Founding assembly of CONECT draws 1,500
Thursday, 02 February 2012 10:56
If Andre Joyner doesn’t land a job soon, it won’t be for lack of trying.
Joyner, a Bridgeport resident and father of three children ages 1 to 9, said he recently went through seven weeks of unpaid job training before he was forced to abandon his plan to drive tractor trailers because financial assistance for the school that provides training for commercial driving licenses (CDL) fell through.
“That was real rough for me to go through because I was really looking forward to getting a CDL,” Joyner said of leaving that planned career. “I had a job lined up.”
Formerly employed as a security guard at Bridgeport Hospital, Joyner, 30, is now going through job training for a new career in construction and has a few weeks to go. He said certifications he received in hazardous materials and OSHA 10 to enter New England Tractor Trailer School are transferable to construction.
Joyner, who hopes to gain a job in the coming weeks, was a keynote speaker at the founding of CONECT, an organization of religious institutions that wants the state to address job training, banking and health insurance reforms, the foreclosure crisis, and permitting undocumented Connecticut residents to obtain driver’s licenses.
In Milford, St. Gabriel Church is active in the program, under the leadership of the Rev. Maurice Maroney. Church members met this past Sunday to plan program involvement.
Milford resident Cathy Betz, working with St. James Church in Stratford, also is involved with CONECT, focusing on education issues. One of her interests is equality in education for all children with special needs.
“While Connecticut education laws insure diagnostic and support services for children with diverse learning issues, her experience is that the actual implementation of those services varies widely, subject to the school district in which a family resides,” said Lynn Jeffery, CONECT communications committe member. “Cathy wants to insure that all children receive the essential early evaluation, intervention and support they need that can greatly impact their future development. If services are neglected it causes a greater toll on the child and family, school, and state economy long into the future.”
CONECT, an acronym for Congregations Organized for a New Connecticut, drew 1,500 people, including Gov. Dannel Malloy and state Sen. John McKinney, R-Fairfield, to its founding assembly Nov. 30 in the Cathedral of the Holy Spirit on Union Avenue in Bridgeport.
But the new organization doesn’t just have a total of two dozen churches, synagogues and mosques as members. It also has about $160,000 in grants and pledges and the ear of Malloy and other state leaders.
“We need a unified voice to balance the voice — or lack of voice — of the government and corporations,” said David Carter from the Church of the Redeemer United Church of Christ in New Haven.
Joyner is now in training with Green-Up Bridgeport, a job training program that his wife, Laquita Boles, took before she got a job in the traditionally male-dominated field.
“It’s been a wonderful experience and opened my eyes up to a different learning experience, learning different things about the environment,” Joyner said of the Green-Up program, which is run by The WorkPlace Inc., a Bridgeport agency that received a $4 million grant from the U.S. Department of Labor in January 2010.
Joyner is trying to get a job lined up in asbestos and lead abatement when he receives all of the necessary certifications, and he’s independently trying to get a job in heating, ventilation and air-conditioning installation and repair in the meantime.
“It’s hard, it’s difficult, especially when you’ve got kids,” Joyner said in the kitchen of his Park Street home, to which he moved about a year ago. “I’m getting by. Time is running out, but I’m getting by.”
High unemployment
Connecticut’s unemployment rate either topped or matched the nationwide unemployment rate from January through May. But the state’s rate has been lower than the nationwide rate since August, and the latest figures, for December, put the state rate at 8.2%.
The nationwide unemployment figure for December dropped to 8.3%, although seasonal hiring may have been a factor.
During CONECT’s founding meeting, Malloy, who was given a limited amount of time to speak, addressed the need for job training by mentioning jobs legislation that he signed into law in late October after it won bi-partisan support from an overwhelming majority of state legislators.
Regarding the specific issue of job training, Malloy told the crowd, “We can’t train everyone for a job they might be offered. We’re offering a subsidy of $900 a month for new employees who are hired by companies for on-the-job training, which is the best type of job training.”
McKinney, who spoke after Malloy, said the $900-a-month tax credit to businesses would last three years if the companies “hire someone who is currently unemployed because that is the right thing to do.”
The federal government’s involvement in job training locally includes a $4 million grant that the U.S. Department of Labor gave to The Workplace Inc. in January 2010 for “worker training and placement in high-growth and emerging-industry sectors.”
But just as Joyner believes time is running out for him to land a job, time also is running out for the 38 agencies across the country that received “Pathways out of Poverty” grants totaling $147.8 million to reach goals related to job training and employment. The grants were part of the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act approved by Congress and signed by President Obama in 2009.
The WorkPlace Inc.’s goal, within two years of receiving the $4 million grant in January 2010, was to have had 600 people enrolled in training, 500 who completed training and 350 who landed jobs, with an employment retention of 275, or 92 percent, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.
According to a Sept. 30, 2011 report from the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of the Inspector General, The Workplace Inc. had spent $1.42 million of its $4 million grant and had 364 people enrolled in training, 287 who completed training, 70 who gained jobs and an employment retention of 11 people, or .04 percent of its two-year target. Percentages in those categories were similar for the other 37 agencies that received “Pathways out of Poverty” grants.
But in a report rebutting the inspector general’s findings, the federal Employment and Training Administration said agencies that received the “Pathways out of Poverty” grants had reported “significant increases in performance outcomes over those initially reported at the start of the [inspector general’s] audit” and that grants “generally have three to nine months of start-up activity to complete before they start serving and training participants.”
The Employment and Training Administration also said the inspector general’s report failed to account for a six-month lag between when someone completes training and gets a job and when “employment retention” is reported. Therefore, the inspector general’s employment retention figure was for people who entered employment as of Dec. 31, 2010, according to the Employment and Training Administration’s rebuttal. The administration also said the $1.42 million spent by The Workplace Inc. did not include funds that were obligated but unspent.
Tom Long, a spokesman at The WorkPlace Inc., said Dec. 30 that the current figure for people who landed jobs was 174.
Long said The WorkPlace Inc. also had received a total of $10 million in grants from the federal Department of Labor and Department of Health and Human Services to train people for jobs in the healthcare industry and that classes through Housatonic Community College in Bridgeport and Norwalk Community College would begin in the spring. He said that project would focus on low-income and long-term unemployed residents in 20 municipalities.
The WorkPlace Inc. also raised $500,000 in private donations to start a pilot program where the Bridgeport agency will pay the salary of a newly hired person for eight weeks, Long said.
“It eliminates employer risk that normally comes with a new hire,” he said. “It’s a risk-free trial if an employer wants to try out one of our participants.”
Long said the program is for the long-term unemployed and that 35 people have been placed in jobs so far.
Regarding the foreclosure crisis, CONECT wants Malloy to ask state Attorney General George Jepsen to forego signing an agreement that limits the national liability of banks to $20 billion. CONECT wants Jepsen to determine the amount of damage done to Connecticut and strategies to hold banks accountable and protect Connecticut homeowners whose properties are now worth less than the amount of their mortgages.
Malloy, addressing the crowd, said Jepsen believed Connecticut would do well under the agreement, but he added that Jepsen didn’t work for him.
“He was elected separately from me,” Malloy said. “He does not work for me. He works for you.” The governor added that he was “more than happy” to ask Jepsen to meet with CONECT representatives.
Regarding health insurance, CONECT wants Malloy, by March 1, to meet with its leaders to determine if an agreement reached between the state’s insurance commissioner and insurance companies was successful in holding down costs.
The agreement calls for four public hearings a year on small group and individual plans when increases are above 15% and followed Malloy’s veto of a bill passed by the Connecticut General Assembly that allowed the state health care advocate or attorney general to call a public hearing when the increase was 10% or higher and to represent the public at those hearings. CONECT says public hearings generate pressure and keep insurance costs lower.
CONECT also wants Malloy to consider strengthening the agreement by:
• Reducing the threshold increase from 15% to 10%;
• Including long-term care insurance premiums;
• Increasing the number of hearings;
• Requiring insurance companies to notify their customers when they ask for an increase — not only after an increase has been granted.
Malloy said increases in health insurance were “smaller than at any point in the last five years” and that he was “more than happy” to meet with CONECT leaders in February or March to discuss rate increases.
Undocumented immigrants
CONECT wants the state to issue driver’s licenses to undocumented immigrants, saying the current policy that bars them from getting licenses forces them to drive unlicensed and uninsured. CONECT wants Malloy and Melody A. Currey, commissioner of the state Department of Motor Vehicles, to allow undocumented immigrants to obtain driver’s licenses and register and insure their cars.
Malloy said no car in Connecticut should be driven without insurance and that the current policy “makes no sense.”
“I’m more than happy to work with you in that area as well,” Malloy said.
McKinney said the state shouldn’t have uninsured drivers, that he also would ask Jepsen to meet with CONECT leaders and that he believed the trigger in requiring a hearing on health insurance increases could be lowered from 15% to 10%.
Joyner said he was new to public speaking when he got up before 1,500 people at the CONECT event to share his frustration at being stymied in his search for a new career.
“It’s just good ... the concept of that, how they come together and use their voices,” he said of CONECT. “I really appreciate ... the opportunity to be a part of that.”
But Joyner said he’s not sitting idly by while he’s training to gain certifications to work in construction and is not relying on Green-Up or The WorkPlace to get him a job. Joyner said he’s calling companies to see if they are looking to hire and lets them know the certifications he’ll have and when he expects to have them.
“I put in my own work as well,” he said. “I’m not just sitting around waiting — you have to do your own work. People in my class, some of the places I called, I give them information as well, try to help other people.”
Joyner said he’s also looking for work at night while he attends training classes during the day but hasn’t had luck. “It’s difficult everywhere,” he said. “No one’s hiring.”
Despite his earlier setback with attempting to gain a commercial drivinglicense, Joyner said he’s optimistic he’ll find a job in construction once he obtains the necessary certifications.
“Hopefully everything will be in my favor by then. This program, there’s nothing bad I can say about it,” he said of Green-Up Bridgeport.
CONECT has additional meetings set for 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m., Jan. 26 at Community Baptist Church in New Haven; 1 p.m. to 3 p.m., Jan. 28 at Mount Aery Baptist Church in Bridgeport; and 7 p.m. to 9 p.m., Jan. 30 at Temple Israel in Westport.
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