GOP Worker Training Bill Moves System in Wrong Direction, Key Stakeholders & Experts Say
WASHINGTON – As Education and the Workforce Committee Republicans are poised to ram through a partisan rewrite of the nation’s workforce training and development system, a growing number of groups are raising serious concerns that the Republican approach would do great harm to the system’s ability to help workers and businesses.
"As our nation is only beginning to emerge from the worst recession since the Great Depression and ongoing global competition is a long-term certainty, the Workforce Stakeholders Group has grave concerns about [Republican] proposals to dismantle the current workforce system,” wrote the Workforce Stakeholder Group, a coalition of 32 groups ranging from the National League of Cities to the National Workforce Association, regarding the Republican bill.
While agreeing that reform is badly needed, “such action would only serve to divert attention from providing quality employment services and job training to people who need job placement and supports,” the group wrote.
The Republican bill, introduced by Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC), would dismantle the current workforce training system by cutting resources to the program and eliminating program accountability that ensures that taxpayer resources go to serve the workers and businesses that need the most assistance. These shortcomings were also highlighted today at a subcommittee hearing on the Republican bill.
“The first point [Republicans] mention is how many programs their bill eliminates, as if that’s the best and only measure for strengthening and modernizing the existing system. It isn’t,” said Rep. John Tierney (D-MA). “There is no evidence to support that the kind of arbitrary consolidation proposed by Chairwoman Foxx’s bill will make the workforce system more coordinated or better integrated.”
Committee Democratic members, led by Reps. Tierney (D-MA), Ruben Hinojosa (D-TX), and George Miller (D-Calif.), have taken an alternative approach by introducing a bill – the Workforce Investment Act of 2013 – that would modernize the current system by making programs coordinate efforts together, increasing accountability, and promoting innovation and best practices throughout the entire system.
“The Democratic bill would streamline and improve workforce program services, while expanding career pathways, sector partnerships, regional approaches and other innovative practices,” said Rep. Hinojosa, the ranking member of the Higher Education and Workforce Training subcommittee.
The Republican bill also takes a one-size-fits-all approach to consolidating and eliminating important programs without a thoughtful examination of whether these programs are effective.
“Merging such programs might make services less accessible to many groups considered hard-to-serve, such as ex-offenders or disconnected youth, than they are today. The adage ‘one size does not fit all’ applies very strongly to different demographic groups with different levels of skill deficiency and different kinds of barriers to participation in the workforce, and it is important that our programs recognize these differences and account for them,” said Dr. Harry Holzer, professor of public policy at the Georgetown Public Policy Institute.
The Republican bill also arbitrarily mandates that local workforce boards increase business participation of the board from 51 percent to 67 percent while allowing local politicians to lock out other key stakeholders including unions, community colleges and youth organizations. This could leave the system vulnerable to political favoritism in handing out taxpayer dollars.
Read more on the committee’s effort to rewrite the Workforce Investment Act, including letters of support for the Democratic bill.
Next Article