The government makes it too easy to not work

In a report issued last week, the Conference Board -- one of the most trusted voices in economic research – gave some sobering news to US employers. They will be dealing with a major labor shortage for the next 15 years.

The researchers cited various reasons for the crisis. Among them were: economic growth going step-for-step with employment growth; new entrants to the workforce being ill-prepared for working in health care or skilled trades; retiring baby boomers; and very weak labor productivity growth.

What they failed to mention as a key contributor to this matter is the simple fact that fewer people are interested in working.

The workforce participation rate is currently at 63 percent after bottoming out at 62.4 percent in September, which was its lowest mark in almost four decades. More than 94 million working age Americans are not employed or interested in employment (compare that to the 122 million Americans who are working at least 35 hours a week).  

This indifference to breaking a sweat can only occur when the government makes it too easy to not work. In a 2012 study I did for the New American magazine I looked at a market basket of federal programs related to health coverage, housing, food, heating, and cell phones and found that families that were collecting all such things from the public dole were receiving over $44,000 in benefits per year. While cash poor, they weren’t poor in the truest sense because they had access to all of the needs and some of the wants that the working class had to, as their name implies, work to get. 

That study looked only at benefits and not any incomes that people could receive while not working. Such incomes would include but are not limited to child tax credits, unemployment, and, what has become the new welfare – disability.

Disability has had a great impact on the decision to not work, thanks to modified federal programs which make it easier than ever before to collect a government check, morphing from their original intent to do good for those who are actually physically or mentally unable to work. It is now a system rife with fraud and abuses, all for a $1,000 to $1,200 monthly stipend.

A telling 2013 report from National Public Radio (which does not have a tradition of attacking social welfare programs) looked at this in-depth and found that people were collecting checks for made-up ailments and manageable woes like high blood pressure and diabetes, while costing US taxpayers $260 billion annually, threatening to bankrupt Social Security in 15 years.

If you don’t think that disability is being abused, consider this: 27 percent of Lockport city residents are considered disabled. Drive around the city and take a look at the residents; do you really think that more than 1 in 4 working adults in the Lock City are unfit for work?

Unless there is some wholesale change in federal programs that could theoretically cover someone’s whole existence from cradle to grave, almost 100 million Americans (and growing) will continue to choose the easy way out and not work, accounting for the long-term labor shortage that is primed to deeply affect the economy. Our economy – and our federal finances -- will continue to be on the shoulders of the 122 million Americans who are toughing it out and working for their personal benefit and, obviously, that of too many others.

From the 25 April 2016 Greater Niagara Newspapers 

EEOC: employers must prove wage equality

As you know, the issue of equal pay for equal work has been a cause du jour for the Left, whether that employment crisis is real or imagined (see my column from last April that debunked the myth in regard to gender at tinyurl.com/ConferEqualPay). This movement started at the top. When President Obama took office, the very first bill he signed was the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. He didn’t stop there: In April of 2014, he charged the Department of Labor to develop of means of collecting and summarizing data from federal contractors in an effort to determine inequities in compensation based on race and sex.

That order is finally coming to fruition. After a lengthy process that ultimately pulled the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) into the mix as the lead agency, new guidelines have been introduced that not only will put a time-consuming bureaucratic burden on employers, but will also paint them as racist and sexist until proven innocent.

On September 30 of 2017 all employers  -- not just the federal contractors noted in the original dictate – with 100 or more employees will have to submit a detailed annual report to the federal government that will categorize employees by gender, race and ethnicity. The document will see them divided among 12 pay bands and then by another set of categories related to broad job types, so far from specific that people with unrelated jobs and responsibilities will be lumped together. It will take hours – maybe days – for employers to prepare these documents, especially when the pay period is not based on the calendar year as W2s are.   

The feds will then input all of that data into their system and analyze each employer, coming down on any that they perceive to be discriminatory.

Like the news releases that often follow OSHA reviews of workplaces or Department of Health inspections of dining establishments, accusations of inequality will be disclosed to the public, which will put countless employers who are doing right in harm’s way. Their reputations, competitiveness and ability to hire the best and brightest will be harmed and the wage and benefit information of privately-held corporations will be shared publicly.

In that previous paragraph, I used the phrase “employers who are doing right” because the EEOC’s form actually does nothing to determine if they are doing right or wrong. It does not address an employee’s salary and its basis in hours worked, education, seniority, merit, productivity, attendance, special talents or any other factor that causes a worker to earn more or earn less as compared to his or her coworker. It treats everyone as exactly the same worker, having identical value and potential for the organization…that is in itself equality, but an equality that has absolutely no basis in the real world or how the economy works.

In follow-ups to the finger pointing, accused employers will have to justify the wages of each individual employee to Washington paper-pushers and inspectors in order to clear their name and not incur any sort of compensatory wrath that the government hopes to collect (you know the government will be in the business of wage equality for revenues as much as alleged altruism).

Employers wronged by that overbearing process will then feel pressured to watch themselves any time they hire someone or give out raises. They might not give Jack a healthy increase for all of his good work because it will create a discrepancy against Jill in the next cubicle over who just skates by. 

The EEOC’s master plan sounds like a nightmare for employers – it will be for sure. It will adversely affect the economy and how business is done in each workplace. It will make one pine for the good old days when a boss could reward someone solely on the work he does without having to worry about being considered a bigoted, sexist pig.      

 From the 18 April 2016 Greater Niagara Newspapers

EXPLORING THE NIAGARA FRONTIER: A flower for all seasons

When coming out of Western New York’s typically-depressing winters you probably look for even the slightest signs of spring to get you through. You might keep your eyes to the skies for migrating birds or you’ll look to the ground for the first glimpse of plant life. When it comes to the latter, one of the very first flowers to grace our presence every year is a weed that is otherwise taken for granted or looked at with disdain by gardeners – the purple dead nettle.

The purple dead nettle is not actually a nettle. It is a member of the mint family. It has the tell-tale characteristic of mints, which is a square stem. It lacks, though, the fragrance that most people expect from mints. It gets the name dead nettle because this mint has numerous small hairs like nettles, but, unlike nettles, they won’t stick in your skin and make you itch like a fiend – so, it was considered “dead” by early taxonomists.

The plant is incredibly common and can be found almost anywhere disturbed by man – fields, edges of parking lots, sidewalks, roadsides, lawns, and so on. It is a small plant, most often 2 to 3 inches off the ground and not typically reaching 8 inches in height. It is found in congested clumps, almost like ivies, with many plants in a very small area. The tiny tubular flowers, which look like minute snapdragons, are bright purple, maybe pink. The leaves are shaped like a heart or an arrowhead. The leaves start out green but can quickly become a dark red or deep purple in color and will stay that way for weeks or months.

Purple dead nettles are pretty unique in that they can have flowers over most of the year. In a mild winter you will see their flowers as early as the last week of February. Most years, though, you’ll start to see them the second week of March. Their greatest abundance will be in April and May. The flowers tend to disappear from the heat in July and August, but you will see them again in the fall right into November.

Because of their early blooms, they are absolutely critical to the well-being of bees and other pollinators that might come out of their winter slumber on warm days. When no other flowers are available in March, the purple dead nettle gives them the nectar they need. Also, in April, the pollinating plants give bees pollen to help build up their nests.

Like most all mints, the purple dead nettle has some value to people. While you probably wouldn’t make a tea out of it, its young tender leaves nicely augment salads and stir fries. The leaves also make a healthy addition to smoothies, adding a lot of powerful antioxidants to the mix.

While most people might look down upon this plant as a weed, you should welcome its presence in your backyard. Its cute little flowers are a welcome sight when the snow starts to melt and they keep the local bee populations healthy in the early spring – goodness knows they need it with all of the mass bee die-offs in recent years.

Bob Confer is a Gasport resident. His column, Exploring the Niagara Frontier, is published every Thursday on All WNY News.

From the 14 April 2016 All WNY News

Employers: Give ex-criminals a chance

Earlier this year I took a group of local organizational leaders on a tour of the factory after which I told them we’ve openly hired machine operators with colorful criminal backgrounds; some had lengthy stays in prison while others are or were under probation.

This was a shock to the tour group because back in their workplaces – and in many throughout America – hiring of former criminals just isn’t something that’s done. The overzealous use of background checks for any position under the sun, as well as the dreaded “have you ever been convicted…” slot on application forms have forced many human resources managers to look at one-time lawbreakers as having the plague.

Well, let me tell you this: They don’t “have the plague”. Most of those who spent time in jail or had their names splashed across the police reports in your local paper are, for the most part, just like the alleged straight shooters in the world. They want to overcome their histories. They want to make good on their lives. They want to raise perfect families. They want to contribute to society. They want to work.

When they are given that chance to work, they succeed. Ex-cons have been some of my best coworkers. The determination they possess to become new men, to stay clean and better themselves (and their families) furnishes an incredible work ethic. They saw how the other side lives and they don’t want that life anymore. They know the importance of the straight and narrow and they relish the freedoms and rewards that the squeaky clean types tend to take for granted. A good life is a great motivator.

This shouldn’t be an earth-shattering realization for employers. But, here in New York almost two-thirds of ex-cons remain unemployed one year after their release because of the stigma associated with their backgrounds. Employers fail to see that former criminals come out of their pasts being better people and better workers.

Like our public school systems, our correctional systems should be looked at as more than just a cost burden, but also as an investment. That’s the whole point of the legal and penal systems in a civilized society. Our tax dollars help to educate convicts, teach them trades, introduce them to self-discipline, and reform their behaviors. It’s a mammoth undertaking of resources – the US prison system costs taxpayers $228 billion per year while the 2 million Americans discharged from probation annually had individually cost $4,000 for every year under watch.

It’s an investment that should be capitalized on, but, it’s obvious that the general consensus is “once a criminal always a criminal”.

Is that the way a just people should think? Judging by the outpouring of prayers whenever a natural disaster or act of terrorism strikes our world, Americans are still a people defined by their Christianity. The religion is based on redemption and the salvation of sinners so why shouldn’t those principles be practiced at large, including in employment? People shouldn’t claim to live up to the standards of their religion yet absolve themselves of its founding tenets.

Likewise, as another teaching of Christianity goes -- let he who is without sin cast the first stone. A lot of convicts and folks in the probation ranks were unlucky enough to get caught doing what so many other people do. New Yorker’s arcane Rockefeller Laws imprisoned folks for years for having possessed drugs. How many people under the age of 70 can claim that they haven’t tried marijuana or don’t know anyone who has used/uses weed? There are very few for either category and those smokers were fortunate enough to not get busted for it. Similarly, how many thousands of customers leave bars and restaurants every day with a little too much alcohol in their systems and never get caught?

None of that makes what the ex-criminals did right, but it should show that how they are treated post-release is wrong. We need to give them chances. We need to give them jobs. By doing so, we are helping society to make good on its investment in its people and, in turn, helping to improve our workplaces.

From the 11 April 2016 Greater Niagara Newspapers

Welcome to EXPLORING THE NIAGARA FRONTIER

Recently my good friend Scott Leffler started All WNY News. Scott and I have been a media duo for over a decade now; I had regular guest appearances on his WLVL radio show, we appeared on TV together and we wrote for the same newspapers. So, I tagged along again this time, bringing my nearly 2-years-old “Exploring the Niagara Frontier” column with me from its previous source.

For those unfamiliar with that column, here’s a background it…

Throughout my life, I’d always wanted to write a nature and science column, something different from my opinion columns that you might read in the Lockport Union Sun and Journal or Niagara
Gazette. There was and is a definite need for it in the local media market, especially after the Buffalo News abandoned its popular Sunday science page, cutting ties with beloved naturalist Gerry Rising.

I was given the opportunity to write such a column, so I jumped at that chance in 2014.

“Exploring the Niagara Frontier” has always done just what the name says — explore the Niagara Frontier. Every week it looked at some natural aspect of the region — like a specific animal or plant or perhaps an interesting geological feature — or checked out one of our numerous public assets, like nature trails.

The focus has been on telling stories about our precious natural world and giving folks a background on some of the living creatures that we either, one, take for granted or, two, let slip undetected in our backyards.

The previous iteration of the column focused only on Niagara County (which I call home), but with the expanded scope of All WNY News I now have the chance to focus on the entire region. You will see me spread out the story telling and exploration and you might notice that quite a few columns look at animals, plants and places in Allegany County, a community I love dearly and in which I own a large tract of some of the wildest land in WNY.

For those who know what I do in my day job (Confer Plastics), you may be asking yourself, “what is a guy who owns a plastics factory doing writing about nature?”

It may seem counter-intuitive at first since plastics have a bad reputation, some of it deserved, in environmental circles.

The thing is, we don’t produce disposable goods at the plant. We pride ourselves on manufacturing durable goods, items made to last a lifetime (kayaks, swimming pool ladders, docks, and more).

You’ll find that I’m not a guy who toes the industry line. For one, I absolutely despise the insanity of bottled water. I still can’t believe U.S. consumers blow their money on a staggering 30 billion of these bottles every year. I also find it jaw-dropping that only 30 percent of them are recycled. Such nonsensical consumerism contributes to the 32 million tons of plastic waste put into landfills annually.

So, I may be a manufacturer, but I’m a manufacturer who understands my and my industry’s roles in the Big Picture.

You’re probably wondering, too, just what is my background in nature?

I’m basically self-taught when it comes to biology and it’s a love affair that’s lasted a lifetime. As early as the second grade you could find me keeping a field guide to the birds close to me at all times. It went to school. It went out in the field. It probably even went to bed with me.

Growing up on a farm which my family worked till I was 10 (a farm that I still live on to this day, although its tillable land is rented out to a local farmer), I roamed field and forest and played in creeks through my childhood and teen years and had an insatiable hunger for learning about everything from the minute to the monstrous.

Then, when most other teenagers may have been shooting hoops or playing ball, my sports were, instead, the outdoor pursuits — hunting and fishing.

A naturalist who hunts? Yes, I am a nature enthusiast, but I am at the same time someone who also selectively harvests his nourishment from the land. It’s a part of Man’s role in the bigger scheme of things; you’re only kidding yourself if you don’t recognize our spot at the top of the food chain.

Growing up, I was lucky enough to have a family who encouraged my love of the outdoors — from parents who stocked my library, took me hunting and fishing, and helped fund my Boy Scout adventures to a loving grandmother who took me on hundreds of Saturday trips to the Alabama Swamps to watch birds.

Had I not gone on to the family business, I’m certain I would have taught biology or earth science at a local school.

That career choice didn’t prevent me, though, from being an educator. During my college years I was the nature director at Camp Dittmer in the Finger Lakes. I was a scout leader for years and a constant focus of mine while on the trail was talking to the boys about the world around us. And, for 16 years at Roy-Hart I spoke to Mrs. Brown’s class about local wildlife, even taking them on nature hikes at Royalton Ravine Park.

So, that’s where the nature bug came from -- as well the associated urge to share my knowledge and experiences with you. It’s in my blood.

Be sure to check in every Thursday when we can explore the Niagara Frontier together. In the meantime, get outdoors and enjoy our natural world.



-- Bob Confer is a Gasport resident


From the 07 April 2016 All WNY News

D3 SPORTS: FOR THE LOVE OF THE GAME

During Easter weekend I could be found in Lake Placid taking in the Frozen Four of NCAA Division III hockey. Going against all I’ve ever known, I found myself cheering one of the participating teams (Geneseo) that just so happens to be the biggest rival of my college (Brockport).

If you have even a modicum of appreciation for athletics or the strength of human spirit, Geneseo’s story was one to savor. It was amazing that they made it to the championship weekend: a teammate had to leave the sport in November after suffering brain trauma in an off-ice accident while another player was murdered in January. Those incidents would have crushed the morale of most anyone, but the Ice Knights persevered and continued to win in honor of their fallen peers. They truly were the definition of a “team.”

While they didn’t take their Cinderella story all the way to the championship game, the fact that they remained as one of four out of seventy-six teams in DIII was amazing and deserving of the local and national coverage they received.

Geneseo’s success amidst tragedy also served as a reminder why DIII college athletics are the ultimate outlet for anyone who enjoys athletics yet find themselves soured by professional sports and the Division I schools which serve as their “minor leagues”. Everything that you might hate about those leagues and programs is gone (the ungodly huge salaries, high ticket prices, the free rides to the best colleges, taxpayer investments in multi-million dollar stadiums, and the prima donna egos that defy the lessons that sports were supposed to teach). DIII participants are truly student-athletes (education first!) who don’t get scholarships to play a game, know that they have almost zero chance of making it to the pros, and play their butts off for the love of the game.

It’s competition at its most pristine.

And it’s advanced competition that’s fun to watch.

DIII kids aren’t pushovers. As a matter of fact, they might not even be kids. Take ice hockey for example: The times have changed and no longer do you see a lot of “true freshmen” (guys aged 17 or 18) on the ice. Most of them stuck around the juniors for a while and further honed their game. When at a DIII game, you’re watching men in their twenties playing at a highly-skilled level that many others could never come close to achieving. Other sports are equally entertaining, and local sports fans are familiar with two popular DIII products who played for the Buffalo Bills: Fred Jackson and London Fletcher.

You don’t have to break the bank to take your family to these battles, either  -- something pro sports can no longer claim. For $5 you can watch a DIII game, parking is free, and the foods in the arenas is actually affordable. The venues in which you can watch these affairs are homey, close to the action, and plentiful. Here in WNY you could visit Buffalo State, Brockport, Fredonia, Geneseo, and the two Alfreds to name a few.

If, like me, you dig sports but hate what they’ve become, dial it back a bit. Ditch the pros and head to a DIII hockey, football, basketball or baseball game. You’ll find yourself loving the game again and enjoying the thrills provided by competitive sports unburdened by all the nasty financial incentives.



From the 04 April 2016 Greater Niagara Newspapers