Yesterday, I posted a blog
on this site detailing a number of news reports about Georgia’s labor force,
most of them negative.
Georgia Labor Commissioner Mark Butler chose to respond by posting a YouTube video threatening workers over the smaller issue of unemployment insurance fraud in a response that could be considered both tone-deaf and irresponsible.
Georgia Labor Commissioner Mark Butler chose to respond by posting a YouTube video threatening workers over the smaller issue of unemployment insurance fraud in a response that could be considered both tone-deaf and irresponsible.
From the University of California Berkeley Center for
Labor Research and Education’s report on “Producing
Poverty: The Public Cost of Low-Wage Production Jobs in Manufacturing”,
to the New York Times’s story on “Hiring
Hurdle: Finding Workers Who Can Pass a Drug Test,” the message is
that Georgia’s labor force needs the same positive approach that the state puts
towards economic development.
The AAUW’s finding on the large pay inequality
between men and women in Georgia, or the U.S. Department’s view that tightening
the rules on overtime will affect more than 158,000 low wage workers in
Georgia, are additional measures that the state’s workforce needs positive reinforcement.
That should not be a hard message for state officials to
understand, as they should know that attracting employers to Georgia depends on
supplying companies with good quality workers.
Yes, unemployment insurance fraud is a problem in
Georgia, as it is elsewhere, and Georgia has done a reasonable job of enforcing
the rules, but focusing on this story to the exclusion of the more critical challenges facing Georgia workers is a misplaced priority.
He could just as easily made a video addressing worker misclassification
that costs Georgia workers millions of dollars each year in lost wages, but I
don’t think we will see that video anytime soon.
