I could give a laundry list of reasons why it is a mistake for the University of Missouri-Kansas City to close the Institute for Labor Studies (6/20, Local, “UMKC cancels Institute for Labor Studies”).
Looking beyond the autocratic process and the questionable fiscal justifications, how will closing the institute affect work-force development strategies in the Kansas City area?
The seldom defined term “work-force development” is code for the kinds of jobs American workers will have in the new economy and how we will be trained for those jobs.
The role of the labor centers around the country is to ensure that the agenda of business for a surplus of trained and ready workers is balanced with a working people’s agenda for an engaged citizenry working in jobs that support healthy communities.
This is the role that the institute plays when it provides leadership training and policy analysis to workers and community leaders.
UMKC should reconsider.
Susan Moir, director
Labor Resource Center
University of Massachusetts
Boston
“Perhaps it was a completely coded message”
Engineer, I believe the problem is not the letter writer’s message – it’s a faulty translation to the Midwestern dialect. Convert the letter back to its original New Englandese, and it all makes sense: “The role of the labah centahss around the country is to ensuah that the agenda of business foah a surplus of trained and ready workahs...”
Posted by: Kate | June 25, 2007 at 10:29 PM
Irishguy
Don't really see any difference in our viewpoints on this matter. Still have no insight into what Moir was trying to say. Perhaps it was a completely coded message, in that you would have to be a believer and one of the "in' to understand.
Posted by: Engineer | June 25, 2007 at 07:33 PM
Not quite, Engineer.
Well-paid workers consume. By consuming, they create more jobs.
The brightest entreprenuer in history would have no market without people with the means to purchase the product or services he sells.
Posted by: irishguy | June 25, 2007 at 05:58 PM
CRD
No disagreement with what you wrote. However, that does not enable me to understand what, if anything, the writer is trying to say. Obviously, workers are not going to determine what jobs are available. On the other hand, an abundance of workers with marketable skills in cetain areas might infulence a business to move, or to be started up, there.
Posted by: Engineer | June 25, 2007 at 05:47 PM
"For one thing, workers do not create jobs, they do jobs that have been created."
Perhaps so, but if jobs are there, without qualified workers to fill the slots, it's bad for business.
Business without adequate workforce is not competitive, and thus must either fail or move, which is bad for the community that loses the business.
It's a symbiotic relationship.
Posted by: CRD | June 25, 2007 at 04:36 PM
"The role of the labor centers around the country is to ensure that the agenda of business for a surplus of trained and ready workers is balanced with a working people’s agenda for an engaged citizenry working in jobs that support healthy communities." Can anyone wxplain what she is trying to say or what this means? For one thing, workers do not create jobs, they do jobs that have been created.
Posted by: Engineer | June 25, 2007 at 03:43 PM