Governor Chafee (Photo by Bob Plain)
So Governor Chafee has justified the reduction in key staff of the Unemployment Insurance and Workforce Development sectors of the Department of Labor & Training by saying that our economy is improving sufficiently enough to justify the layoffs.
In a June 7th interview with WPRO, the Governor stated:
“Well, the DLT is the opposite of the economy. When the economy is bad they are hiring to deal with the unemployment insurance issues and as the economy stabilized, unfortunately, it goes the other way. They start to layoff those employees that they had to hire during the glut of unemployment insurance requests.”
Realistically speaking, this means a reduction in service center employees from around 90 to around 35. So Rhode Islands’s economy, by gubernatorial logic, has improved over 65%. When did that happen? Where were we? Didn’t 38 Studios just take a flaming nose dive into bankruptcy, crashing into Narragansett Bay in spectacular fashion? Didn’t Blue Cross just let over 40 employees go? Is there a secret, hidden construction boom going on? Is manufacturing on the rise? Does Mr. Chaffee realize that having the second highest levels of unemployment in the country is not worthy of a silver medal? Or is he simply not satisfied until Rhode Island wins first place at something?
Or is it something else?
Changes in Rhode Island laws are a matter of public record, but not often a matter of public knowledge. As of July 1st 2012, Rhode Island Labor Law 28-44-6 has undergone a fairly drastic change that will significantly reduce the means by which unemployment insurance weekly benefit rates are calculated. Without going into the formulaic details of the change, it is enough to say that it will reduce the weekly benefit rate in almost all cases. Come this time next year, the weekly benefit rate reduces again and as of July 1st, 2014, it reduces once more. In a state where over ten percent of claims include out of state wages (primarily due to the small geographic size of RI and it’s proximity to CT and MA), this reduces the incentive for claimants to choose Rhode Island as the state where they would receive a benefit rate most comparable to the income they were receiving prior to layoff.
Maybe. But not necessarily. Previously, Rhode Island was often the obvious choice when given the option to request the combination of out of state and Rhode Island taxed wages because of the generous means by which our weekly benefit rate was calculated. Now it will be comparable in many cases. But not significantly reduced. The more likely incentive will be for businesses who will be able to lay workers off with less of a payroll tax rating percentage increase. Good for “job creators” when they choose to be “job eliminators.”
Another change in the Labor Laws is the means by which a disqualification can be overcome. Previously, if a claimant was determined to be separated from an employer for disqualifying reasons – getting fired for wilfull misconduct or quitting without good cause – one needed only to return to work after the date of disqualifying separation for eight weeks and earn twenty times Rhode Island’s minimum wage for each of those weeks (8X$148) to overcome the prior disqualification and be allowed to collect on subsequent separation from employment. Now one must return to work for at least eight weeks and earn at least his or her weekly benefit rate for the disqualification to be overcome. This will prevent many from being able to collect after a single disqualification, even after redeeming themselves by returning to work and being separated again through no fault of their own.
Rhode Island has the right to know about changes that will affect the safety net of over eleven percent of it’s people. These same citizens also have the right to know that, while these changes - the reduction of key workforce at the DLT, the reduction of benefits, the increase in difficulty of overcoming disqualification of receipt of said benefits - may benefit the few (the job creators who create no jobs), they disenfranchise the many.
These decisions are not math, they are politics and, in spite of the deliberate confusion on the part of many politicians, there is a difference. The workload at the DLT has not reduced. The wait times for incoming calls to the call center have routineley exceeded one hundred minutes over the past few weeks. The back office functions and specialized are falling far behind and work is piling up. After the two thirds reduction in front-line employees and the eliminations of entire sub-sections of specialization, things will not get more efficient. I will reiterate, this is math. Politics can not change math no matter how hard it tries.
Eleven percent unemployment. Insufficient training for a struggling workforce. Second highest unemployment rate in the country. 65% reduction in front line workforce on the front lines at the Department of Labor & Training. That is the math problem. Solve for X using politics.
The facts are in: The game is rigged by the fed and the banks, mainly. Right, Gina?
The big question is how to return some semblance of health to the area.
Drove down North Main Street yesterday, past the wreckage of Sears.
Looked at the traffic margin to my left; overgrown like Dodge City.
We need people with hearts, and we are governed by robots.
Lincoln Chafee is the closest to an authentic politician of the American republic that we have, second only to Sheldon Whitehouse, really. And Lincoln is way too conflicted as a practical matter.
Angel Taveras is a hypocritical scold and a phony.
Providence has great bone structure; it could be made beautiful in a very cost-effective manner.
We don’t read much about the Arcade here, but they’re reading about it in New York.
Bruce Sundlun was quite a guy. He made things happen, so, of course, the local mothras hated him.
Any more like him out there, or are they all named Poppy??
Do we really want to be arbitraged into oblivion?
“Lincoln Chafee is the closest to an authentic politician of the American republic that we have, second only to Sheldon Whitehouse, really.”
Yes, blue-blood, multi-millionaire Whitehouse’s insider congressional trading and quid-pro-quo sponsorship of borderline-fascist PIPA legislation at the behest of major Hollywood campaign donors is as authentic as a statesman can get.
The most ironic part is you use him as a *contrast* to what is wrong with Wall Street.
Who, if not Wall Street, do you think was called in order to trade up to $600,000 of Whitehouse’s stock in the days after the Paulsen-Bernanke meeting with legislators?
www.businessinsider.com/heres-how-congressmen-gamed-the-financial-crisis-to-make-big-bucks-in-the-stock-market-2011-11#sen-sheldon-whitehouse-d-ri-5
Maybe I’m wrong but I thought I read somewhere that those DLT jobs were cut because federal funding ran out. Is that not true?
Dog,
There is a part of that statement that is true. However, Unemployment Insurance was initially set up nationally as a federally funded program. It was part of the new deal to help pull the country from the great depression. Operations budget is approved on a fiscal yearly basis as requested by each state based on need. This is separate from ARRA money (better known as stumulus,money) which ran out long ago. The Rhode Island Department of Labor & Training is primarily funded through chargeable federal fiscal requests, grants and other federal finances. In the state with the second highest rate of unemployment in the nation and no realistic hope of recovery for years to come, we accepted a reduction in federal operations budget for the next fiscal year of $4.6 million. This makes little sense seeing as the unemployment percentage in RI has only reduced by two-tenths of a percentage since this time last year.
Now it was a conscious decision on the part of a number of policy makers to accept this fiscal reduction without a fight, to avoid seeking any further grants or state funds to be allocated to where they are most needed and to choose the front-line representatives as the primary job classification to be reduced by two-thirds. There are other job classifications that are less essential and have not been chosen for any eliminations. Most of these classifications are high-payed and non-union. Some of these went years without being filled.
Regardless of the means by which the funding to operate this department at adequate staffing levels, the point of this particular article is that when there is demand for a government service, it is up to the elected representatives to comply with the demand in the best interests of the constituents who allow them to hold office. In this case it appears the elected legislature is changing the laws to disenfranchise a class o people in need.
I just don’t understand why the Governor would suggest the reduction was a result of decreased need when it’s actually a funding problem. It’s obviously a deception but to what end? To date, I haven’t heard one media challenge to his claim.