The final day of the Mid-America Labor/Management Conference continued a theme surfaced in the first two days: the tremendous harm done to taxpayers, legitimate businesses and workers by contractors who employ scams to avoid workers comp, unemployment, income tax and employee benefit costs. Efforts to identify and address the multi-billion issue are taking place in this region, other states and by the federal government but even more efforts are needed to keep up with the growing trend, noted Matthew Capice of the Carpenters.
The AFL-CIO's national agenda is focused on addressing the jobs deficit, said federation offical Naomi Walker, including infrastructure investment, aid to state and local governments and unemployment insurance extensions. While the longer term federal budget deficit must ultimately be addressed, that problem will be far worse if funds are not invested now in boosting economic recovery. Unemployed workers don't pay, taxes, don't spend and use more government programs, she noted.
Public employee bargaining laws differ significantly in Missouri, Kansas and Iowa, with Missouri needing an infrastructure of rules to comply with the state Supreme Court ruling on public employee bargaining rights. Representatives from public employees and the Missouri Municipal League agreed that talks are needed to develop a law. And a fire chief extolled the many benefits for city management and taxpayers of a unionized workforce especially when cooperation is strong.
Wichita schools are implementing health care changes through labor-management cooperation that have already held down health care costs with more efforts to come. Check www.usd259.org for details.
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