Help not wanted

Corporate Rhode Island shuts out low-income teens for summer employment

by Michelle Walson

Unemployment rates are the lowest they've been in years. Jobs are "as abundant as summer dreams for young workers," according to a June 21 business article in the New York Times. So why are local community organizers and activists concerned about summer job opportunities for low-income teens in Rhode Island?

Henry Shelton, coordinator for the George Wiley Center, an organization devoted to a number of social causes in Rhode Island, including eliminating childhood poverty, says that the rosy picture the national media paints of record-low unemployment rates and a surplus of summer jobs for teens is not necessarily the situation here in the Ocean State.

Every year, the state receives federal JTPA (Job Training and Partnership Act) funds to provide teenagers on welfare with gainful employment over the summer, and every year these funds get whittled down a little more. And unlike Massachusetts, Rhode Island has no strong program in place that compensates for federal shortcomings with support from private corporations.

Apparently, Rhode Island's Department of Labor & Training hasn't been able to motivate business leaders to help out, although, to be fair, getting CEOs to part with cash isn't easy, especially at a time when they can rest comfortably behind such deceptively low unemployment rates.

It seems that conservative politicians and business heads are all too eager to accept a candy-coated version of a social issue, like unemployment, instead of taking concrete steps to make a real impact on prospects for the working poor. In this instance, summer job programs, for the fraction of low-income teens they actually reach, can help break the welfare cycle by teaching good work habits to kids at greater risk for unemployment as adults.

Blackstone Valley Community Action Program (BVCAP) in Pawtucket, for instance, receives federal funds through the Northern Rhode Island Private Industry Council and uses them to place teens at job sites and special projects where they receive minimum-wage salaries, on-the-job training, and business education. The program specifically targets teenagers who fall within federal income guidelines for welfare.

And by focusing on low-income teens, BVCAP is working to stave off problems before they start. The program helps prepare teens for the responsibilities of the working world, giving them "the skills they need to get and keep a job later in life," says Herman de Koe, grant coordinator for the Northern Rhode Island Private Industry Council.

Cindy Harrison, director of BVCAP's Summer Youth Employment and Training Program, adds that "a lot of these kids come from generations of welfare recipients and don't have strong role models at home. Things that we take for granted -- like getting to work on time and calling in when you're sick -- these kids don't know. That's what this program is all about, providing them with the rules that they need to follow in order to be a good employee later on in life."

The program enjoys considerable success in achieving these goals. The majority of teenagers who participate have such positive summer employment experiences that they reapply the following year. Employers also have responded favorably. At the end of every summer, about a half-dozen businesses offer part- or full-time employment to standout interns.

The teens like their internships because BVCAP tries to place them in jobs and projects that match their interests. Tiffany Flanagan, 14, likes working with children and is spending her summer at a child-care center. When asked what she'd be doing over the summer if she didn't have this opportunity, Flanagan said, "I'd probably be getting into trouble, but with BVCAP, I can get experience to get a job in the future."

In addition to job-site placements like Flanagan's, BVCAP offers a variety of special projects that combine an educational component with fields such as art, drama, and computers. Seventeen-year-old Diana Guerrero is currently enjoying her third summer at a BVCAP special project site. She spent her first as a member of the Teen Town Task Force, a special project that assembles teens to discuss topics such as pregnancy and AIDS prevention and to then spread this information to their peers through presentations at schools and community organizations.

Last year, Guerrero participated in the Spotlight acting program, and this year she has returned to the same program to help lead activities as a youth staff member.

With three summers behind her, Guerrero exemplifies the promising results that the program can achieve. She beams when she talks about her summer experiences. "I love acting," she exclaims, "and I wouldn't be able to find a job like Spotlight anywhere else."

Guerrero speaks with a sense of confidence and poise unusual for a 17-year-old. It is clear that her acting experiences at the Spotlight project have helped shape her into the articulate young woman she is today. It's easy to imagine Guerrero in a boardroom 10 years from now, effectively fielding questions at a job interview or wowing her colleagues with a star presentation.

Unfortunately, many Rhode Island teenagers won't have the opportunities that have helped Guerrero shine, as there are many more applicants than available jobs. In the Pawtucket/Central Falls area that BVCAP serves, 497 teens competed for 150 federally funded jobs this year. In Providence and Cranston, there were approximately 1300 applicants for 750 job openings. And in Warwick, no community agency received funding for summer jobs.

This lack of federal support is rather puzzling. After all, Congress has been championing welfare-to-work programs for several years now, and here are job programs that train kids not to get on welfare in the first place and they're still cutting. Perhaps the politicians responsible for these cuts are simply unwilling to support a different approach to the unemployment problem, regardless of its effectiveness. Whatever the rationale, funds keep dwindling.

Richard Beneduce, chief administrator for the Job Training Partnership Program at the state Department of Labor & Training, recounts the recent financial history of Rhode Island's federal youth employment program. "In 1992," he says, "we [the state Department of Labor & Training] received $4.8 million." Nearly every year since then, the money has steadily decreased, with this year's funds set at $2.6 million, little more than half the 1992 amount. "Next year," says Beneduce, "the federal government is contemplating defunding the summer jobs initiative entirely. If this happens, it will put disadvantaged kids at an even greater disadvantage."

As a result of these cutbacks, three years ago the Labor Department started asking local businesses to absorb some of the overflow applicants from the federal program. This summer, the governor sent out 14,000 letters to Rhode Island employers, asking them to pledge a summer job for a low-income teen. But the response has been nothing short of pathetic -- the private sector is providing a scant 150 jobs and no local corporate giant, such as GTECH, Fleet Bank, or Textron, is willing to offer any large-scale support.

In some cases, the private sector has been more than apathetic to the issue of teen jobs -- it has been downright hostile. According to a prior report in the Phoenix, when a youth activist group from DARE (Direct Action for Rights and Equality) proposed an inner-city youth internship program to Fleet Bank Corporation last year, the executives they contacted dodged their phone calls, failed to show up for scheduled meetings, and called the police when the teens held a peaceful protest at Fleet Headquarters.

Takina Greene, youth coordinator at DARE, says they proposed the program in the first place because the internships that Fleet offers are not easily accessible to the community as a whole. The opportunities aren't advertised in the lower-income area of South Providence, and the teens who land the jobs usually have connections to someone at the company, says Greene.

But if officials at the Labor Department hope to combat corporate apathy and get personnel departments to look beyond the sons and daughters of company execs when filling summer positions, they'll need to do more than send letters to CEOs. And, in fact, a major overhaul of the private-sector job initiative will begin in the fall, with Boston's program as a model for Rhode Island to imitate, Beneduce says.

This year, Boston corporations came up with enough money for 4200 jobs there -- 60-70 percent of which went to low-income teens. And next summer, their goal is 5000 jobs. "Our success is due to the longtime support of the very visible business leaders in Boston," says Marianne Carderelli of the Boston Private Industry Council. She adds that in the first year of the initiative, Boston's top 10 companies provided 40 percent of the jobs.

Boston's program capitalizes on a CEO's influence and star power in the business community. Every year, the Private Industry Council asks a prominent business leader (this year it's the CEO of State Street Corporation, Marshall N. Carter) to head up the private-sector initiative. This CEO plays a very visible role in organizing the business community, rallying support from other high-powered executives, hosting fund-raising events, and convening meetings to brainstorm different ways businesses can help out.

There's a competitive element that drives the effort. The CEOs gather at a breakfast to kick off the initiative, one person announces the number of jobs their company will sponsor for the summer, and other businesses want to top that number. They keep challenging each other to create more and more jobs and it's working.

Shelton says there is the potential for this type of program in Rhode Island as well, pointing out that there is certainly enough money floating around at some of the larger corporations. "At GTECH someone is getting $9.3 million in severance pay, and Terrence Murray, Fleet's CEO, is getting $13 million in bonus money to continue his position. Surely these companies could hire some teenagers for the summer," says Shelton.

There are also more than enough kids who could succeed in entry-level positions. Shelton tells the story of an effort several years ago to get private businesses to create jobs. "We talked to Bruce Sundlun [former governor of Rhode Island], who was the CEO of Channel 10 at that time, and he agreed to hire five teenagers for the summer." Shelton solicited the teens from a Providence housing development, and the Channel 10 news team worked with them on a variety of projects. At the end of the summer, the teenagers produced a half-hour program for TV entirely on their own, and Channel 10 aired their production three times. "This indicated to me that, given attention and interest from adults willing to give them a chance, these teenagers can do high-quality work," says Shelton.

So if the money's there and the kids are willing and able, what's keeping Rhode Island's private sector from supporting summer employment initiatives? Part of the problem may be in the Labor Department's approach. And in the months to come, Beneduce, Shelton, and others will work on revamping the private-sector initiative to make it more like Boston's highly effective program.

The other part of the problem is much harder to change. It's the overwhelming national excitement over record-low unemployment rates, which is enough to make even the most altruistic CEO feel that the community is doing just fine. "People see the numbers and they think there's no problem. I think that's a mirage. It's not true," says Shelton. Behind the optimistic single-digit percentages is a long list of social realities that can't be easily counted, he says.

For one, the unemployment rates, when viewed with a critical eye, are not that low. According to Shelton, nearly every study that has been done on unemployment statistics has indicated that the official published rate accounts for roughly half of the actual number of unemployed persons. They don't count discouraged workers who have stopped filing for unemployment or part-time workers who, since they want to work full time, are essentially partially unemployed. "With the last census in 1990, thousands of people were undercounted, particularly in the inner city, and the same thing happens with unemployment," says Shelton.

If this reasoning is correct, then Providence's 6.7 percent unemployment average for 1997 is more like 12 or 13 percent, and the 7.8 percent rate for Central Falls is closer to 16 percent -- a number that is not low by any standard.

"The waiting list at BVCAP wouldn't be as long as it is if jobs were that easy to get," says Shelton. "Very often there aren't people where the jobs are. There may be a surplus of jobs in a suburban area, but if the workers live in the city and can't get out to the suburbs, it's just like there are no jobs. Transportation is especially a problem for teens and particularly in Rhode Island, where the mass-transit system leaves a lot to be desired."

As a result, the job situation may not be as sunny as unemployment statistics alone suggest. In fact, the economic outlook for today's youth seems to be growing bleaker every year. College is completely beyond the means of many families and the jobs available for high school graduates don't pay enough to buy a house or start a family. Manufacturing jobs are leaving most states, including Rhode Island, and they're being replaced by social service jobs, which pay much less. There's also a growing trend to give less health benefits to workers.

These are the realities that teenagers like Flanagan and Guerrero will face in the years to come. Fortunately, their summer experiences may help them beat the odds and go on to jobs that pay a living wage. But what about the hundreds of teenagers -- low-income teens who are already at a disadvantage in the job market -- who get turned away from programs like BVCAP? How can they gain the work experience and skills they need to get a good job and escape the welfare cycle in the future?

Business leaders want the government to take care of community problems. But if real social change is to take place, there needs to be local support for programs like the Labor Department's job initiatives. Our corporate neighbors in Boston seem to understand the give-and-take required for community improvement. It's time for Rhode Island's businesses to follow suit and make an investment in area teens.