Veterans’ jobs ought to be protected

 

Bill Knight column for 11-9, 10 or 11, 2020

 On Veterans Day this week, Americans will show our appreciation for fellow citizens serving in the military, either in solemn remembrances or livelier, red-white-and-blue celebrations.

Meanwhile, millions of vets working for municipalities, townships, counties and states as police and firefighters, clerks and inspectors, public-health personnel and so on may lose their jobs in the next few months.

Veterans make up almost 7% of all state and local government workers, and – like individuals and businesses – those units of government are sustaining dramatic financial losses.

“More than one million veterans –13.2% of all veterans – work for state and local governments and could be severely impacted by the Senate’s failure to provide timely federal aid,” reported John Schmitt and Naomi Walker of the Economic Policy Institute (EPI). “Because state and local governments are extremely restricted in how they can borrow, congressional authorization for state and local fiscal support is vital to prevent deep cuts in health care and education.”

The House of Representatives on May 15 approved the 1,800-page Health and Economic Recovery Omnibus Emergency Solutions (HEROES) Act, which provided financial assistance to state and local governments, among other aid, but Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell won’t let the Senate even consider the measure. Instead, Senate Republicans months later introduced the Health, Economic Assistance, Liability Protection and Schools (HEALS) Act, which includes protecting business from liability stemming from workers infected by COVID-19 on the job but overlooks the needs of local and state governments.

“This intentional oversight threatens vital public services just when they are needed most, and could result in an additional 5.3 million public- and private-sector service workers losing their jobs by the end of 2021,” according to EPI’s analysis.

In a dramatic effort to compromise, the House in September introduced a revised pandemic relief bill that continues its attempt to shore up cash-strapped state and local government budgets by making the proposal more modest than the nearly $1 trillion sum contained in the original bill, according to StateScoop.com.

The new version of the HEROES Act includes $436 billion in financial support to state, local, tribal and territorial governments, many of which have had to begin making steep budget cuts and furloughing employees after months of shutdowns caused by the coronavirus severely slashed tax revenues.

Data from the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey 2017-2018 shows that there are 1,133,600 employees of state and local government – and more than 6.6% of them are veterans. That compares to 5.3% in the private sector and 6.1% of the labor force overall.

In Illinois – the Number-8 state in the country for veterans working in government – 40,500 vets face their jobs in jeopardy.

If the Senate fails to provide necessary aid to state and local governments, “there is no telling what cuts will have to be made down the line,” said Dawn Bundick, an AFSCME investigator for the Alaska Department of Corporations and a U.S. Navy Reserve vet. “I ask the Senate to take a stand for America’s communities and for the millions of veterans who work in the public service and depend on public services to help make ends meet.”

Bundick spoke along with William Attig of the United Association of plumbers and pipefitters (UA), director of the AFL-CIO’s Union Veterans Council, and Jacksonville, Fla., fire and rescue service technician Chris Woloscuk, a U.S. Air Force vet and also an AFSCME member – all of whom seemed to ask a simple question: Will the Senate show respect – or concern – for veterans?

Beyond Capitol Hill, will the American Legion or VFW or everyday citizens lobby McConnell and his cohorts?

Even in the midst of the pandemic – a worsening crisis, to be sure – the nation (and the Senate) should put its money where its mouths are, demonstrating Americans’ gratitude beyond mere recognition of a holiday, maybe a march or memorial ceremony, or patriotic speeches and easy displays of U.S. flags.