Working for America Institute: Building a High Road Economy

From the AFL-CIO’s Legislation Department, Jane McDonald-Pines, workforce issues specialist, reports on a recent High Road Network conference sponsored by the AFL-CIO Working for America Institute.

The AFL-CIO Working for America Institute held the first annual meeting of the High Road Network on June 28 in San Diego as part of the California Labor Federation’s Building Workforce Partnerships Conference. The High Road Network is a national network of labor representatives, including state federation and local central labor council officers, who serve on state and local workforce investment boards. Additionally, membership in the network is open also to all workforce practitioners who want the public workforce system to adopt high road policies.

Under the Workforce Investment Act, federal resources for employment and training services are administered by state and local Workforce Investment Boards (WIBs). WIBs are business-led, with a requirement that 51 percent of the membership, as well as the chairperson, be representative of the employer community. Each board must include two or more labor representatives, nominated by state or local federations of labor and appointed by local officials. These labor representatives serve as the statutory voice of workers in the public workforce system.

The network is a project of the Working for America Institute, which provides staff support and services.  The network and the institute seek to build a “high road economy” based on innovation, quality and skill, rather than low wages and diminishing benefits. The High Road Network is committed to a workforce system that connects workers with good jobs and quality training in their communities.

The network’s newly elected chair, highlights the importance of this new organization to the labor movement.

Among union leaders taking part, Bill Camp, executive secretary of the Sacramento Labor Council, says:

The High Road Network offers a unique opportunity for state federations, central labor councils and others committed to high standards in the public workforce system to come together to strengthen the voice of workers. This will help us assure that the public workforce system promotes family-sustaining jobs in their training and placement activities.

Network members elected an interim steering committee, adopted an agenda for the coming year and adopted several policy resolutions. The High Road Network unanimously adopted policy resolutions opposing the Bush administration and House Republican proposals to eliminate Workforce Investment Act and Employment Service programs, as well as opposition to continued funding cuts. 

The Workforce Investment Act (WIA) of 1998 was designed to provide employment and training assistance through separate funding streams for unemployed, disadvantaged and underemployed adults; dislocated workers and at-risk youth. State and local workforce investment boards administer WIA programs through a national network of one-stop career centers whose partners include the Employment Service. Created in the 1930s, the Employment Service operates through state agencies and its staff match employers and job seekers. The Employment Service also administers the “work test” for the Unemployment Insurance program.

The network also adopted a policy resolution opposing the Bush administration’s proposal to eliminate proven job training and employment programs and create individual “career advancement” accounts that will provide less, not more, help for laid-off workers.

The AFL-CIO Working for America Institute is a union-sponsored, nonprofit organization dedicated to creating good jobs and building strong communities. Created in 1998 as the successor to the AFL-CIO Human Resources Development Institute, the institute has made significant progress in advocating that the “high road” is the path the public workforce system must take to ensure economic growth benefits workers, employers and their communities.

For more information on the AFL-CIO’s Working for American Institute’s High Road Network, visit www.highroadnetwork.org.

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