Greater Syracuse Labor Council

Kristen Zimmer Meile, running for County Legislator, 11th 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: Yes

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: I am against said proposals, I work at Huntington School in Eastwood, and see first hand why we need to keep are monies, in our public schools. Our children are our future, I consider their education, one of our greatest investments.

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

ANSWER:Pass any legislation that is brought to the table, and work together with the board of ed. to see where monies are being wasted and shift them towards either building new, or reconstructing, those buildings that need it.

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:Absolutely, my husband was put on a "permanent lay-off" for trying to start a union up at Syracuse Label Co.

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

ANSWER:The public should be notified on every media level, fines should be placed, and said companies should have to attend some form of Union meeting, making them aware of the advantages their company could have by becoming union.

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

ANSWER: Bi-annual meetings should be held at companies by a union representative allowing workers to know their rights, in front of their employers. Put it right out there in the open.

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: Absolutely not. There needs to be greater restrictions in order to receive such tax breaks and if they do not follow the guidelines they should be required to pay back what tax breaks they received, for the duration of the time that they were not in accordance. These programs should be under constant supervision.

How would you correct this apparent inequity?

ANSWER: See above statement.

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: I am for the "living Wage" increase, if more of our families could make better wages we would not have to subsidize their income with welfare. This in turn would free up a lot of money to go towards other important county issues.

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: I am all for universal health care, and will work very hard to make it happen here in central NY. All levels of public representatives need to make this a priority.

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: No. I would not support any action that may take jobs away from our community. This would upset our economy, and our safety in such cases as fire fighters and our police forces, not to mention the obvious corruption concern. There has to be checks and balances.

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: I believe that we should give local jobs to local companies. When county questions arise about labor related issues I would contact the local unions and include their ideas and views in on the decision- making process, after all we are both representing the same group, the hard working families that make up central NY.

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