Unions Recruiting Workers

The old union hiring hall was hated by employers, but did good work in getting people to the jobs. Today, we are in a nation where there are good jobs out there, but employers aren’t reaching the people who could benefit from the jobs. Often, they need training and education for example. Something like this is happening in Rhode Island, where unions are taking back more of the process, often against the desire of employers, to get people placed in jobs. Here’s something on this focusing on the issue in the public sector nationally.

It’s a nationwide quandary. While private-sector employment fully regained its prepandemic level a year ago — and now sits 3 percent above it — state and local governments remain about 1 percent below the 20 million people they had on staff in February 2020. The job-opening rate for public-sector positions is below that of private businesses, but hasn’t come down as much from the highs of 2022.

In historical perspective, it could be worse: State and local government employment had only barely recovered from a long slide after the 2007-9 recession, which left many public services underpowered as states and cities lacked the funding to return to full strength.

This time, the problem is different. Tax collections recovered more quickly than expected, and the federal government helped with transfers of cash to local jurisdictions to offset the effects of the Covid-19 crisis. That helped many governments award temporary pay increases to retain key personnel, and hire others into departments that had been cut to the bone, such as public health.

But officials then faced a new twist. Wages in the private sector were growing faster than they had in decades, drawing people away from government jobs that had, for some, become too stressful. Civil servants also tend to be older than other workers, and more of them retired early rather than put up with mounting strain. As federal relief funds peter out, governments face difficult questions about how to maintain competitive pay.

There’s a lot of opportunities for unions to fill this gap.

That’s why the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, known as AFSCME, decided it needed to pitch in on a function usually reserved for human resources departments: getting people in the door. The union has started a national campaign to generate buzz around frontline positions, while locals are contacting community organizations and even families of union members to spotlight opportunities.

“Our employers are feeling the heat,” said Lee Saunders, the union’s president. “They understand that services are not being provided at the level that they should be provided. It’s a team effort as far as bringing fresh blood into the public service.”

That was the point of the hiring fair in Minneapolis. Seventy-five job seekers filtered through, often looking for more stable or higher-paying positions than the ones they held, usually referred by a friend or relative in the union.

Cassandra Crawford spoke to someone at nearly every table, looking for something better paid and more active than her remote job in health care administration. “The older you get, the more you want to move your body,” she said. Speaking with recruiters in person was also more encouraging than sending her résumé to an automated portal. “I think they might remember me,” she said, laughing.

Joel Shanight, 43, a disabled Army veteran and Peace Corps volunteer with experience in hostile environments, expressed confidence that he had landed a job doing roadway assistance on state highways. After doing unsatisfying accounting work in the private sector, he was glad to have learned about positions that could allow him to help people again.

“I can’t find that in the corporate world,” Mr. Shanight said. “There’s no compassion anymore.”

There are good reasons to work in the public sector, so long as maximizing your income is not one of them. In any case, the more control unions can take over hiring, the better off we would be.