Dan Maffei, running for 25th Congressional District

 

1. A Project labor agreement is a comprehensive pre-hire collective bargaining agreement that establishes standardized conditions and wages for all contractors and subcontractors on a PLA covered project. PLAs offer:

Stable labor costs so you can bid without guessing.
Reliable supply of local skilled workers for the project duration.
Apprenticeship trained and certified workers.
A no-strike, no lockout commitment.
Binding procedures to settle disputes, so no work stoppages.
Management flexibility to meet special project needs.

Do you support Project Labor Agreements? If not, explain why.

ANSWER: Project Labor Agreements are the best way to ensure that local labor is used on a public project, and that the project will be done on time, and done right the first time. Studies have shown that PLA’s save the tax payers 8% to 12% on the total cost of the project. Congress would be remiss if they did not utilize PLAs on all major construction projects.

2. Private school vouchers and other schemes like education tax credits for K-12 private school expenses undermine public education by taking scarce public funds away from public schools that are open to the public and shifting them to private schools.
The AFL-CIO strongly supports legislation that would strengthen public education by helping states and local school districts reduce their class sizes and finance school repair, construction, and modernization projects with protection for prevailing community wages. A growing number of public schools all across the country are being forced to set up classrooms in trailers, hallways, and closets in order to accommodate their rapidly rising enrollments. One-third of all public schools also need extensive repair or replacement.

What is your view of proposals to provide for private school vouchers and/or charter schools?

ANSWER: Public schools are currently facing a crisis of funding. Private school vouchers and charter schools only exacerbate the problem by diverting scarce resources from public schools. We need to fully fund public schools, not drain resources away from the current system. To do so, the Federal government must step up and take more of a responsibility of ensuring a decent public education is available to every student. The approach in the so-called No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act should be reversed. We should remove the top-down requirements that place poorer school districts at a disadvantage in applying for aid and mandated cookie-cutter exams that make teachers teach to the test. Instead, the Federal government should encourage more control at the local level where administrators, teachers, and parents know what sort of structures and evaluation mechanisms are most appropriate to meet their students’ needs. At the same time, states and localities should not be the only major funding source as NCLB remains woefully underfunded. Increased Federal funds can help level the playing field between poorer and wealthier areas and ensure every child has access to a decent education.

What would you do to improve the state of disrepair many of our public schools are currently experiencing?

ANSWER: First, we need to make schools centers where the community can come together. Therefore, we would need to rehabilitate our schools, where we can use these facilities not just for learning during the day, but for year round learning and usage. Secondly, we need to ensure that schools are rehabilitated with local labor and with an eye towards showing children that a career in the construction trades is honorable work. Therefore, I would propose a PLA for school construction, much like what is being proposed for the Syracuse City Schools. In addition, a bill sponsored by Charles Rangel would provide tax breaks in lieu of interest on bonds used in school modernization. The innovative program involves the private sector to help municipalities and school districts obtain interest free funding of vital school projects. Davis-Bacon worker protections do apply.

3. Ninety-four percent of workers say firing an employee for supporting union representation is an “unacceptable action” and 80 percent say they are aware that such actions are against the law. Nevertheless, employers illegally fire union supports in 31 percent of organizing campaigns and many use other tactics to thwart workers’ efforts to form unions.
A recent report by Human Rights Watch shows that existing laws are too lax and unenforced to prevent employer attacks on workers’ rights. For instance, while employers can prevent unions from contacting workers at their work places to discuss the advantages of union membership, they are free to deluge workers with anti-union messages.

Do you believe employers should be held accountable for their anti-union activities?

ANSWER: All employers who break Federal law should be held accountable. Therefore, they should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law and be barred from bidding on Federal contracts. The freedom to organize and bargain collectively is fundemental to American life. The union movement remains absolutely vital to ensuring the existence of a vibrant middle-class or working families. Without protecting labor rights, not only will workers and their families be hurt, but eventually the economy will collapse because not enough middle-class consumers will be around to support the economy.

If yes, what actions should be taken against companies that violate workers’ rights to organize?

ANSWER: Currently, the remedies in the law are very weak. Not only would I support the Employee’s Free Choice Act, I would stand with any worker who is trying to form a union and ask employers to let their workers choose whether they want a union or not, freely. Furthermore, I would only support trade agreement that ensure the right-to-organize in our trading partners. Without such basic labor protections, trade will diminish the standard of living of U.S. workers and do nothing to enable foreign workers to reach middle-class status and become consumers of U.S. goods and services

How could labor laws be improved to guarantee workers’ right to organize?

ANSWER: Besides passing the Employee Free Choice Act, there should be legislation where any Federal project that is bid; the employers should either pay a livable wage, or agree to a card check neutrality agreement.

4. While the economy has been growing, this growth has been accompanied by a sluggish job market that seems to provide too few with a rising standard of living or greater economic security. Economists have attributed this unique predicament to several factors, including corporate downsizing, global competition, the introduction of labor saving technologies, and a pattern of increasingly large rewards to more highly skilled employees. Indeed, a recent study found that most Americans today are worse off than they were before the 1989-1991 recession.
Many northeast communities have lured businesses or encouraged them to stay through tax incentives. However, these incentives have not prevented those companies from downsizing the jobs of those very same taxpayers who offered the tax breaks in the first place.

Should companies be able to accept such tax breaks only to downsize thereafter?

ANSWER: There should be clawback language so that localities can recoup the tax dollars if commitments from the company are not being met.

How would you correct this apparent inequity?

ANSWER: There should be more requirements attached to tax dollars for any business subsides. Therefore, if commitments on both sides are not being met, there should be recourses to ensure that what is being planned and invested in actually comes to fruition. Furthermore, the Federal tax code must be cleaned of corporate tax incentives to re-locate jobs overseas.

5. An honest day’s work should be rewarded with an honest day’s pay. That’s what a “Living Wage” is all about. Living wage ordinances have been enacted in 80 localities across the nation and have been passed in Rochester, Buffalo and New York City.
A living wage ordinance requires employers to pay wages that are above federal or state minimum wage levels. Only a specific set of workers are covered by living wage ordinances, usually those employed by businesses that have a contract with a city or county government or those who receive economic development subsidies from the locality. The rationale behind the ordinances is that city and county governments should not contract with or subsidize employers who pay poverty-level wages.
The living wage level is usually the wage a full-time worker would need to earn to support a family above the federal poverty line, ranging from 100% to 130% of the poverty measurement. The wage rates specified by living wage ordinances range from a low of $6.25 in Milwaukee to a high of $10.75 in San Jose ( A wage of $8.96 an hour with health benefits is recommended for Syracuse, NY.).
Living wage ordinances provide much needed raises for low-income workers. Wages for the bottom 10% of wage earners fell by 9.3% between 1979 and 1999. The number of jobs where wages were below what a worker would need to support a family of four above the poverty line also grew between 1979 and 1999. In 1999, 26.8% of the workforce earned poverty-level wages, an increase from 23.7% in 1979.

Can you provide a good reason why you would not support legislation that requires a living wage for workers? Please include your position on a living wage for Syracuse-area workers.

ANSWER: Tax dollars should not be used to create poverty wages. Raising the wages of the lowest wage workers benefits all workers and our tax dollars should be used to ensure that all workers live in dignity. As a Congressman, I would support a living wage for all workers – especially those in Syracuse. Furthermore, we should immediately enact an increase in the Federal minimum wage to as close to a living wage as possible so that areas that have done the right thing and enacted living-wage ordinances are not placed at a disadvantage.

6. “Down-waging” has become a standard practice by highly profitable companies who replace full-time workers with part-timers, temps or sub-contract out for lower wages and poorer benefits. Between 1980 and 1995, 42-million jobs were lost in the United States. Each year, there are 50 percent more people laid off than are victims of crime, which raises the question of which is the greater social ill.
Reduced wages and benefits negatively impacts on families’ ability to afford adequate health care. Forty-three million Americans do not have health insurance and another million lose it each month.

And, while many parents believe college costs will be the biggest expense they face for their children, in fact many will spend more in a year on quality child care than on public college tuition, according to a new Children's Defense Fund (CDF) report.

The AFL-CIO supports guaranteed high-quality child-care, health care, job education and training.

What steps can elected officials take to ensure that these benefits are available to all Americans?

ANSWER: Federally, we need to ensure that all workers have the same opportunity to be able to succeed in an ever changing economy. Therefore, having access to affordable health care, continuing job education/training, and child care is essential to the quality of life for everyone. All legislation that should be passed by Congress should have the values of having a safety net for all citizens. No person in a working family shoulod go without these basic benefits, particularly health care. Therefore, the Federal government must make access to affordable healthcare universal by expanding Medicare coverage (first to children and eventually to all) and in the mean time providing the needed incentives – carrots and sticks – to businesses to cover their workers and families in the existing employer-provided system.

7. Those who advocate the privatization of government services seek a significant reduction in the government’s role in society. But, market-oriented policies cannot be relied on, by themselves, to meet our citizens needs.
Studies conducted by Cornell University found that the claims by privatization ideologues, are “quite groundless” and the empirical research supporting such claims are “so flawed as to be useless as a policy guide.”
Instead, privatization of government services has been shown to
•diminish the access to public services
•reduce employee morale, productivity and turnover
•exploit part-time workers through low wages and benefits
•increase discrimination against minorities
•cause the loss of government sovereignty
•weakens constitutional rights (e.g., whistle blowing, ethical conduct)
•reduce quality of services
•increase corruption, bribery and kick-backs
•lose accountability for public values and services.

Do you support privatizing public services? Please explain your answer.

ANSWER: The only ones who benefit from the privatization of public services is the company bidding on the work. Often times, government workers are able to do the job just as efficiently or more effieciently than private companies. The biggest difference is that government workers do not have a profit motive; the companies do and are more willing to cut corners to get the work done. The Medicare Part D benefit is a perfect example. By requiring seniors to go through a private HMO-like insurer to get benefits, the program is far less efficient and beneficial to seniors than if the Part D benefit had been managed directly under Medicare.

8. As an elected official, how would you ensure that the voice of labor and community-based agencies are recognized on decision-making bodies such as the Industrial Development Authority?

ANSWER: Just as the Workforce Investment Act ensures community involvement on the Workforce Investment Boards (where labor is listed as one of the community groups), IDA’s should have the same requirements.

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Greater Syracuse Labor Council Questionnaire