Once again, Right To Work legislation has passed the House
The New Hampshire House of Representatives has for the second time passed a so-called “Right To Work” bill. But the margin was well short of what would be needed to override Governor Lynch’s promised veto.
Barring unions from requiring non-members to pay for representation has been a priority for House Republican leaders. Last year Governor John Lynch vetoed a Right To Work bill, which Republicans failed to override.
Republican Marshall Quandt told colleagues this year’s version will fare no better.
“Every one of us is wasting valuable time and energy on this bill. Einstein once said the definition of insanity is to keep doin’ the same experiment and expect different results,” Quandt says.
The bill passed, but was forty votes shy of the margin needed to survive a veto.
Twenty-three states have enacted Right To Work laws. Indiana is the most recent–it took effect last month.
Two hallmarks of Republican legislative leadership these past couple of sessions have been a commitment to small government and the use of deep cuts to state government to bridge budget gaps. And now that the state’s released its dryly-titled “Comprehensive Annual Financial Report: For the Fiscal Year Ended June 30, 2011,” we can get our arms around the scope of these cuts as they relate to jobs.
Granted, it’s not necessarily riveting reading, but the numbers provide an intriguing glimpse into how state government grew–and shrank–in the years before, during, and after the Great Recession. You can drag your cursor over the chart below to get exact employment figures for each year. Continue Reading →
It’s that time in the afternoon when we think you might appreciate a bit of brain candy.
And we’re only too happy to provide.
A while back, Burger King on Loudon Road in Concord shuttered, noting on its sign that it’s “Closed For Remodel.” If you drive by that same spot today, you’ll still see the sign, and that the building’s being remodeled…into a CVS? (You can click on the pic for a clearer view of the signage.)
Amanda Loder / StateImpact New Hampshire
Does Burger King's remodeling actually involve razing the structure and building a CVS on top of it?
A manufacturing trade group estimates there are 600,000 factory jobs available in the US right now. Many of them are in skilled work, like machining. And most of these jobs are held by Baby Boomers, who are edging closer to retirement. But many of their Gen Y descendents–who were raised on tales of mass layoffs and jobs moving overseas–aren’t betting on the new rise of American manufacturing. Slowly, though, some of these young workers are reconsidering factories. StateImpact recently visited the machine shop at Nashua Community College,where we spoke with some younger students about why they’re putting their faith in advanced manufacturing.
Thirty-year old Edwin Otchere came to NCC from Lowell, Massachusetts. He started out as a home health aide. “I never imagined myself being in the manufacturing field,” Otchere says. “But I realized I had interest in doing stuff with my hands, and I had that kind of satisfaction from it. I was checking Craigslist one time, and I realized there were a lot of open jobs with the manufacturing field. So I decided, why not look around to see what’s in store for me?”
Mark Dodge coordinates NCC’s Machine Tool program. He says most of his students are non-traditional, meaning they’re not fresh out of high school. “A lot of what is pitched in the high school is not related to the blue collar world,” Dodge says. “A lot of high school counselors do not understand or appreciate what is involved in what we do here. So therefore, what they see as a success is, somebody going to a four-year institution, versus someone going to a two-year school, coming out, and having a viable trade that they can do. It’s a big barrier, to be frank with you.”
Between reading prints, programming computers, and manually shaping parts, machining is an incredibly skilled trade. And that shows in the pay scale. Dodge says, “Our grads can expect between $14 and $15 an hour, to start. A good machinist could go to $30 or $35 an hour. Typically, there’s overtime, five to 10 hours a week, so even at $15 an hour, that’s a pretty substantial paycheck for a beginning blue collar job. For an experienced machinist, $80,000 to $100,000 is not out of the question for a year’s pay.”
At 21-years old, Ben Dubray of Nashua is unusually young for an NCC machining student. “My original motive was simply that I’m a gearhead,” Dubray says. “I like working on cars, but you can’t make much in automotive these days, because too much competition. But my grandfather’s a machinist, and his friends are machinists, and a few of them own their own shops. And I remember them talking about the fact that there’s no new machinists. So that kind of gave me the hint to look into this. Because if nobody’s going into it, there’s going to be jobs, won’t there?”
Matthew Bachelder is another 21-year old Nashua resident. He came to NCC after two years working as a restaurant dishwasher. “So that was motivation enough to say, time to get better experience,” he says. “I’ve got a friend who’s also in the field, and just the way he’d talk about it, it sounded like a lot of fun, and it was better than what I was doing before, so I figured it would be good to try to get into an actual trade. It’s only my first year here, and I’ve already had like three opportunities to go get a job somewhere else in the machining field. So it’s pretty easy, you know. Especially in Nashua. There’s a lot of places you can go look around. You can make bearings or gears or anything, you know, it all just depends. Anything that’s made out of metal there’s a requirement for. And a lot of things are made out of metal.”
In addition to teaching, Program Coordinator Mark Dodge has been a machinist for about 30 years. He says the field has changed dramatically. “A lot of people don’t realize what it is we do, or even the conditions that we do it in. In the old days, you’d have the greasy floors, the dark, poorly lit machine tools, and people cranking cranks and pulling levers and so forth. And it’s not like that at all. But for the younger generation, Mom and Dad don’t know that. And it’s also seen, frankly, as a way, if someone’s not doing well academically, ‘Well, we’ll send them down to the machine shop, because really, that’s all they can do.'”
At 27-years old, Orlando Morales of Nashua had already spent 10 years working at a supermarket before taking up machining. One of the things that made him consider the trade was a taking a tour of a rice company. “They showed us the combine machines, and when the parts broke in the combine machines, they would send it to the machinist. And I witnessed first-hand how the machinist cut up some metal and made a new part for the machine and got it back up and running in no time. And that was really amazing.”
NCC runs one of the largest Associate of Science degree programs for Advanced Machine Tool Tech in New England. But it’s still one of the smaller departments at NCC. Program Coordinator Mark Dodge says that while enrollment’s generally around 40 or 45 students, last fall, freshman enrollment spiked to 60 students.
As NCC’s Machine Tool program sees higher enrollment numbers, Dodge says, “Manufacturing in this country has not disappeared. I would not characterize it as fading away, dying. It has certainly changed, and it has become, still, a valuable part of what we do in the country. And it is a strategic part, not just in the military sense, but in the medical profession. We have the ability to respond quickly, for example, with heart stents, bone screws, artificial hips, knees, and things like that–all came out of a machine shop. It’s something we can’t afford to lose. It’s in everyone’s interest in the country that we have a strong manufacturing base.”
“Northern Pass officials recently told investment analysts they had acquired a ‘substantial’ chunk of the North Country land needed for a hydropower line from Canada. That’s not untrue. Analysts, however, didn’t hear the rest of the story. Continue Reading →
Researchers say apps are keeping ski areas honest about snowfall
Spring weather is now starting to roll in, but just last week winter had its last hurrah. And when those big snow storms wallop the mountains, ski areas see dollar signs.
A pair of Dartmouth economists are researching the tendency of ski areas to exaggerate snowfall reports, especially on weekends, in hopes of luring more skiers to the slopes. But they found that interactive websites and smartphone apps are turning those ski areas into honest brokers.
Relying on the ski area for information about trail conditions is a bit like relying on the owner of a theater to review movies that he’s playing. In both instances there’s a pretty good incentive to make them sound a lot better than they are. Continue Reading →
A new report details how even Gen Y's with jobs are struggling during the sluggish recovery
Whether it’s rising student debt levels, the Occupy movement, or fitting into a changing job market, news outlets (including StateImpact) are increasingly interested in how Gen Y is adapting to the slow recovery.
Their overarching conclusion: Coping with a struggling economy has clearly been tough on the early-30’s-and-younger set.
Now, the Wall Street Journalreports on new data providing a snapshot of the monetary pressures this group faces. Reporter James R. Hagerty writes:
SNHU made an interesting addition to the regular round of Top 50 Companies
Looking at media rankings of companies–“Most Innovative,” “Fastest-Growing,” or other roundups of various firms–we aren’t often surprised. Take the magazine Fast Company. For this month’s issue, they’ve listed “The World’s 50 Most Innovative Companies.” Dominating the Top 4 are the perennial occupants of the corporate Cool Kids’ Table: Apple, Facebook, Google, and Amazon.
Now that’s interesting. After all, it’s not often we’ve seen a non-profit educational institution mentioned in (almost) the same breath as some of high-tech’s corporate juggernauts. Continue Reading →
Here's one interesting perspective on the downside of government austerity
As we’ve mentioned before, one of our key online lurking destinations for economic news is the New York Times. And while we don’t often draw on op-ed’s, a recent offering from economist Paul Krugman caught our attention.
In “States of Depression,” Krugman (a self-professed liberal) faults the national push towards austerity for the slow economic recovery.
For those of you familiar with the political-economic arguments about austerity vs. stimulus, this probably doesn’t sound like new ground.
But what is interesting is the comparison Krugman draws between the current recovery, and what our economic rebound looked like during the first Reagan Administration (or “Morning In America,” if you will). The key difference, Krugman says, isn’t federal government spending per se–it’s spending that money at the state and local levels:
StateImpact wants to know: Is New Hampshire really an anti-tax state?
Since StateImpact launched late last summer, some of our most popular posts have revolved around taxes. Given that New Hampshire has neither a sales nor an income tax — and notoriously high property taxes — we don’t find this trend surprising. As the site has gained momentum, and clicks, we’ve occasionally found it helpful to bring some of our earlier, relevant posts to your attention. This particular piece, comparing New Hampshire’s tax culture to Iowa and Washington State, was popular early on, and, in case you missed it, we thought we’d offer you another look. Continue Reading →
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