Subscribers, if the following does not come through clearly with the URLs 
intact, the same content can be found on the Web at 
<http://www.workforceusa.net/news_prv.php?id=27>
Donna
Donna JG Brian
Moderator, NIFL Workplace Literacy Discussion List, and
Coordinator/Developer LINCS Workforce Education Special Collection at 
http://worklink.coe.utk.edu/
Center for Literacy Studies at The University of Tennessee
600 Henley Street, Suite 312
Knoxville, TN 37996-4135

865-974-3420 (desk phone) FAX 865-974-3857
djgbrian at utk.edu

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Joyce Foundation Funding Opportunity - Organizations in IN, IL, MI, MN, OH 
and WI***This funding is only available for organizations with experience 
operating transitional jobs programs and/or providing employment services 
for ex-offenders and that are located in the above mentioned states. 
Applicants must be willing to participate in all aspects of a three-year 
research demonstration.*** The Foundation's Transitional Jobs Reentry 
Demonstration is intended to test in a rigorous fashion whether 
transitional jobs programs can be a successful and cost-effective reentry 
strategy for formerly incarcerated men. There is mounting public concern 
about the large number of formerly incarcerated individuals now reentering 
society and the impact on communities to which they return. The goal of the 
initiative is to provide research-based evidence to inform public policy 
about effective methods for preparing formerly incarcerated men for stable 
employment and reducing their likelihood of rearrest and reincarceration. 
Click here for more information
Articles

Strengthening State Policies for America's Working Poor
In this article, Brandon Roberts highlights the Working Poor Families 
Project, which focuses on both state and national efforts to help 
low-income workers. He discusses findings from the Project's report, 
"Working Hard, Falling Short: America's Working Families and the Pursuit of 
Economic Security," including the fact that 24 million jobs in the United 
States, a fifth of the total, cannot keep a family of four above the 
poverty level and provide few or no benefits. Roberts concludes with some 
of the ways the Project is helping workforce development professionals get 
involved to influence policies, particularly at the state level.
Read More...
Working-Class Hero
In this article for The Nation, William P. Jones, associate professor of 
history at the University of Wisconsin and a scholar-in-residence at the 
Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, argues that the bill 
honoring Martin Luther King "would likely have died in committee, and 
stayed buried, had it not been for thousands of working-class 
Americans—most of them black, but also white, Asian and Latino—who risked 
their jobs over the next fifteen years to demand the right to honor a man 
they viewed as a working-class hero."
Read More...
Jobs Picture - Job Growth Weaker than Expected in December, Closing Out a 
Year of Moderate Gains
According to a recent report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the 
nation's payrolls rose by 108,000 in December, well below economists' 
expectations of over 200,000 jobs. However, November's revised gains of 
305,000—an upward revision of 90,000 jobs—means that the pace of growth 
over the last two months has been about par for the year. Taking out the 
impact of the Gulf Coast hurricanes, payrolls expanded at an average rate 
of about 200,000 per month in 2005.
Read More...
What Is a Living Wage?
In this recent article from the New York Times, Jon Gertner writes: "It is 
a common sentiment that economic fairness—or economic justice, as 
living-wage advocates phrase it—should, or must, come in a sweeping and 
righteous gesture from the top. From Washington, that is. But most wage 
campaigns arise from the bottom, from residents and low-level officials and 
from cities and states—from everywhere except the federal government. "I 
think what the living-wage movement has done in the past 11 years is 
incredible," David Neumark, a frequent critic of the phenomenon who is a 
senior fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California, told me 
recently. "How many other issues are there where progressives have been 
this successful? I can't think of one."
Read More...

Resources

United States Chamber of Commerce Jobs Corps CD Toolkit
This CD toolkit, Workforce Solutions: Building the Job Corps Connection, 
introduces Job Corps to chambers across the country. Through the 
information and resources shared on the CD, chambers and their members can 
learn how to build partnerships with Job Corps Centers and One-Stop Centers 
and can become familiar with the workforce resources that Job Corps provides.
Read More...
Workforce Strategies Initiative - Business Value Assessment Toolkit
Many workforce development programs have long found it challenging to 
determine the value of their workforce programs in terms of time, money and 
other results that are important to business customers. A new toolkit is 
available from WSI to help practitioners and their employer partners assess 
the business value of their workforce services.
Read More...
Promoting Diversity Means Testing The Employment Test
To help unions, employers and training providers meet proper and 
non-discriminatory standards for work-related testing, the Working for 
America Institute commissioned this paper, "Promoting Diversity Means 
Testing The Employment Tests". Although not a substitute for good legal 
advice, the paper advises program operators and program sponsors on how to 
craft, evaluate, and apply test results properly to ensure that unions and 
their training partners contribute to promoting diversity and eliminating 
inequality.
Read More...
Promises I Can Keep - Why Poor Women Put Motherhood Before Marriage
Millie Acevedo bore her first child before the age of 16 and dropped out of 
high school to care for her newborn. Now 27, she is the unmarried mother of 
three and is raising her kids in one of Philadelphia's poorest 
neighborhoods. Would she and her children be better off if she had waited 
to have them and had married their father first? Why do so many poor 
American youth like Millie continue to have children before they can afford 
to take care of them? Promises I Can Keep explores these questions.
Read More...