Why we need the REO

Comment to the Telegram article, 6/20/12

(http://www.telegram.com/article/20120620/NEWS/106209869/1116)
................................................

The underlying issues here - for the people - are jobs and money.   Who gets the jobs?  How much do they pay?  What are the standards for safety, conditions, benefits?  What are the benefits for the community from them?  Will they provide opportunities for young people to learn a trade?  Will the work get done right the first time?

And where do the paychecks get spent?

While this law does not have a hire-local requirement - many other cities do, typically that 51% of the workers reside in the city - but the requirements of strict adherence to local standards and participation in an apprenticeship program make it unlikely that a contractor from - say - New Bedford, using workers who get bussed in daily from New Bedford, will be able to underbid local contractors.

This is important not just for the jobs, benefits for the workers and conditions, opportunities for our young folk.  It's also about the "multiplier effect": keeping the money in circulation locally, which generates more local jobs - as many as one additional job created for each local person working on the site - as the money circulates around in Worcester.

Jobs - and maintaining local standards for pay, training and conditions - is a huge issue.  The Governor is bragging about how the official Mass. "Unemployment Rate" is down to 6%. The reality is that it is much higher. Many categories of unemployed worker are excluded from this count, and the official rate is only going down because people are giving up looking. There's a lot of misery and desperation out here.

At a time like this, if the government steps out of the way, what we will get is a dog-eat-dog scramble for the available jobs, a downward spiral of wages and conditions, collapsing revenues and failures for local businesses.  We can't let that happen.

The new REO ordinance represents the efforts of an alliance of local community and labor organizations to defend our local standards and economy and block that downward spiral.

Worcester must think bigger

The airport is a gem, and could help revive Worcester as a city with a viable economic life of its own. The airport would make Worcester a prime location from which companies with national or international markets, connections or branches could do business. Plus a lot of Worcester travel dollars that end up in Rhode Island or New Hampshire could be kept here.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that what is stopping the Airport is lack of a good road. Yes, folks from Worcester will find their way to it, but most folks from the larger market, Worcester County, have no interest in driving Worcester's streets if they can help it. Moreover building the road could generate a lot of jobs.

Worcester failed to agree on an airport highway, and that was a political failure. The top-down model that worked so well in the 50's and 60's when we built the Interstate Highway system doesn't work anymore. What would be needed is a genuinely open and participatory model where the interests of the entire City and the interests of the folks whose homes or neighborhoods might be displaced by the highway can be worked out.

If we are willing to think big - and given this economy, with its high unemployment rates and ridiculously low interest rates, willing to think big about big projects that could put a lot of people to work is a good idea - what Worcester really needs to become a modern city is a belt highway. Looping around the city, connecting with the Pike in Shrewsbury and Grafton, passing near the Airport. People from downtown Worcester would still use Chandler St. or Main St. but the belt highway would open it to the rest of the County, and open up development opportunities for modern industrial, information tech and other companies the way Route 128 and I495 did.

Then if we still couldn't get a commercial carrier, we should start a municipal air line with no-frills service to major Eastern cities to jump-start it.

Worcester needs to think bigger!