Locals reluctant to embrace proposed state work-share program

Proponents in a legislative hearing Tuesday in Indianapolis advocated implementing a work-sharing program in order to keep skilled workers on the job during business slowdowns.

In other states, such programs allow workers to keep their health insurance and retirement benefits, while state unemployment funds make up a portion of the lost wages.

Some employers in the Logansport area, including a spokesman for MW Industries, were unfamiliar with the concept and declined to comment on it until they knew more about it. A spokesman for Myers Spring called the idea "an interesting concept."

"The interesting part of that is that they'd be able to maintain their health insurance, which in their mind is health care," said Jim Parsons, vice president at Myers Spring in Logansport.

While Myers Spring hasn't had a layoff in Parsons' five-and-a-half years at the company and is growing this year, he said he could understand people's desire to keep their health insurance during an economic downturn.

"They want to still be able to go to the doctor ... without having to pay out of pocket," Parsons said.

There's more to it than that, though, if you ask someone in a unionized facility.

Becky Hanawalt, longtime president of United Steelworkers Local 4863, said seniority could be jeopardized if several workers get their hours cut rather than some workers being laid off.

"They would lose out on hours for their vacations, hours towards their pension," Hanawalt said. "They would also lose out on money contributed to their 401(k). I would be totally against that, simply because if you're in a union shop you're in seniority."

Layoffs are far from most people's minds this year. At Carter Fuel Systems, where Hanawalt works, managers have hired 70 people in the last year alone, Hanawalt said. But during slowdowns, the company may take volunteers for short layoffs, usually a day or two, she added.

Longer-term layoffs or reductions in force generally happen based strictly on seniority, she explained.

Hanawalt also questions the efficacy of state unemployment benefits making up for only a portion of lost wages under a work-sharing program.

"It's still not going to make up for [lost wages], so you have a bigger pool of people making less money overall. That kind of defeats the purpose," she said. "I would like to know more about it, but right now I would say I wouldn't be in favor of it."

Another Logansport businessman also has qualms about implementing a state-funded work-sharing system.

"I am concerned how this might shift leaders of other companies into thinking they can put off some of the burden of responsibility off onto the state, and thus other employers," Dan Kendall said.

As president of ABC Metals in Logansport, he tries to balance the company's care for its customers, employees, others in the community and shareholders, he said. He acknowledged that "the idea of pulling together as a community" appealed to him, but said his cynicism told him work-sharing would spur business leaders to make riskier hiring decisions.

"I want to ensure that we have community and corporate responsibility," Kendall said. "When we bring somebody on board, there's a trust that we bring with it. We don't want to lay them off."

What he doesn't want to happen, he continued, is a business hiring someone "with the idea of, if it doesn't work out as we hoped, we can always put it on work-share."

"That's not how a well-run business should behave," Kendall said.