They attempt to demonize me and it becomes a personal attack. When their complaints are dismissed by facts, this happens silently – no headlines here.

(3c) Do you think that some issues – like PERS liability, or violation of private property rights, get so far out of control – that your initiatives seek to restore some kind of balance?
Bill – sure. If JFK were around today he would be viewed as a conservative. In his era, he was seen as progressive.

(4) How do you reconcile your – what seems to be – hatred – of public employee unions with your religious principles. Shouldn’t you “turn the other cheek” or something?
Bill – Personally, I don’t hate public employees at all. I think their unions are destroying the state and must be stopped, but there are lots of good people working for government.

(4a) So, hatred is a political stance?
Bill – It’s not hatred. What I do is political, not personal. But I do feel strongly about it

(5) A positive vision please?
Bill – people react to “tax cuts” as a negative. A positive way to see it is putting money in the pockets of people. That’s a negative for my opponents but a positive for the working folks who get to keep more of the money they make.


In closing – this is open for you readers to make up your own mind. While at the national level the world seems dissolving into polarized camps, this is Oregon. I sincerely think both right and left want to improve the world, and dialog is a great place to start.

More energy sins

Eleven more people give their lives for our energy needs this week - the oil rig explosion off the coast of Louisiana. When is enough enough.

Beyond Climate Change (as if people matter)

Someone at some time started caring about working people. Some trace it back to the disaster that was the Triangle Shirtwaist fire that trapped workers and ultimately led to the beginning of the Occupational Health & Safety Administration (OSHA). I’m sure there were seeds before that, but as is too often in the U.S. it takes a crisis to create real change.

Now we continue to employ people in risky unsafe environments, not for cheap shirtwaist clothing but for our endless energy consumption habits. The recent disaster at Massey Coal Mine in West Virginia was a crisis – of the administration’s oversight (this, after “reform” of MSHA, the administrative agency), of business’s ability to protect its workers, and points to the powerlessness of workers who need to support their family and have few options.

Internationally we are certainly not alone. The Bhopal disaster in India, or the Russian disaster in Chernobyl point to the dangers of nuclear power and its impact. The effects are widespread. A woman on my floor at work called herself “a Chernobyl baby”, with continual thyroid problems, having been birthed in the region. She was only about 23 years old! Way too young to live with the effects of her country’s negligence of its energy industry.

Alternatives are out there. Germany’s economy is totally oriented towards solar. Their production and distribution systems, as well as domestic reliance on solar energy, both allow families to have “net zero” homes which generate income for them by selling power back to the grid, and allow Germany to have a robust export economy with manufactured solar panels to sell. Here in Hillsboro we have a slice of Bonn and are quite fortunate that SolarWorld is here creating jobs, for the new energy economy.

New energy economy is starting to sound trite since it is getting overused. But please think about the consequences to people in your neighborhood, and neighborhoods in communities 3000 miles away, our working friends in West Virginia. We all deserve better. We deserve family wage jobs. We deserve clean energy. And mostly we deserve to make a living that contributes in a positive way to the world.

Other growing “sectors” of the Hillsboro economy include call centers. Lets talk about how sustainable that is. Any time I have ever placed a call (Toshiba, Comcast, etc) I am talking with a very polite technician in India. They even admit it these days and don’t try to masquerade, which is ok with me. I have even adopted some of their customer service habits in my communications at work – their politeness is what we should all strive for in customer service.

However Hillsboro workers cannot compete for call center jobs. It is lucky we have some to keep those parking lots full and keep people off unemployment till we figure out how to run an economy that works for everyone.

The other option that seems to excite people these days is Genentech. Even the Governor and other high level politicians showed up at an expansion of their gleaming new plant. Rhetoric about moving “up the food chain” from packaging to production to R&D. Visions of another Intel danced through their heads.. Now I see the underside of economic development (and I am generally the most optimistic person I know). Just rhetoric. The dignitaries at Genentech were unwilling to utter the words “R&D”. No dearies this is not the next Intel. Right now its just repackaging those bulk pills shipped up from Cali. Soon it will be real production – clean rooms, bunny suits, etc. But that is where the similarity to Intel ends. It will not bring family wage high tech requirements for engineering talent.

A random fact – position announcement for a “photocopy tech” in state government, that required a bachelor’s degree. How is this possible? Is this the best a university degree can get you??

The short view is we need to protect our economy, drill baby drill, build more nukes, even Obama is getting into the act and it really depresses me (and I told him so). Please get out of the political short term. People matter. This economy matters and I’m stuck here so I want it to work out.

The long view is about clean energy. The people who almost (almost) bought this house were planning to install a solar panel on the garage roof (oh, he did work for SolarWorld).

Footnotes:

[1] Thank you Wendy, for making Portland City Club read “Strange as this Weather has Been” by Ann Pancake, which sensitized me to the plight of workers caught up in mountain top removal in West Virginia.

[2] Thank you La Leche League for teaching me “people before things” which I have always tried to live by.

Economic recovery thru lists

Today in Washington county, are we in economic recovery?

+++ TriQuint Semiconductor has a lot of activity today, a Sunday at that:

• people going to work on Sunday
• energy systems humming at full tilt
• construction equipment in the back - evidence of expansion

(TriQuint - makes chips that go into iPhones)

+ Well-fed ducks on Dawson Creek behind the library (people have money to buy bread for these ducks, also lots of small plastic toys owned by kids owned by Intel parents)

- DHS expansion (Dept of Human Services)
Not sure exactly what they do in Hillsboro, but their expansion and hiring of extra staff implies a need for their services. The Republicans state that the state budget has increased 49% in 4 years. Do they know we're in a Great Recession?
- Even have money for new bark chips around the parking lot

+ Yahoo parking lot presence - people working on Sunday
(Customer service call center)

- Yahoo customer service call center
Check it out. Tektronix' customer service call center in Beaverton was offshored to India. The workers did qualify for Trade Act benefits for retraining, which is nice. So. Call center work - starting to sound like a third world kind of occupation. Possibly not sustainable on American wages.

+ Sun shining brightly today in Washington County. Silicon Valley-like. Maybe some rich VC's will visit and think its Silicon Valley II (but! with cheaper workers, electricity, housing, taxes) and want to invest a lot of money

Today's economic recovery tally:
+ 6 plus points
- 3 minus points
-----
Net: 3 positive points! Yes! Recovery is right around the corner.

I know that womens' suffrage reached Oregon in 1912 - you can learn a lot reading the cement squares that pepper the capitol mall in Salem. What I didn't know was that this initiative came up for vote in both 1908 (failed) and 1910 (failed), till it finally passed in 1912.

.. just showing how things don't just instantaneously "happen", there are often seeds sown along the way till the social climate is right..

Two little girls in one day - wearing peace sign t-shirts (one in Salem, one in Hillsboro). Maybe there is hope for the world!

There is nothing better than a new notebook

Even if its electronic..

In honor of Harriet and spies who take notes everywhere, this blog is dedicated.