NYS jobs, PEF political rights at risk in Washington
By SHERRY HALBROOK
While most of PEF’s attention was focused on end-of-session action in the state Legislature, important legislation was also moving in Congress.
PEF legislative staff in Albany and the union’s international affiliates in Washington — the American Federation of Teachers and the Service Employees International Union — are keeping a sharp eye on a number of budget and other legislative issues that could affect PEF members and their families.
DOL funding
Federal funding for unemployment services and other programs administered by the state Labor Department is one of those issues.
So far, the Workforce Investment Act (WIA) has made little progress since it came out of committee in the Senate.
PEF is watching the following WIA issues that could threaten jobs and programs at the NYS Labor Department, including the proposed closing of the Telephone Call Center in Manhattan:
• Block grant (consolidation) of Wagner-Peyser Act funding with the Adult and Dislocated Worker Programs. While this consolidation, which PEF opposes, is not in the Senate bill currently, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) has been lobbying members hard on this issue.
WIA Plus also is not in the Senate bill. This provision would have pulled an even wider array of programs into the block grant. The bill passed by the House of Representatives includes the block grant, but not WIA Plus.
• WIA requires partner (such as NYS DOL) programs to contribute funds. However, the Senate bill would give partner programs a bit of a reprieve if they can reach agreement on funding before July 1, 2006, the date by which a local agreement would have to be developed.
If there is no agreement by that point, the governor could take partner program funding up to a certain amount. The partner programs could include “in-kind” services as part of their contributions. The House bill contains language that would allow governors to take partner programs’ funding without the local agreement.
• The House bill would repeal longstanding civil rights protections that prohibit religious-based employment discrimination by providers of job training. The Senate bill does not contain such a provision, but it could be added.
PEF supports approved funding and continued adherence to the provisions of the Wagner-Peyser Act. PEF opposes consolidating programs into a block grant.
PEF President Roger Benson has written to Sens. Hillary Clinton and Chuck Schumer urging them to oppose this legislation unless the block grant, partner contribution and religious-based discrimination provisions are deleted, and the separate Wagner-Peyser Act funding and provisions are restored.
Campaign finance reform?
While most people agree the rules that govern national political campaigns should be tougher, they differ on what those reforms should be.
PEF is concerned that proposed legislation may affect its state and local political activity by defining a statewide union working on state and local issues as a federally registered political action committee (PAC) that must comply with fundraising restrictions and register and report to the Federal Election Commission.
The union wants to know, for example, if state and local PACs that support or oppose state candidates, would be treated as federal PACs if they spend more than $1,000 on voter registration or get-out-the-vote activities in a year when a federal candidate appears on the ballot.
Also, would PEF have to pay a 35 percent federal tax on its communications about public issues within a year of a federal election?
Currently such communications and activities are not subject to tax when they are paid for by a union’s separate tax-exempt account.
However, if unions are denied the use of their non-federal political accounts, they may be taxed at the highest corporate tax rate on their political spending, while business could continue to spend for political purposes in tax-neutral ways.
“That would not be real campaign finance reform,” said PEF President Roger Benson. “We are urging our representatives in Congress to review any proposed campaign finance reforms carefully to avoid restricting the ability of unions to support issues and candidates that support the needs and rights of working families.
“Since we have contacted them,” he added, “Sen. Schumer and Congressman Michael McNulty have indicated they are withdrawing their support for this legislation.”
Members’ jobs at risk
Congress approved a FY 2006 Budget Resolution restoring money to the federal budget that will allow funding of the Community Service Block Grant (CSBG), Community Development Block Grant (CDBG), and 16 other community and economic development programs.
PEF members work for a variety of state and local programs affected by this funding.
The Budget Resolution Conference report contains specific language that adds $1.5 billion “to maintain economic and community development programs such as CDBG at FY 2005 levels.”
It also contains language which adds $1 billion for education, employment, training, and social services, which includes the CSBG. Specifically, $600 million of the $1 billion would fund the CSBG, with the remaining $400 million for Pell (college education) grants.
The Strengthening America’s Communities Initiative in President George W. Bush’s 2006 budget proposal would have cut funding from the 2005 level of $5.7 billion to $3.7 billion for CSBG, CDBG, and 16 other community and economic development programs.
The budget resolution passed by both the House and the Senate does not exceed the president’s requested cap of $843 billion for total discretionary budget authority. However, it appears Congress did find $2 billion in savings elsewhere in the budget so it could fund these programs.
The House Appropriations Subcommittee on Transportation-Treasury-Housing and Urban Development (HUD)-Judiciary-DC approved its version of the FY 2006 spending bill. This bill rejected Bush’s proposal to move the popular CDBG program from HUD to the Commerce Department and merge it with 17 other economic development programs.
Now, although the bill would keep CDBG at HUD, it cuts HUD funding 6 percent from last year and provides a total of only $4.2 billion, including $3.86 billion for the program’s formula funding — $250 million less than last year.
The bill funds highway programs at $37 billion, to match the level in the House’s surface transportation reauthorization bill (H.R. 3).
The full House Appropriations Committee is scheduled to vote on this bill in the near future and the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee has not yet scheduled action on this bill.
Under Bush’s original proposal, the NYS Department of State might have been forced to cut 21 jobs in the CSBG Program that it administers.
PEF supports continuation of the current CSBG funding and opposes consolidating it into the Strengthening America’s Communities Initiative. Again, the union has written to alert New York’s representatives in Washington to these concerns.
Son of NAFTA
The Central America Free Trade Agreement is a new trade deal proposed by Bush that would cover the United States, the Dominican Republic and five countries in Central America. The president is pushing Congress to approve it this year.
Based on the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), unions are concerned CAFTA would expand NAFTA’s legacy of lost jobs, low wages and trampled workers’ rights to six more countries.
Like NAFTA, CAFTA may give companies powerful new rights to trade and invest overseas and to challenge government regulations on the environment and public health and safety.
In Central America, labor laws fall far short of minimum international standards and workers are routinely intimidated, fired and threatened for trying to exercise their most basic rights on the job. CAFTA would do nothing to remedy these abuses. In fact, CAFTA’s weak rules on workers’ rights are seen as a step backward from the minimal labor conditions in our current trade programs with Central America.
Millions of U.S. workers are united in a fight to keep jobs in the United States and stop CAFTA.
The
Communicator July/August 05
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