ISSUE: JOBS
New York State has been losing jobs at an alarming rate for over 25 years. In fact, the City of Buffalo was recently named one of the poorest cities in the United States.
LOCAL ACTIONS:
Community Benefit and Local Hiring Agreements
Albany ARISE, Syracuse ACTS and Niagara County NOAH have been coordinating efforts to negotiate Community Benefits or Local Hiring Agreements around major publicly funded capital and infrastructure developments. Examples include the $300 million Albany Convention Center and the 10-year, $1 billion Syracuse City Schools.
Community Benefit Agreements are legally binding commitments negotiated between the developers of a given project and a broadly representative community coalition. The deal is broad community support in exchange for clear and tangible benefits to a specific, usually poor, neighborhood affected by the project, such as living wage jobs, affordable housing or public park and recreation space.
Local Hiring Agreements are similar but focus primarily on hiring from local communities for construction supported by public money. NOAH of Niagara County has been working with local government to pass these agreements and, when necessary, to connect the hiring with local training agencies. The policy requires that any municipal, county or state contracts include in their RFP’s a requirement that the contractor hire 30 per cent minimum from the local area where the work will be performed.
STATE ACTIONS
Road
Construction Jobs
Working with the NYS Departments of Transportation and Labor to develop job training centers and workforce development programs using .5% of federal highway funds ($6 million per year) to support access for women, minorities and disadvantaged populations to good-paying jobs in road construction around the state.
State Community Benefit and Local Hiring Agreements
There exists no law or regulation encouraging or mandating the negotiation of Community Benefits or Local Hiring Agreements in connection with state-funded capital projects in New York State. However, the New York Thruway Alliance will investigate whether such a state law or regulation is possible.
Workforce
Development Policy
At present, fragmentation of Industrial Development Agencies (IDA) authorities, local governments and land-use decision making prevents the formation of coherent and effective regional workforce development plans in connection with major economic development investments.
ISSUE: ACCESS TO HEALTHCARE
In general NYTA members are concerned about the millions of New Yorkers still cut off from good, reliable healthcare.
LOCAL ACTION:
In Onondaga County, NYTA member ACTS is engaged in helping develop government-sponsored outreach efforts to enroll more of the thousands of eligible children in S-CHIP who are still left out of this program.
STATE ACTION:
In consultation with major players in healthcare reform in NYS in both government and community arenas, the NYTA will investigate the question as whether to limit its healthcare organizing strictly to S- CHIP or to add other healthcare policy goals.
ISSUE: YOUTH JOBS AND VIOLENCE PREVENTION
STATE ACTION:
Summer Job Programs
Existing summer jobs programs for youth in major metro areas are woefully inadequate to the need. NYTA will investigate the necessary resources to expand those programs where they are working and to improve programs that are not.
Liberty
Partnership Program (LPP)
LPP is a dropout prevention and workforce development program run by the State Education Department that urgently needs to be expanded. It serves 14,000 students statewide with a $12 million budget and has an astonishing 98% student retention rate, but it could easily be expanded to reach more students at risk of dropping out and losing economic opportunity and access to college. NYTA will investigate the possibilities for an expanded LPP in New York State.
Empire Promise Program
LPP has also put forward a concept paper for an Empire Promise Program that would expand the successful student retention model of LPP through college and connect students to good jobs in the NYS workforce. NYTA will investigate the potential for integrating education, higher education and regional workforce development and youth retention in this way.
Gang Prevention Program
Boston, Massachusetts and Hempstead, Long Island, have developed gang prevention programs that show amazing success at reducing end even eliminating drug-related violence in neighborhoods formerly overrun by gang-controlled drug dealing by using facilitated community meetings between convicted drug dealers and members of their neighborhood. Interfaith Action in Rochester has also had success using police department foot patrols to bring levels of crime down in specific neighborhoods.
NYTA will investigate successful pilot projects like these and look to frame appropriate state policies to move beyond heavy-handed crime suppression and toward the creation of youth opportunities and community development in poor neighborhoods.