It would appear that former Secretary of Labor under President Clinton, Robert Reich fancies himself a member of the Race Police.
These people who 'dominate the construction trades' are the type of professionals that one would want working on expensive and critical public works projects. The fact that they are both trained to do the work and are struggling in this flailing economy seems to have no weight as far as Mr. Reich is concerned. His only concern, one can extrapolate, is to take jobs from trained construction workers and give them to untrained minorities.
"if construction jobs go mainly to white males who already dominate the construction trades, many people who need jobs the most -- women, minorities, and the poor and long-term unemployed -- will be shut out."
But what is so bizarre about Reich;' comments is that they should be causing alarm bells to sound within the Democrat Party's most supportive special interest group, Big Labor.
It is just this kind of thick-headed bumbling that is going make a stimulus package that is more likely to stimulate graft and cronyism than jobs, a bigger problem for Obama. Barack Obama, by all realistic accounts must be able to point to an improving economy as we head into the mid-term elections in 2010. If he cannot, Americans might get it into their heads that perhaps one-party rule, regardless of which party is doing the ruling is just a bad idea.
Interestingly, if Reich is serious about using "other than white" but still trained labor, the non-union building associations have been making serious progress in this area though not all trades are yet represented. Anyone interested in learning more about non-union construction training should search "merit shop apprenticeship" in their favorite browser. Continue Reading
