The article explains the current rules:

St. Louis County regulations require a one-to-one ratio of apprentices to licensed journeyman plumbers, plus one apprentice for a master plumber. For example, if a plumbing company has nine journeyman plumbers and one master plumber – the latter being required by the code – it can only hire 10 apprentices.

That ratio is too strict, especially as the retirement rate continues to tick up, [Matt] LaMartina said. Plumbing companies need to be able to hire more apprentices who will become licensed journeyman plumbers, and it’s expensive to do so now because an apprentice has to work side-by-side with a licensed journeyman plumber for up to five years before he or she becomes a licensed journeyman plumber, he said.

There is one thing to remember about all occupational licensing. It is always proposed under the guise of “public safety,” but in reality it is often about increasing wages and profits for those already in the industry. This is true for the most absurd licenses and for the legitimate ones.

Predictably, the plumber’s union is opposed to easing licensing burdens and is using the “public safety” angle:

Christopher “Brian” Chumley, a business representative for Local 562, said he hopes the code review committee does not change the ratio. Weakening the plumbing code would endanger public health, he said.

Just to be clear, there is absolutely no evidence that adjusting the number requirements slightly to allow one current plumber to supervise a few more apprentices would “endanger public health.” In fact, one study found that more strict licensing of electricians actually led to more electrocutions, so it is really just the opposite. (Strict licensing leads to higher prices, which leads to more do-it-yourself work, which leads to more electrocutions.) Thankfully, plumbing, while difficult, is not as deadly, so the effects are not as drastic. Does licensing improve safety for the plumbers themselves? Nope, that question has been studied, too.

The purpose of strict plumber licensing (and other trades, too) in St. Louis County and elsewhere is to restrict trade and increase wages for the plumbers, especially the union members. Everything else is a smokescreen. St. Louis County, and every county in Missouri, should reduce its licensing rules for plumbers and many other occupations to make hiring and training for new jobs easier. The same thing goes for occupations licensed by the state, such as barbers and cosmetologists.

The post St. Louis County Should Reduce Plumbing Licensing Rules appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Prevailing wage laws are harmful because they inflate the cost of projects taxpayers pay for or, in these cases, subsidize. Research on the subject suggests that prevailing wage laws can increase the total cost of public construction projects by as much as 25 percent. For local governments with many projects needing to be built, that could mean lower-priority but beneficial projects will go undone for lack of funding. Repeated year after year, the harm done by leaving these projects uncompleted compounds, leaving the community with fewer and inferior government services compared to what market labor rates would have otherwise allowed.

DBE programs require that a certain amount of work involved in a project go to contractors and subcontractors owned by women or minorities. DBE programs also inflate the cost of projects for taxpayers and have often been vehicles for fraud and abuse. Increasing costs and encouraging criminal activity . . . where do I sign up?

Finally, the proposed law requires that bidders offer apprentice-training programs, which are generally found in union shops. There is nothing wrong with apprenticeship programs, but instituting such a mandate is blatant favoritism for union shops over nonunion competitors. It would be a substantial burden for a typical independent, nonunion company to create an apprentice program before it could bid for a project. Whatever that burden may be, the county council has absolutely no business mandating it. This is a blatant ploy to guarantee that union companies will win all county bids.

Not surprisingly, much of the language in the bill was put in by unions, according to the Post-Dispatch story.

I am a strong opponent of tax incentives and subsidies for businesses, but imposing these types of regulations on all sorts of projects in St. Louis County is a terrible abuse of the political process. St. Louis County has no business making these rules, and, indeed, I question its legal authority to do so in some of these cases. Local government should address the major issue of incentive and subsidy abuse by saying “No” far more often. Saying “Yes, but with a bunch of new regulations and red tape” is the worst policy of all.

The post Two Wrongs Don’t Make a Right appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Several days later I received a reply by, of all things, email! Thankfully, the Governor’s office sent just what I wanted: the statistics and sources behind its claims. I must note that the original graphic was updated after I sent the Sunshine request (e.g., the word “low” was removed from “Low Cost of Doing Business”). Also, while each of the office’s claims does correspond to a study, index, or ranking in the real world, your mileage may vary regarding their persuasiveness.

Some citations used by the governor are very subjective. Several of the statistics, such as “On-the-Job Training” and “Apprenticeships” were from Missouri Government agencies, which doesn’t strike me as the most unbiased source of information. The document I received also—somewhat—answers my question from the last post and clarifies the statistic as “New Apprenticeships,” but the website’s graphic remains unchanged in that regard.

In some cases, the claim is ambiguous; the second-place ranking for state-level veteran benefits is based on the number of distinct benefits offered but does not consider that one benefit may be much more or less valuable than another. Again, a very subjective ranking.

And even when the statistics could be represented more favorably for the governor, they remain misleading. The “Fourth for Personal Income Tax” is certainly not measuring the lowest or highest personal income tax rates. There are eight states with no income tax (nine if you include New Hampshire), and Missouri isn’t one of them. It turns out that the governor’s office was relying on a report that ranks governors, not states. The “personal income tax” metric is derived not only by the level of income tax, but how much it has changed over each governor’s term—the governor can thank his special session last October for getting him so highly ranked on this metric.

I do appreciate that the governor’s office didn’t drag its feet with my request and provided sources for each of the claims, but I shouldn’t have had to submit a Sunshine request in the first place. It should be standard practice for the government to include sources for the claims in the documents they produce and, more to the point, practice transparency without hiding behind a fax machine. Thankfully, there are organizations like the Show-Me Institute that employ summer interns who can hold our government accountable.

*pats self on back*

If you are interested in checking out the sources yourself, click here to see the .pdf file I received from the governor’s office.

The post Just the Fax, Ma’am: Dubious “Rankings” Press Release Emphasizes Importance of Transparency (part 2) appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

But repeal of the state’s prevailing wage law won’t put Missouri’s tradespeople on the fast track to pauperdom. Indeed, in true supply-and-demand fashion, a shortage of skilled laborers in the construction industry is already driving up salaries there.

“I think that all craft professionals are in the mid-to-upper five-figures, and once you add in per diem and bonuses and incentives, it is not uncommon that we have workers making six-figures,” [Steve Green, vice president of the National Center for Construction Education & Research] said, adding that often accounts “for a lot of overtime.”

With a slew of good paying available jobs, why is the labor shortage so pronounced?

“Construction is not a sexy profession: we don’t attract the younger workers like other professions do,” NCCER president Don Whyte said, adding that his organization is trying to change public perceptions to show that through construction, families can earn a robust middle-class living.

There are a lot of layers to this policy onion. Americans have long placed a premium on a college education, viewing it as a proxy for eventual prosperity while, in important respects, stigmatizing professions where a formal education isn’t required. Certainly college-educated individuals, on average, make more than those who don’t have a college degree, but the rising cost of that education and changing contours of the modern economy have taken a toll on the economic slam-dunk that college once was. Complicating matters further is that as government has subsidized college educations, it has produced more college graduates who otherwise wouldn’t have chosen college — and who instead might have become skilled tradespeople, creating a workforce gap in an industry which, literally, builds our country.

That’s a long way of saying that Missouri probably needs to reassess the way it looks at its workforce policies. The state spends hundreds of millions of dollars every year providing Missourians the opportunity for a college education, but is focusing on college-educated professions a silver bullet for a balanced economic future? Probably not. And that’s why recent efforts to promote apprenticeship programs in the state are not only welcome, but necessary to the economic future of Missouri.

To be sure, the best way to advance that goal will require robust debate, but it’s long past time that the state looked at its workforce portfolio and recognized that a college education leading to gainful employment is good for the state—but so too is a debtless apprenticeship in an industry that will pay handsomely for those services. I hope this important workforce issue gets the attention it deserves this session.

The post An Emerging Policy Frontier: Workforce Development appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Business leaders have voiced concerns over how unprepared recent graduates are to enter into the workforce, many of them citing the lack of applicable skills as a major problem. The Alabama Community College System projected that over the next year, 5,000 skilled worker jobs will need to be filled in southwest Alabama alone. 

Having recognized this problem, several states are backing programs that would allow students enrolled in vocational training programs to earn credentials at a faster rate, continue to build on those credentials, and keep them no matter where they move. They are considered portable and stackable. Portable in the sense that, as the McGraw-Hill Research Foundation notes, they are “trusted by employers and educational institutions throughout the country… they would be independently verified or accredited”; and “stackable” in the sense that they can be combined with each other to earn industry certifications or even associate’s or bachelor’s degrees.

An example of a portable credential is the National Career Readiness Certificate. This credential measures the test-taker’s ability to solve problems, think and read critically, and understand and use work-related text. The certificate is recognized in 42 states and can be used by employers to help predict an applicant’s ability to succeed in the workplace.

Virginia addressed the need for skilled workers in 2008 by creating the Virginia Career Pathways System. This system includes training programs like apprenticeships so students can earn credit toward a certificate or degree while also getting hands-on training.

Mississippi created a similar system in 2005 that has 4 levels of skills achievement. It starts with an Adult Basic Education Certificate, then moves on to a Manufacturing Skills Basic Certification. At the next level, students can choose the manufacturing skill they want to learn in depth and enroll in a program devoted to it. Finally, the industry knowledge they acquire can be used for college credits toward a degree.

Stackable credentials are more flexible than traditional degrees, appear more in tune with what employers want, and may be collected over time at a lower cost. They are a promising way to help students get the preparation they need to be successful in the job market.

The post Want to Make College More Affordable? Stack Credentials. appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

The report rightly makes the case that one of the biggest issues facing the St. Louis region is unemployment. It then goes on to recommend increasing the minimum wage to $15 an hour. Something doesn’t add up here.

Study after study has shown that minimum wage increases cause unemployment. Laws that drive up the cost of labor and lead to the elimination of jobs are the opposite of what Saint Louis needs.

Oddly enough, the report acknowledges the role of training positions in its discussion of unemployment. From the report:

Internships and apprenticeships are valuable programs to both help students succeed in their careers, and help employers ensure they have a competent, trained workforce. By expanding internship and apprenticeship opportunities for high school and college students, and fostering collaboration between educators and employers in the development of these programs, Missouri can support better learning and economic outcomes that benefit individuals, companies, and communities.

How do the report’s authors envision increasing training opportunities while at the same time doubling the amount that low skilled laborers must be paid?

The Show-Me Institute recently did a video on the revitalization effort of St. Louis’s Dutchtown neighborhood. In that video we tell the story of JJ, a young man from south St. Louis who worked his way to the front of the house at a local restaurant after starting washing dishes. For people without formal work experience, starting at minimum wage and learning skills on the job is the often the only way to train and gain experience. By pulling the bottom rung of the economic ladder up out of reach, a minimum wage increase will make it more difficult for people to move up in our economy.

It seems that the Ferguson Commission wants to propose policies that will help revitalize the underserved parts of our city and improve the lives of those that the system is failing. By calling for a minimum wage increase, they risk making things worse.

The post Ferguson Commission Misses the Mark on Unemployment appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

This month, the St. Louis City Board of Aldermen is considering legislation that would rig the construction contract bidding process in favor of union contractors. And it looks like a political move to scratch the back of an important constituency at the expense of the smaller minority contractors shut out by this type of legislation.

Does any of this sound familiar? It should. In 2012, the St. Louis County Council enacted similar regulations. Just as that law was a shameful example of special-interest pandering in the county, this legislation appears to serve the same function for city politicians who rely on trade and construction unions to stay in power. According to a story in the St. Louis American, Alderman Joe Vaccaro, who introduced this bill, freely admitted that the labor unions came to him with this bill and asked him to introduce it.

Of course, the bill does not specifically say that it would limit bids and contracts to “union-only” contractors. That would be illegal. Instead, it mandates a requirement that will legally accomplish the same goal. The new ordinance requires bidders on contracts of $25,000 or more to offer apprentice-training programs that are generally found in union shops. For all practical purposes, the only way a contractor or company can offer this type of program—and be allowed to participate in city construction contract bids—is to become a union shop. It would be an extreme burden for the typical independent non-union company to participate in the apprentice program. Whatever that burden may be, the city has no business mandating it.

Minority contractors, who want nothing more than an equal playing field in which to compete, say that restricting non-union contractors from bidding on construction projects will prevent minority-owned contractors from winning contracts. The county bill ended up keeping African-American independent contractors out of county construction worksites. Government should not be in the business of picking winners and losers. And government favoritism that has a disproportionately negative impact on minority businesses and independent contractors is simply indefensible.

Moreover, if the city adopts this legislation and non-union shops no longer participate in the bid process, taxpayers will take a hit. Limiting the number of potential bidders can only have one effect: raising overall prices. Researchers at the Beacon Hill Institute found that Project-Labor Agreements (PLAs), another method of union-favored project bidding, raised costs to taxpayers by 27 percent over non-PLA projects (which included many non-union bidders). This new law for Saint Louis City likely would have a similar result.

Law should facilitate open access, such that access to public institutions is not contingent on personal relationships and political connections. Law should be structured to apply to everyone equally. By favoring unionized contractors over non-unionized contractors, this bill reeks of cronyism. This is one bad idea I hope will not come back again, but as Yogi said, “It ain’t over ’til it’s over.”

John Wright is a policy researcher at the Show-Me Institute.

The post Playing Favorites on the Board of Aldermen? appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

I didn’t catch why my DJ was upset with the Board of Aldermen, but one reason Saint Louisans are upset with the board right now is their decision to consider a bill that purportedly limits minority businesses from bidding on county government contracts.

The bill mimics regrettable legislation passed by the county in 2012 that requires bidders on construction contracts of $25,000 or more to maintain their own Department of Labor-approved apprentice program. The catch is that union contractors are often the only bidders who can meet this requirement.

When the county council adopted its bill in 2012, my colleague David Stokes wrote,

While some non-union companies do participate in apprentice programs through industry organizations, union-affiliated companies still have a decided advantage in meeting the requirements of this new bill. This is a blatant ploy to guarantee that union companies will win all county bids. . . .

Using the council’s authority to prevent non-union contractors from even attempting to participate in county projects is an egregious misuse of power. It is bad enough that this will increase costs to taxpayers, but the use of government for political favoritism is simply indefensible and immoral.

Just as it was two years ago, this type of legislation still appears to be a naked attempt by elected officials to please a powerful special interest.

Law should facilitate open access, such that access to public institutions is not contingent on personal relationships and political connections. Law should be structured to apply to everyone equally. By favoring unionized contractors over non-unionized contractors, this bill fails in providing a neutral rule. It reeks of cronyism, and it is the sort of thing Saint Louisans are right to be upset about.

The post Union Cronyism and the Board of Aldermen appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

The Saint Louis County Council passed, and County Executive Charlie Dooley signed, a bill that will prohibit non-union construction contractors from participating in all but the smallest county projects. Two members of the council’s Democrat majority who voted for the bill, Chairman Mike O’Mara and Patrick Dolan, are affiliated with unions that will directly benefit from this rank favoritism. At a minimum (here, the barest of minimums), they should have recused themselves from the vote.

The new law lays down several new requirements on county construction bidders. Of course, it does not specifically say the bids and contracts are “union-only” because that would be illegal. Instead, it mandates a requirement that will legally accomplish the same goal. The new ordinance requires that bidders offer apprentice-training programs that are generally found in union shops. For all practical purposes, the only way a contractor or company can offer this type of program — and be allowed to participate in county bids — is to become a union shop. It would be an extreme burden for the typical independent, non-union company to participate in the apprentice program. Whatever that burden may be, the county council has no business mandating it.

While some non-union companies do participate in apprentice programs through industry organizations, union-affiliated companies still have a decided advantage in meeting the requirements of this new bill. This is a blatant ploy to guarantee that union companies will win all county bids.

The non-union shops will now not win any bids, and likely will not participate in the bid process either. This will hurt taxpayers. Limiting the number of potential bidders can only have one effect: raising overall prices. Researchers at the Beacon Hill Institute found that Project-Labor Agreements (PLAs), another method of union-favoring project bidding, raised costs to taxpayers by 27 percent over non-PLA projects (which included many non-union bidders). This new law for Saint Louis County will likely have a similar result.

Using the council’s authority to prevent non-union contractors from even attempting to participate in county projects is an egregious misuse of power. It is bad enough that this will increase costs to taxpayers, but the use of government for political favoritism is simply indefensible and immoral.

State government need not allow this. Local governments are creatures of states, and the residents of Saint Louis County deserve for the state to correct this legislation. State government should quickly address this practice and prohibit local governments from favoring unions in the bidding process. (To be clear, local governments should not be allowed to discriminate against unions and union contractors, either.) We have a system of checks and balances to address exactly this type of unbalanced legislation. Unfortunately, the first option — a county executive veto — failed. Higher levels of government or the circuit courts need to correct this unseemly example of crony government.

David Stokes is a policy analyst at the Show-Me Institute, which promotes market solutions for Missouri public policy.

The post Shame on Saint Louis County Council for Union Cronyism appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

The county’s apprenticeship requirement, which I discussed yesterday, is onerous enough, but the “no independent contractors for on-site work” requirement makes the intent of the ordinance — to advantage union labor — all the more explicit. In fact, Saint Louis County’s new regulations may actually hurt many small Saint Louis businesses that are not unionized. Adolphus M. Pruitt, of the St. Louis American, offered this blistering response to the ordinance late last month (the whole thing is worth reading):

Additionally, the bill forbids independent contractors from County construction worksites, specifically those who are self-employed. Most African-American truckers who own their own trucks operate as “independent contractors” and thus are forbidden from working on County worksites.

The bidding process is intended to get taxpayers the best deal for their money, not guarantee a special interest seller special privileges over another interest. Union and non-union labor should have to compete on even terms with one another, and the St. Louis County Council was wrong to give unions this sort of preferential treatment in a process meant to protect the buyer’s interests, not a seller’s. Taxpayers deserve better than this.

The post Part Two: ‘Responsible Bidder’ Does Not Mean ‘Union-Only’ appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

As articulated in the legal treatise Antieau on Local Government:

[L]ocal government officials are not limited to the quality and suitability of the article to be provided but can consider the bidder’s experience, skill, ability, business judgment, financial situation, integrity, honesty, possession of the facilities necessary to perform the contract, previous conduct in similar contracts, reputation and record for reliability, as well as any other factors reasonably relevant to a bidder’s successful performance if awarded the contract.

Antieau notes that at least one court has found that “discretion exercised in choosing the lowest responsible bidder must be based upon substantial difference in quality or adaptability.” Taken altogether, these observations make clear that contractors of similar talent, reliability and quality should be considered on basically even terms in a “responsible bidder” legal construction. If a contractor can do a job reliably and well, the real distinguishing mark should be the price.

But in Saint Louis County, this may no longer be the case. The county’s new ordinance requires that for a construction contractor to qualify as a “responsible bidder,” he or she must “participate in or maintain their own Department of Labor-approved apprentice program for each craft which the firm employs and have active, registered apprentices for each program.” The law further requires that “all on-site employees on the project will be employees and that there will be no use of independent contractors or ‘leased employees’ for on-site work.”

“Apprenticeship programs” are almost always an artifact of union membership. Very few non-union shops “participate in or maintain” such programs, let alone always have “active, registered apprentices for each program.” The latter requirement of “active apprentices” has nothing to do with responsible bids, but it does have everything to do with keeping non-union contractors out. Which, of course, is why it was included. The county’s move will affect all sorts of small businesses, as the St. Louis American‘s Adolphus M. Pruitt noted last month.

The bill restricts non-union contractors from bidding on County projects, thus prohibiting any minority-owned general or prime contractor from County construction work. The bill restricts contractors who don’t have active apprentices. The strange thing about this is that most unions will profess that they are not accepting apprentices. … And the number of minority apprentices active in their programs is dismal.

That is especially bad news in today’s terrible economy. I will explore the “independent contractor” aspect in Part Two tomorrow.

The post Part One: ‘Responsible Bidder’ Does Not Mean ‘Union-Only’ appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

The latter half of DIY U is about the many ways in which innovators (“edupreneurs”) are trying to give students new and better options. Established educational institutions want to sell students a big (and usually very expensive) bundle of education and credentials, but innovators are trying to unbundle those services and sell them separately at much lower cost–or even giving them away.

For example, there is Western Governors University, an online university that costs students less than $6,000 per year. WGU was formed in 1999 and instead of simply following the usual procedure of organizing academic departments in the traditional fields, officials convened a council of employers and asked, “What is it that graduates you’re hiring can’t do that you wish they could?”
[…]
All of this is about unbundling. If you walk into a grocery store wanting just one or two items, you can get just those items. If you want just one of two items of education, you shouldn’t have to buy a whole cart-full of courses. Kamenetz likes the idea that individuals should be able to customize education to suit their particular needs and desires. So do I.

One big problem, though—in a society that has become credential-crazed, how do people who get their education in unstructured, informal ways (I thought of writing “non-traditional” but when you think about it, this idea is very traditional, going back to the ancient Greeks) show that they have a base of knowledge? College degrees don’t necessarily betoken any learning, but they’re better than trying to explain that you got a lot out of the various topics you studied online when the employer insists on a B.A.

“Accreditation and assessment, the source of the ‘sheepskin effect’” she writes, “is proving the toughest nut to crack.” Innovation may crack it, though. Today, students can compile and publish a portfolio to demonstrate their knowledge and capabilities by using free software like WordPress and Drupal. Since the college degree is no longer a very useful screening mechanism, if a few employers would start saying to applicants, “Don’t show us where you’ve taken courses, but instead show us evidence that you’ve learned something that would be useful here,” the dam may break quickly.

Notice what is absent in this vision of the future of higher education. It involves no government subsidies, regulations, or even institutions. What makes it work is voluntary cooperation and the free market’s fabled discovery process. Students will learn more at far less cost. Laissez-faire will produce enormous benefits if existing institutions don’t strangle the educational freedom movement in the cradle.

Of course, the “traditional” college is primarily a product of tremendous government subsidization. Very few people attended colleges prior to World War II, but attendance rates skyrocketed in the late 1940s through the 1960s with soldiers using G.I. Bill funding to obtain degrees, and their Baby Boomer children — often funded by the newly created Pell Grant — following soon thereafter. Attendance rates continued to grow to the present, but now many of those who attend college never finish, and the focus of college has shifted from a liberal education to a form of halfhearted career training. Ending these subsidies could put emphasis back on older forms of education, like apprenticeships and trade schools, which could focus on practical arts without betraying their stated missions.

The post The Future of Higher Education? appeared first on Show-Me Institute.