This session will highlight the ground-breaking efforts of the Hospitality Training Academy (HTA), a labor-management partnership, in collaboration with a one-stop job center (American Job Centers (AJCs) and the City of Los Angeles’ Workforce Development Board (WDB), to move low-income African-American, Asian-American and Transgender clients into union hospitality jobs, with good wages and benefits. Drawing on the experience of a foundation-funded workforce project spanning Cincinnati, Ohio and parts of Kentucky and Indiana, Hannah Halbert will discuss how regions without significant union presence can use their workforce programs to promote job quality and higher wages. In the last part of the workshop, Laura Dresser will lead a discussion, informed by the EARN multi-state workforce project, of policies that could help more WDBs to focus training and job placement efforts on employers with better than typical jobs for their industry or who are willing to commit to improving jobs. This discussion will also  consider the potential for a future EARN multi-state workforce project aimed at strengthening the focus of local and state workforce systems on job quality.

If infrastructure is such a popular and bipartisan issue, then why has it been so challenging to generate the necessary investment for public infrastructure?  A panel of experts with experience in research, advocacy, and government discuss the political and organizing obstacles, the crises, traps, and opportunities ahead, the revenue gimmicks to avoid, and the lessons learned in their experience as researchers and advocates in transportation and water infrastructure.

This workshop will explore inequity in the job market and the quality of jobs by race and ethnicity. Panelists will discuss wage inequity, occupational segregation by race and gender, how workers of color are impacted by the uneven enforcement of employment laws and regulations, disparities in access to core job benefits such as paid sick time and health coverage, and the challenges facing immigrant workers.

New York, California, and over a dozen cities have passed legislation that will establish $15 minimum wages over the next several years. Moreover, the platform of the Democratic party now calls for $15 national wage floor. This would be the biggest change in labor market policy since the New Deal, and it has raised important questions for policymakers and experts: How do we determine the appropriate level of the minimum wage? If a $15 minimum wage is outside the bounds of studied U.S. experience, what can we say about its impact on the economy? Should policymakers be concerned about job losses? What does “job loss” actually mean? How will state and local governments need to adjust to higher minimum wages? In this session, some of the country’s foremost experts on the minimum wage will tackle these and other questions.

Economic development incentives see widespread use at the state and local levels, yet they remain costly and difficult to assess in terms of their effectiveness. Thanks to the efforts of state and national advocacy organizations, new tools, data, and analytical approaches are now becoming available for fully measuring the costs of subsidy projects, assessing the extent to which they deliver on their promises, and identifying policy and program interventions that can improve outcomes for workers.

This session is meant as an introduction or refresher for some of the most popular data tools available to members through EARN. The session will open with a discussion of State Jobs Day tools and best practices. Thereafter, we will move through the suite of State of Working X (SWXX) materials available to EARN members. The session will attempt to highlight the breadth of the resources available– where to find them and how they can be used– rather than drilling down within any one of the products. The session will, however, be interactive. Attendees are encouraged to bring laptops to participate in application exercises. The session will also touch briefly on state productivity data, trends in income inequality, and immigration data. A generous amount of time will be set aside for questions.

Over the past year, op-eds have appeared in a number of papers across the country calling for reform of state occupational licensing requirements. Several state legislatures have taken up bills on this issue, prominent think tanks have issued reports calling for changes, and even the White House has proposed measures for reform. But where is this all coming from and what does it mean? There are legitimate reforms that should be considered to expand opportunities to immigrants and formerly incarcerated individuals. At the same time, some of these ploys–advanced under the guise of reform–may simply be efforts to undermine labor standards and certification programs that ensure safety, job quality, mobility, and wages. In this session, we will discuss the good ideas and the bad ones – making sure you know how to respond when calls for reform start popping up in your state.

EARN’s partners in red states often feel that they are limited in what they can do around an agenda for working families, a concern that has special characteristics and is even more pronounced in the south. To explore these challenges and look for opportunities, this session will engage with organizations from red states about how EARN can provide more meaningful support to groups, particularly in southern states. Southern EARN EDs will kick off the discussion, reflect on the limitations of EARN presently and what might reasonably be accomplished in the future with EARN support. Come hear about opportunities and obstacles. And be prepared to share your thoughts about what can be accomplished in red states and how EARN can provide support to states that aren’t in a position to undertake some of the reforms and initiatives that groups in more traditionally progressive states are able to do. A constructive critique of EARN’s offerings for southern/red states and suggestions on how we can be of use and relevant in the region will be encouraged.

Do you suspect that funding for public services in your state or city is undermined by excessive corporate tax breaks? If you answered “yes,” your ship has come in! Join Good Jobs First and a state auditing official as we explain how you can best prepare for the first-ever flood of tax expenditure data mandated by the Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB) under its Statement No. 77 on Tax Abatement Disclosures (its latest amendment to Generally Accepted Accounting Principles, or GAAP.)

Under Statement No. 77, all states and most local government bodies—including most school districts—will have to compute and disclose how much revenue they lose to corporate tax breaks granted in the name of economic development. For all progressive budget advocates and their allies who have better uses for the money (e.g., K-12, infrastructure, community college, EITCs, etc.), the new accounting standard will reveal tens of billions of dollars in opportunity-cost data never before made public.

Find out how the data will appear in Comprehensive Annual Financial Reports (CAFRs); who oversees GAAP compliance in your state; who collects CAFRs and what they do with them; and who else in your state commented on the draft statement (including elected officials and academic experts). Good Jobs First will provide detailed “cheat sheets” for every state in attendance.

In the past few years, volatile work schedules have emerged in the public eye as a major challenge for lower-wage workers in the US. Workers and advocates nationwide are mobilizing to address the issue, campaigning for – and winning – new labor standards to regulate work schedules for the first time in decades. San Francisco and Seattle are the first major cities to enact comprehensive legislation guaranteeing certain retail and restaurant workers basic protections from abusive scheduling practices. More than a dozen other cities and states have launched campaigns to pass such laws, and a federal bill has been introduced in Congress.

In several of the cities organizing to pass fair scheduling laws, community-based surveys have played a key role in exposing the extent of the problem, mobilizing workers, and activating media, policymaker, and public interest in the issues. This panel brings together advocates from several campaigns that have used surveys focused on scheduling as a part of their strategy to win. The panel will also include leading researchers with expertise on work scheduling issues. Together, panelists will review some of the key findings from their surveys; discuss the lessons they have learned from fielding community-based surveys; talk about the impact of the surveys on their campaigns; and draw on the researchers’ expertise to provide guidance to others considering similar approaches to fair scheduling campaigns. Workshop participants will gain a comprehensive picture of the community-based survey approach to fair scheduling campaigns and leave the session with ideas for their own advocacy-focused survey projects.

For the past year we’ve all witnessed an angry and anxious electorate, pushing back against a government that seems to be run of, by and for the elites. Beliefs that prevent progress in advancing policy change, and that advocates confront on a daily basis have been front and center, such as:

• My vote doesn’t matter. People like me have no say.
• There would be plenty of money to fund public programs if they cut waste, fraud and abuse.
• Private business would do a better job than government bureaucrats.
• Politicians are all bought.

These problems are not insurmountable. The Topos Partnership has conducted a deep exploration of public understandings of government, taxes, privatization and money in politics. These four separate, but related research projects provide powerful cross-cutting strategies for advancing progressive change.

In this session, we’ll share common lessons advocates should attend to across issue and policy debates. These lessons go far beyond bumper stickers or slogans. They represent fundamental ideas with the potential to engage citizens and put advocates in a far better position to win these debates.

In addition to learning the overarching strategy, you’ll also hear from advocates who are putting these lessons to use in their states.

The ravages of the Great Recession are still being felt by the unemployment insurance safety net. A record number of state unemployment trust funds went into debt, spurring many states to enact major, permanent benefit restrictions. Now, fewer than 3 out of every 10 jobless workers are receiving an unemployment check; in some states, the rate is lower than 2 in 10. With state trust funds at their best level since 2002, now is the time to strategize on a way to reverse the tide. The extended economic recovery gives advocates a chance to rebuild this critical economic shock absorber to deal with today’s unstable economy and be prepared for the next recession. Come hear from national experts and state-based EARN members with the latest research on the UI program, lessons from critical state discussions , and bold national plans for reform.

The recent election showed us at least two themes: there aren’t enough good paying jobs to go around and racism still runs deep in the United States. Barriers to employment for people with records stand at the intersection of these two themes, with legal and individual discrimination blocking employment even when there are jobs available. This workshop will connect the results of the recent election to recent research, cover some of the work happening across the country to dismantle barriers to employment, and provide a space for discussion.

Across the country, state governments are interfering with the ability of local governments to pass health, safety, workplace and environmental ordinances. This is driven in large part by conservative organizations, and has a large impact on local organizing and policy. This session will review where preemption is happening and on what issues, how to talk about it effectively, and what role researchers and advocates can play in these fights. We’ll examine several case studies, focusing on minimum wage and local hire policies.

Retirement security is a mess. Social Security benefits are low. The retirement age is going up. Most people have nothing or next to nothing saved for retirement. One of the last rulings of the Obama Administration has been to green light state-run initiatives that give all private-sector workers access to a retirement savings plan at work. Wait, what? Automatic access to a retirement savings plan for all workers? Yes. California, Connecticut, Illinois, Maryland and Oregon have taken action. Other states and several large cities are considering innovative approaches. Get in the game on this—it helps workers and wins in the legislature. Even Republicans like it.

The panel will discuss the scope of the wage theft problem, the major obstacles to controlling or remedying wage theft, and legislative solutions that state legislatures and cities can enact. A special emphasis will be placed on how to improve the performance of the government agencies responsible for enforcement.

This workshop will explore the potential for constructively reshaping U.S. manufacturing in the next Presidential administration. Scott Paul of the Alliance for AAM and Rob Scott of EPI will provide a perspective on the federal opportunities and challenges emerging in the wake of the Presidential elections. Stephen Herzenberg of Keystone Research Center will provide an overview of a “manufacturing state policy template” developed out of a just-completed six-state AAM-EPI-EARN project. Laura Dresser of COWS will facilitate discussion of how AAM-EPI-EARN might partner to shift the U.S. further towards federal, federal-state, and state policies supportive of high-wage U.S. manufacturing. How might EPI and EARN research, communications and advocacy achieve bigger shifts towards fair trade? How can we achieve more “Buy America” and “buy local” sourcing in a new infrastructure package? What is the key to increased retention and reshoring in the context of greater scrutiny of companies’ location and sourcing decisions?

This session will present data that are available and provide an opportunity for questions, answers, and suggestions on how to move forward with State of Working X (and other data-heavy) reports. The Current Population Survey (CPS) is the most commonly used data source by EARN groups. Statistics obtained from the CPS include employment shares, unemployment, earnings, hours of work, and other indicators, all available by a variety of demographic characteristics. The full CPS datasets are available for download on the EARN website, with variables recoded to provide consistency between years and between surveys. This session will illustrate methods for manipulating microdata with a series of sample STATA “.do” files. We will learn how to use Current Population Survey data to create customized tables telling stories that could not be told with published data alone. Topics will include defining the sample, calculating quintiles, and creating labor force statistics by demographic characteristics. Using current, pressing issues as examples, the session will help users better understand common problems and mistakes with using the CPS microdata.