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Date sent: Tue, 9 Nov 1999 11:18:10 -0500
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From: DLC News <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Idea of the Week: Self-Service Job Placement
To: Multiple recipients of list NEWDEMNEWS
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The DLC Update Monday, November 8, 1999
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Discuss the Idea of the Week at the DLC Idea Exchange at
http://www.dlc.org/idea/discussion.htm
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***Idea of the Week: Self-Service Job Placement***
You're out of a job, or you want a new job. The usual process
is to buy enough newspapers to stock the local recycling
center; pursue informal contacts; kill a few trees by mailing
out resumes; maybe even consult your local Labor
Department office, if only to make sure you can collect
unemployment or access other public services.
But in Indiana, it all comes together in one place. The
state's Department of Workforce Development, led by
Commissioner Craig Hartzer, has 31 full-time centers where
you can log onto a computer (with help if you need it), list
your personal characteristics, needs and skills, and
immediately find out (1) which employers in your area might
need your services; (2) what public benefits you might qualify
for, from unemployment insurance to skills training; and (3)
where you can get more help. They call it CS3--the Customer
Self-Service System.
This is a classic "one-stop job center," a long-time
goal of New Democrats, and one that Congress and the
Administration have heartily endorsed. But Indiana has taken
one-stops to a new level by making its services and
information available electronically in a "self-service"
environment linked to genuinely fresh job leads, and enabling
the citizen to identify his or her needs by skill-set, not by job-
title. CS3 recently received an "Innovation in State
Government" award from the National Association of
Counties.
To keep the job leads fresh, Indiana already makes it
possible for employers to submit information via its web
page. By the end of the year, any citizen will be able to
access the whole system--the job-matching service, the
information on state services, the capability to file
applications for assistance--from any computer with Internet
access, for free. That means Hoosiers can, if they wish, log
onto a home or work computer and enter into an interactive
dialogue with potential employers, state or private job
placement service providers, and their state government,
about their employment futures.
This initiative reflects a whole host of New Democrat
policy objectives: empowering citizens with information;
using technology to bring public services close to the
"customer;" creating public-private partnerships for the public
benefit; promoting life-long skills learning; matching skills
with opportunities on an ongoing basis; and crafting a
seamless "employment system" for everyone, whether they
are a former welfare recipient, a displaced worker, or simply
someone wanting more opportunity.
CS3 is one of Gov. Frank O'Bannon's top priorities,
and will well equip Indiana to succeed in implementing the
federal Workforce Investment Act, which gives states the
power to design not only one-stop employment centers, but a
system to empower workers with full array of public and
private job services.
Any state can do this, and every state should. It
extends to all citizens the sort of user-friendly, skills-specific,
cutting-edge job matching technology that several private-
sector companies already offer to a more limited audience.
Anything less is second-class service.
***A Good Day for New Democrats***
Thanks to proximity, the Washington punditry's interpretation
of last week's off-year state elections was heavily over-
influenced by the hype surrounding the GOP's lavishly
financed pickup of three seats and a narrow majority in the
Virginia House of Delegates. But looking around the country,
Election Day '99 was a good day for New Democrats.
New Democrat Martin O'Malley consolidated his
upset primary victory by winning 90 percent of the vote to
become Baltimore's new mayor.
Two New Democrats won mayor's races in cities
where Democrats almost never, ever win. In Columbus,
Ohio, longtime DLCer Michael Coleman became the first
African-American mayor, and the first Democratic mayor in
nearly three decades. In Indianapolis, Bart Peterson, a former
chief-of-staff to then-Governor Evan Bayh, became the first
Democratic mayor in 32 years, after a textbook New
Democrat campaign stressing community policing and fiscal
discipline. Both won by double-digit margins.
One of the more intriguing municipal elections
occurred in New York City, where New Democrat Eva
Moskowitz, a career educator with a long involvement in
supporting charter schools, won a seat on the City Council
despite the decision of the major teachers' union to support
her Republican opponent out of anger at her pro-charter
schools position.
As of this writing, it appears Democratic Lt. Gov.
Ronnie Musgrove will become governor of Mississippi, either
by winning a majority of the vote, or by vote of the
Mississippi House if neither candidate wins a majority. If so,
that means five Deep South states, in an arc from North
Carolina to Mississippi, will be governed by centrist New
Democrats--a region that Republicans claimed as their
unshakeable "base" as recently as two years ago.
From Mississippi to Indianapolis, it's clear New
Democrats, and only New Democrats, can win in competitive
territory, and even in territory once conceded to the GOP. If
there's any "message" to the political parties from this off-
year election that should influence their strategies in 2000,
you just heard it.
***Keeping It in the Road to Seattle***
Prospects for a new consensus on trade and globalization in
the United States took a big step forward last week with the
publication of a letter from the private-sector Advisory
Committee for Trade Policy and Negotiations endorsing the
Clinton Administration's position going into the Seattle
Ministerial Summit of the World Trade Organization (WTO).
This group, which formally advises the Administration on
trade policy, includes business executives, trade associations,
and very significantly, union representatives. The big news
is that AFL-CIO President John Sweeney signed onto the
letter, in recognition of the willingness of the President and
the business community to support a working group at the
WTO on workers' rights.
Sweeney immediately drew heat from those in labor
who are interested only in fighting, not shaping, the world
trading system. A Teamster's official put it succinctly:
"When we get to Seattle, we will be opposing the WTO. This
letter is not our position." Sweeney himself was constrained
to issue an open letter reiterating the AFL-CIO's position that
its support for the Clinton agenda was conditional, and that a
WTO working group was a threshold demand, not the whole
ball of wax. Meanwhile, reports circulated that some
business groups were unhappy about the new Clinton
position, and the business community's support for it.
Perhaps in response, U.S. Trade Representative Charlene
Barshefsky, in a speech this week, emphasized that the
workers' rights working group at WTO would not have
official powers beyond studying the issue.
We think it's very important that all the interests that
converged in the new Clinton position, which reflects our
proposed "third way" on trade and globalization (see the DLC
Update from October 18, 1999), concentrate very hard on
keeping the coalition together on the road to Seattle.
John Sweeney deserves a lot of credit for his
willingness to push his rank-and-file away from a reflexive
opposition to every aspect of globalization; for his efforts to
open a dialogue with New Democrats and the business
community in a search for common ground; and for his
understanding that the labor movement has a broader
progressive agenda that requires pro-trade allies. But his open
letter to the labor movement suggests he has not yet accepted
the crucial centerpiece of the Administration's negotiating
strategy in Seattle: pursuing trade liberalization
simultaneously with efforts to assess and strengthen workers'
rights and environmental standards internationally.
That's all the more reason that pro-trade groups need
to give the labor movement, along with mainstream
environmental and consumer groups, every opportunity to
remain constructive.
Interestingly enough, the U.S. Senate provided an
object lesson late last week in how to overcome obstacles to
a consensus on trade and globalization. Legislation creating
new trade agreements with African nations, and extending
trade agreements with Caribbean Basin countries, was finally
enacted after a Pilgrim's Progress of trials: an uprising from
the Left demanding labor and environmental standards along
with debt forgiveness; an uprising from the Right fed by
textile industry opposition; a variety of partisan maneuvers
linking the bill to other matters; and then--sanity and success.
The same outcome can and should happen in Seattle.
###
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