Who gets the jobs?

February 18, 2009 7:42 AM

Stimulus package filter. When the money starts filtering down to the state and local authorities that will use the billions to get various projects started, what kind of guarantees are there that new jobs will go to people that need them?

I know that the average person will be able to track where the money is being spent on the government websites as part of the promise by the new administration to be totally transparent about all this, but what safeguards will be in place to ensure that any jobs created go primarily to the newly unemployed?

I'm almost scared to pose a question that makes me sound xenophobic or even worse some kind of racist (which I know I'm not), but if projects like fixing roads, building bridges etc call for an unskilled labor force to be recruited, what is to stop companies just employing low wage day laborers or undocumented workers and paying them below market rates in order to boost company profits? Traditionally day laborers and workers from other countries send the bulk of their wages home and that would seem to defeat the object of creating jobs in order to stimulate the economy. Even the possibility of workers from other parts of the USA moving temporarily to where the jobs are being created would do little to help the areas the projects are in, as less money would be spent in those communities but again be sent back to families in other states.

I haven't heard anything mentioned on the subject of who will actually get these new jobs when they are created and wonder why it really hasn't been discussed (or has it and I've just not seen it anywhere)?

posted by 543DoublePlay to law & government (13 comments total)

Government contracts generally require contractors to prove that their labor practices are legal (that is, they'd lose the contract and be subject to penalties if they were found to be employing undocumented workers). However, there is absolutely nothing in the stimulus requiring the jobs it creates to go to the worst off workers. Cities and contractors can hire anyone they want, including people who already have jobs, people who don't need the money, and people who plan to send all of their paychecks to their grandmothers in Paris. In fact, there's nothing in the bill requiring that the projects create the number of jobs projected. If a contractor or city can do the project more cheaply by employing fewer people, they can and will.

I'd also be highly skeptical of the transparency we've been promised. The Obama administration promised during the campaign that the public would have five days to review and comment on the White House website on all legislation the president plans to sign. The president has signed several non-emergency bills with little or no public comment period. I'll be delighted if we actually get some measure of transparency, but I'm not holding my breath.
posted by decathecting at 7:55 AM on February 18

My guess is that these jobs will go to well-qualified people who are probably already working (busy contractors, etc.) This could open up work for people who are not currently working, or maybe not.

That said, the money will flow into communities, and with this money, more goods and services will be bought, which will, eventually, create or save jobs.

If I have a pile of state stimulus money to spend and I am in the business of building or fixing bridges, I will follow the law on contracting, which means that, likely, already successful (and busy) contractors and subcontractors will get the work, because they are the ones in the position to meet schedules and specifications.

But (egads I am sounding like a Reaganite) the money in the community will get spread around and do some good.
posted by Danf at 8:01 AM on February 18

It's not really meant to guarantee *individuals* jobs, but to increase overall demand for employees and put more people to work.

Also, most building projects I see are full of skilled labor. All those people running those machines are skilled.
posted by gjc at 8:05 AM on February 18

Most state and local governments are staffed my members of the massively powerful AFSCME: American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees. The union has managed to push through "prevailing wage" requirements for almost all government contracts, requiring contractors to pay union wages to their employees, if not actually requiring union contracts. These requirements extend to subcontractors as well, so a general contractor cannot avoid these provisions that way either. As such, unlike private corporations, the process of bidding for a government job is significantly constrained by considerations apart from price, quality, and timeframe.

Day laborers and illegal immigrants are more-or-less prohibited from doing government work, and this prohibition is far more effective in the public sector than it is in the private one. Of the millions of illegals working in this country, the barest fraction of them work in the public sector.

That being said, it's worth asking whether we like this policy. Requiring expensive labor reduces the number of people who will be hired. True, steam shovels can do the work of fifty men, but in today's economy, wouldn't we rather hire fifty men, even if we aren't paying them much?
posted by valkyryn at 8:14 AM on February 18 [1 favorite]

Federal contracts (including those indirectly funded with federal money) generally require payment of "prevailing wages" (see this page for some details) and related benefits, and there are audit rights for worker eligibility. So you should have no fear that companies will bid low to get the deal and then force unfairly low wages on their workers.
posted by AgentRocket at 8:20 AM on February 18

projects like fixing roads, building bridges etc call for an unskilled labor force to be recruited

These are not unskilled jobs.
posted by electroboy at 9:17 AM on February 18

The laws vary from state to state. Some states have laws forbidding contractors who bid on state/local/federal projects from hiring undocumented workers. Some states do not.

There is no provision in the stimulus package, that I can find in a cursory read of this encyclopedia sized bill, that forbids contractors from hiring people without green cards. I think it'll fall back to what the states have mandated.

Construction jobs are often filled by undocumented workers.

So...it's all about state's rights. No, the stimulus package will not guarantee that the money goes to employing Americans. Just like Catepillar and other international companies that are only nominally American companies were able to get the "buy America" language stripped out of the bill.

This bill isn't going to do a damn thing to help blue collar workers, it's just going to enrich the already wealthy. Same as it ever was. The government doesn't exist to help Americans. It exists to feed the gaping maw of greed and waste that it has become.
posted by dejah420 at 9:18 AM on February 18

To respond specifically about the "unskilled labor" thing... I am not in any way calling you racist, but you may have unexamined perceptions.

Just because the people you see on the side of the road doing construction look like they are of Hispanic origin doesn't mean that those people are unskilled, illegal immigrants, or even foreign-born. One can (sadly) probably assume that they are from a low socio-economic class, and that's why they're doing manual labor, but to operate machines or what-have-you, they had to learn, often be certified, etc. Even those who are sending remittances to another country still live here, have children in school; pay for food, utilities, and other living expenses; pay taxes; and so on.
posted by thebazilist at 9:55 AM on February 18

AgentRocket has it. I am a civil engineer working on exactly the kinds of projects that will be receiving stimulus money (specifically airport improvement and expansion projects). Federally funded construction projects have specific procedures in place that make employing undocumented workers almost impossible. I have seen these procedures in action and watched inspectors do wage interviews with randomly selected workers. Also, construction jobs are most definitely skilled labor.
posted by Uncle Jimmy at 10:16 AM on February 18

Traditionally day laborers and workers from other countries send the bulk of their wages home and that would seem to defeat the object of creating jobs in order to stimulate the economy.

Just to point out the converse of this isn't necessarily true. That is, the majority of people who send wages abroad aren't necessarily workers and day laborers from other countries. I don't know the actual numbers involved, but it's quite plausible that the majority of money sent to Mexico, say, comes from US citizens who live here and pay taxes and all that. And if that's the case, there's nothing really you can do selectively keep *them* from being benefited from the stimulus bill, nor should you.
posted by losvedir at 10:20 AM on February 18

I think we've established that illegal, undocumented aliens aren't going to be getting a lot of muni jobs. But even if they could, why would it matter? The point of the stimulus is to inject money into the economy by adding jobs. If the job goes to Jose outside Home Depot, his added income is still going to go into the economy.

Yes there is an argument to be made here about remittances, but what I'm trying to say is OP is missing the point of the Stimulus...
posted by jckll at 11:55 AM on February 18

You're naively assuming that the money will go to fund new hires within state governments, rather than make up for dramatic shortfalls in state revenue. Kansas, for example, is facing a budget crisis and might not be able to pay its current employees. So unless you think the states are currently employing undocumented workers, I'm not sure why we need to investigate.

But employment and spending isn't the only ways a local community benefits from building infrastructure. When you build a bridge, you spend money on local asphalt, equipment and labor, but you also get a bridge.
posted by pwnguin at 1:00 PM on February 18

but what safeguards will be in place to ensure that any jobs created go primarily to the newly unemployed?

Well, none. This is not, despite some of the rhetoric, a jobs program -- one with eligibility requirements and specific, measurable goals. It's a stimulus bill intended to boost aggregate demand in the economy, because consumer demand, which usually fulfills that role and some (requiring "damping" by the Federal Reserve lest we experience excessive inflation) has fallen off a cliff. Aggregate demand coupled with infrastructure-heavy investment means both current and future economic benefits, but measuring actual jobs created is tricky and something that will be endlessly debated.
posted by dhartung at 10:02 PM on February 18