BUILDING BLOCKS TO EMPLOYMENT JOB FAIR

On Tuesday, October 20th the Human Rights Education Committee, City of Iowa City Human Rights Commission, Goodwill of the Heartland, City of Iowa City Housing Authority and Iowa Workforce Development will be hosting a Building Blocks to Employment Job Fair at the Eastdale Plaza, 1700 S. 1st Avenue, Iowa City.

The Building Blocks to Employment Job Fair is designed to assist entry level employees in obtaining gainful employment in and throughout Johnson County.

Representatives from local employers include: ACT, Inc., Census 2010 -- Neighborhood Centers of Johnson County, Goodwill of the Heartland, Iowa City Community School District, Mediacom, Mercy-Iowa City, Quality Associates, Reach for Your Potential, Systems Unlimited, Team Staffing, Thomas L. Cardella and Associates, University of Iowa, University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics, U.S. Cellular, Cambridge Tempositions and Vangent, Inc.

Goodwill of the Heartland, Iowa Vocational Rehabilitation Services and Iowa Workforce Development Center will also have representatives available to assist participants.

The Job Fair will run from 5:00 p.m. -7:00 p.m. with free childcare provided. Bus passes compliments of the City of Iowa City Transit Division are available on a first come first serve basis.

For more information, please contact Paul Retish at 335-5331 or paul-retish@uiowa.edu.

Jobless and Workers Getting Mixed Messages From Senate

With the benefits for Iowa's unemployed expiring, the US Senate continues to quibble over who should qualify for an extension of benefits. Here's a suggestion: everyone who is unemployed and actively seeking work or retraining.

The conflict over whether "high unemployment states" should be the only one's receiving Washington's largess, will be lost on every worker who is left out. The House didn't seem to have any problem seeing this logic, perhaps Senators need to get out more often.

At least one Senator seems to get it, Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., is planning to introduce a measure that would extend jobless benefits in all 50 states by 17 weeks.
"Distinctions in state unemployment rates may make sense in Washington, ... and they don't make sense to the 15 million unemployed workers nationwide who are struggling to get by and get back to work," said Shaheen.

Meanwhile The U.. Supreme Court has made a ruling regarding older workers that is likely to make it easier for employers to discard or demote them. The court raised the burden of proof for demonstrating age discrimination, ruling last term that a "mixed motive" including age as a factor was not strong enough evidence. Senators Tom Harkin and Pat Leahy are working with Rep. George Miller to pass legislation that would require employees to only prove that age had been a "motivating factor" in their termination or demotion.

According to the Wall Street Journal,

the Senate also addressed the effects of the court's opinion in Circuit City v. Adams, a 2001 decision that enlarged the reach of employees who are required to address disputes through arbitration rather than through the courts. At the hearing, Jamie Leigh Jones, who had worked for a former subsidiary of Halliburton (HAL), argued that arbitration can prevent important information from entering the public record. Jones said she was drugged and raped while working in Iraq in 2005 and has spent the past four years trying to get her case heard in court rather than in the arbitration she agreed to when she was hired.

"It's very apparent to me that corporations adopt arbitration as a way to wipe clean the record of disputes that arise," she said.

Sen. Al Franken offered an amendment to a defense bill that would restrict funding to contractors that require their employees to go through arbitration to settle sexual assault claims. In April, Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., introduced a broader bill seeking to invalidate many binding arbitration clauses and return consumer, employment and civil rights disputes to the courts.

When Mark de Bernardo, executive director of the Council for Employment Law Equity, defended the use of arbitration as a faster and cheaper alternative to litigation, he faced sharp questioning from Franken.

"You said the net result of the use of arbitration is better workplaces," Franken said, cutting off de Bernardo's response. "She was drugged, she was raped, she had to have reconstructive surgery. If that's a better workplace, what was the workplace like before?"

Do Immigrants Really Take Away American Jobs?

Pew Hispanic Research released a report in August of 2006 that seems to refute some of the claims made by anti-immigration folks, namely that "non-native" immigrants are taking away jobs from "native" Americans. What seems to be true is that non-natives are filling jobs in areas where fewer natives live and are generally not affecting employment of natives where the majority of US population lives.

For example,

Among the major findings:

• Eight states had above-average growth in the foreign-born population from 1990-2000 and below-average employment rates for native-born workers in 2000. Those states, where immigration may have had a negative impact, include North Carolina, Tennessee and Arizona and accounted for 15% of all native-born workers.
• Fourteen states had above-average growth in the foreign-born population and above-average employment rates for native-born workers in 2000. Those states, where rapid immigration appears to have not harmed native-born workers, include Texas, Nevada and Georgia and accounted for 24% of all native-born workers.
• The growth in the foreign-born population from 1990-2000 was below average in 16 states with above-average employment rates for native-born workers in 2000. Those states, in which the native born may have benefited from the slow pace of growth in the foreign-born workforce, include Illinois, Michigan and Virginia and represented 23% of the native-born workforce.
• The growth in the foreign-born population was below average in 12 states and the District of Columbia, with below-average employment rates for native workers in 2000. Those states, in which the slow growth in the foreign-born workforce may not have benefited native workers, include California, New York, New Jersey and Florida and represented 38% of the native-born workforce.
• Between 2000 and 2004, there was a positive correlation between the increase in the foreign-born population and the employment of native-born workers in 27 states and the District of Columbia Together, they accounted for 67% of all native-born workers and include all the major destination states for immigrants. In the remaining 23 states there was a negative correlation between the growth of the foreign-born population and the employment of native-born workers. Those states accounted for 33% of the native-born workforce in 2004.
• The share of foreign-born workers in the workforce of a state was not related to the employment rate for native-born workers in either 2000 or 2004.
• Many immigrant workers lack a college education and are relatively young, but the analysis found no evidence that they had an impact on the employment outcomes of those native-born workers who also have low levels of education and are ages 25-34.