AFL-CIO Already Wary Of Possible Obama Job Proposal

WASHINGTON -- The nation's largest federation of labor unions is already skeptical of a jobs scheme President Obama may propose in his address to Congress next week.

The administration has hinted it is interested in replicating a Georgia program that lets businesses train jobless workers for eight weeks without having to pay them on a national scale. The program, called Georgia Works, is voluntary for businesses and workers and is only open to recipients of unemployment insurance.

"I am writing to convey the AFL-CIO's continuing and serious concerns about the existing Georgia Works program and any expansion of the Georgia Works model," AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka wrote in a Thursday letter to U.S. Labor Secretary Hilda Solis.

"I am also requesting that the Department investigate the Georgia Works program to determine whether it is in compliance with federal law and conduct a full audit and evaluation of the program's operations to determine its impact on workers and their communities," Trumka continued.

Representatives from the AFL-CIO expressed their concerns to the administration in a meeting earlier this week. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the letter. The administration has declined to provide any details about its forthcoming jobs plan, though it has not denied that it is open to looking at Georgia Works as a model.

The National Employment Law Project, a worker advocacy group, asked the Labor Department in 2009 whether Georgia Works complied with federal labor laws, which require workers to be paid the minimum wage with a narrow exception for trainees. The administration subsequently issued guidance to state labor departments on requirements programs must meet to classify participants as trainees instead of employees. One of the six requirements is that an employer "derives no immediate advantage from the activities of the trainees, and on occasion the employer's operations may actually be impeded."

NELP has told HuffPost that it has interviewed Georgia workers who said their eight weeks were more like work than training. A trainee who got her job through the program said that during her training, "We were actually working for six weeks." The Georgia Department of Labor previously told HuffPost that the federal government has vetted the program and that it complies with federal standards.

Labor advocates worry that even though the program is voluntary, attaching it to the unemployment insurance system could eventually lead to a worst-case scenario in which jobless workers are forced to work for free as a condition of receiving unemployment benefits.

Economists haven't studied Georgia Works and there is little data to recommend it. Though the Georgia Department of Labor has said 60 percent of trainees who go through the program wind up with job within 90 days, the statistic is hollow; it doesn't mean 60 percent of the workers actually had jobs at the 90-day mark (a worker could have worked for just one of those 90 days to become part of the stat, for example).

In his letter, Trumka provided a set of nearly two-dozen questions about the program. "Have any UI claimants been steered into the Georgia Works program, even though the program purports to be voluntary?" Trumka wrote. "Has there been a control group study to determine whether Georgia Works has been more effective than no intervention at all?"

The U.S. Labor Department did not respond to a request for comment. The Georgia Labor Department declined to comment.

Comments

[iisguy]

03:42 PM on 09/06/2011

I dont know why reublicans keep talking trash about Obama. He could probably run as a republican and get elected.

[G Bax]

12:29 AM on 09/06/2011

People keep pointing out that your employer not you, pays an unemployment tax. Where do you think the employer got that money from? "your hard work as an employee provided his business with that income". So you do in fact pay for your unemployment, in a roundabout way!

[iisguy]

03:42 PM on 09/06/2011

yeah, just like you pay for CEO bonuses, but thats in a direct way.

[ThePen]

11:16 PM on 09/04/2011

Instead of Trumka simply writing a letter to U.S. Labor Secretary, Hilda Solis, about the Georgia Works program, he should send some organizers down to Georgia and organize some of those companies that laid off the workers as well as the Georgia unemployed workers.

[srooge]

07:03 PM on 09/04/2011

American afraid of everything, wrong. Try ultra rich not willing to part with their hoards of money and create jobs for fellow Americans

[SharonDoc]

05:19 PM on 09/05/2011

LOL, what planet are you from?

[srooge]

05:38 PM on 09/05/2011

DON'TYOUHAVEADONKEYSHOWTOGIVETOAMONEYCHANGER.

[fortressfountain]

01:11 PM on 09/04/2011

"What is a resonable amount of unemployment benefits?" In Finland and Denmark they recieve about 3 years worth. The country is thriving and not in a recession like the USA.
This recession was a failure of gov. and the corporate system. Maybe the people who create paper systems should be the ones responsible for paying unemployment.
I think people should collect until they can find work for at least what they were making. People cannot be beat up because there are no jobs out there.
The few mcjobs available do not pay enough-plenty of money to pay corporations and ceo bonuses.

[mashtoe]

10:47 AM on 09/04/2011

What you are witnessing is the failure of organized labor. This is why people cannot stand unions. They are weak and stupid. They should be calling for Obama's impeachment. They should be calling ANY politician who allows free trade with communist China a communist. That is how they should be playing this. But they won't and thus their numbers keep falling, wages keep declining, and the middle class keeps shrinking.

Until people wake up to the hard fact that corporate communist dominate BOTH parties then nothing will or can change.

[iisguy]

03:49 PM on 09/06/2011

What you are expereincing the failure to think intelligently. I agree however, that people who cant stand unions are stupid and weak. I also agree that Bush should have been impeached. However, the shrinking has nothing to do with Obama, that's the result of "trickle down" which is also could be visualized as "choke off the supply so it stays at the top" combined with anti-goverenment congressmen swept into power by fox news whose true ambition is to topple the government. they are actually, in my opinion, traitors in that they intentionally obstruct the normal functionting of government. In fact, you could say they are terroists. Terroizing the public with false fears, obstructing improvment resutling in death, and suffering on massive scale because of irrational obessions with extermist relgious and political views. i get a kick out of politicans that call Obama an extermist when they are the ones that want to end social security and medicare for millions and millions of people.

[JDZSB]

10:13 AM on 09/04/2011

Now that unemployment benefits have been extended to 99 weeks (just 5 weeks short of two years) I am beginning to wonder when it will stop. Already, there are politicians wanting to extend it even further, and at this point, it has become another welfare program instead of it's original intent as an interim stop gap between jobs. And, like every other government "social" program, we know that after it has been in place for a period, it becomes permanent and then a target for abuse. I have heard of several instances of employers complaining that it takes longer to fill a job because many applicants are just going through the motions and really do not want the lower paying jobs while they can still draw unemployment. So, what is a reasonable period of unemployment benefits?

[mashtoe]

10:52 AM on 09/04/2011

Once the corporations have extracted all wealth from the US. That is how long we will keep extending unemployment. The goal right now is to keep the people quiet long enough for all our jobs and technology to be offshored to communist China.

Eventually we will be so broke we will have no choice but to end all entitlements AND we will have no industry or technical advantages. So then the IMF, which is increasingly being run by China, will step in and DICTATE the terms.

[spinotter11]

09:37 AM on 09/04/2011

What would be so bad about working for free as a condition of receiving unemployment benefits, as long as job seekers were given enough time to search for a paying job? Isn't it better to be working and to get the experience and contacts that any sort of job brings with it?

[El Chingaso]

07:22 AM on 09/06/2011

Many Americans are just plain lazy, and expect businesses to take huge financial risks to fund their 8-to-5, Monday-Friday lifestyles (with insurance benefits). Such fantasy has led to many foreclosures, outrageous personal debt ratios, and the quickly imploding down fall of the...so-called middle class. I say, if you're not a business owner in this country, let 'em eat cake...

[pat8942]

07:04 AM on 09/04/2011

His jobs plan will be something that sounds good, but fancy words don't create jobs.

[plaidsportcoat]

04:41 AM on 09/04/2011

" worst-case scenario in which jobless workers are forced to work for free as a condition of receiving unemployment benefits."

Like when African American slaves lived in cabins, their "benefit"

[spinotter11]

09:38 AM on 09/04/2011

The African American slaves did not draw unemployment benefits.

[Dunkleberger Karl]

12:53 AM on 09/04/2011

Either this president stand up or we all shall sit down! You think the sitting on the side walk is a bad thing how about the drive way to the white house? How about stepladders and the storming of the white House lawn? Mr president hear us Begg, for by Halloween it shall be a roar! And really the reason Mr President you chose to not Prossecute Mr Bushes admin was you were worried that the republican congressmen would not work with you? really, REALLY?Good call! You are the Best friend of the republicant party! If You were Just a little more of a stand up kinda guy , you just might be a P-U_-_why? why Not stand up to these bullies? Punch them in the nose hard! You dont want to be President, you'd rather be a father? Then tell the Democratic party you want out! Stop being all talk, all choak,and no real victories! !

[plaidsportcoat]

04:42 AM on 09/04/2011

wish there were another dem option!!

[High Fidelity]

11:53 PM on 09/03/2011

Realistically, organized labor is now only about 7% of the private workforce.

How does such a small percentage of workers justify such sizable print and media attention?

I think it's a legitimate question.

And much of the unions existence nowadays seems predicated on the receipt of government money or dollars for projects to emply them.

If I don't like corporate cronyism in government (and I don't), than I also don't like union cronyism in government either.

[plaidsportcoat]

04:43 AM on 09/04/2011

because they are important people they justify coverage, even with just a few. Why just LOOK at all the right wing media spent on covering the unions!! Hatin on 'em

[Guest211]

06:23 AM on 09/04/2011

I'm curious. Why are they so important?

Thanks

[TheIndependenceParty]

09:01 AM on 09/04/2011

7% are members, but a much larger percentage of us support organized labor.

"Corporate Cronyism", ... phrase de jour for the Teabagger crowd thanks to Palin. Do you all ever wake in the morning with a fresh new thought of your own, or do you need Faux and Drudge to jump start your minds?

Think for a minute whose cronies have the greatest influence and which party hands it to them in spades, ... Teabagger Republicans! Every time!

Big Oil, Big Insurance, Big Pharmco, ... You name it, and Republicans dance to their tune every day of the year.

[OBXartist]

11:42 PM on 09/03/2011

Just another example of the Obama Administration latching onto a conservative program in the hopes of passing "something" instead of fighting for what we elected them to do. Their "play-it-safe" approach has lost on all fronts and I found it hard to believe that they can't see this. Is it possible that Obama was a Republican stooge all along?

[plaidsportcoat]

04:44 AM on 09/04/2011

Him and rahmbo.

[aztrukin]

10:31 PM on 09/03/2011

Let's see. Your'e unemployed and collecting a check. You can intern, which means being trained for free and collect a little more. So, why sit at home and cry about being underpaid when you are doing nothing anyway. By people who truly want to get back to work, this is an opportunity. For those who want to sit on the butt and collect a check, this is mean. If it were up to me, anyone who collects a check should do some sort of work for it, medical exceptions of course. Now for those who cry we paid and this is insurance, you never paid for it and your employer will have to deal with the problem of his rates for the insurance going up if you were laid off. This was meant to help you in the short term, not carry you forever. Really need a job, go on craigslist.

[plaidsportcoat]

04:45 AM on 09/04/2011

I see a lot more than the black-and-white parody of reality in your comment.

[spkninglsh]

10:14 PM on 09/03/2011

Obama will probably use his shrewd negotiating skills to repeal the minimum wage.

[plaidsportcoat]

04:46 AM on 09/04/2011

He can convince a toilet to un-flush with those negotiating skills.