Single mom struggles to find good job, but Birmingham has a plan: op-ed

This is a guest opinion column

Diana Isom wants a good job that allows her to do more than get by, but the systems around her make that hard.

The better-paying jobs she sees on job boards have long hours and unpredictable schedules. She’s lost one job already because her son got sick. Some of the more affordable daycare options she’s found don’t provide care beyond 2 p.m. And as a single mom without health benefits, she is worried about taking her 2-year-old to the doctor because the expense just might wipe out the little she has been able to save.

Good jobs with benefits and security should be the norm. That’s why earlier this summer, we brought together workers—including Diana—as well as employers, nonprofits, local leaders, workforce boards, unions, and educational institutions, to all commit to one thing: create and ensure good jobs for the working people of Birmingham.

“Good jobs for all” may sound like a slogan, but for us, it’s a strategy and call to action. And that strategy calls for us to build the workforce roads and bridges that connect people to the good jobs they want and need and employers to the people they want and need. In short, we want to build an “Opportunity Infrastructure” in Birmingham and across the country.

Just like our physical infrastructure, our current workforce system has some cracks and potholes. Employers tell us they are losing talent due to a shortage of affordable child and other dependent care. Educators, workforce development organizations, and labor groups experience roadblocks to job training and supportive services. And fractures in our workforce infrastructure sometimes leave entire communities disconnected from good jobs.

We can do better than that. We can build a strong Opportunity Infrastructure: an interconnected system that connects every worker to a good job and removes the roadblocks standing in their way.

This work starts with employers creating jobs that provide real security, and it continues with employers communicating the skills workers will need for those jobs early – in trainings and in educational spaces. Because once it’s time to hire, it’s too late to think about where the workers will come from. Our strongest examples of effective opportunity infrastructure involve employers and workers partnering to identify skills needs and training early.

If our workforce system is like infrastructure, Registered Apprenticeships where workers are paid while they train on the job are the superhighways of that system. Registered Apprenticeships aren’t one-off training courses. They are part of an interconnected, industry-driven, earn-and-learn system that gets people where they want to go.

Community colleges are also part of this infrastructure; they are the on-ramps to good jobs. And supportive services, like child care and transportation, help workers access those good jobs. These are some of the biggest barriers in our nation’s workforce system. So when we remove those barriers, everyone benefits. It’s like eliminating roadblocks in rush hour traffic.

Finally, trusted community organizations are the roads that connect underserved neighborhoods to this opportunity infrastructure. Through their work, they reach key sections of the community and are key to successful outreach, recruitment, and retention.

This is a critical moment for Birmingham and Alabama thanks to the generational investments of the Biden-Harris Administration. The Administration has invested $100 million in Birmingham alone and $7 billion in Alabama to repair roads and bridges, modernize airports, build electric vehicle charging stations, and ensure every American has clean drinking water and reliable, affordable high-speed internet at home. At the Department of Labor, we’ve invested $6.8 billion this year alone in our nation’s Opportunity Infrastructure.

In the City of Birmingham, we have broken ground with new studies to understand the barriers in labor force participation. We’re studying our city’s child care landscape as well as the realities that formerly incarcerated men and women face in the job market. The City of Birmingham has led with its own 12-week parent parental leave policy, increased wages for city employees, and partnerships with community colleges for new training opportunities, and it has implemented a wide range of targeted initiatives to help residents overcome roadblocks to employment.

Birmingham Promise has facilitated internships for almost 300 city students and has assisted 1,300 with college tuition costs. Through the city’s BOLD (Building Opportunities for Lasting Development) targeted grant program, community organizations over five years have helped 111 adults earn job credentials and 95 actually get jobs. Our Good Jobs Challenge program aims to place 1,000 unemployed or underemployed individuals in good-paying healthcare jobs with the potential for upward advancement.

The city is actively working to increase workforce opportunities and participation to meet the needs of local employers but most importantly to ensure residents have the resources they need to take care of their families. This requires us to create a framework that helps fill gaps related to childcare, transportation and job skills.

We cannot build up this Opportunity Infrastructure alone. We need to all work together to connect Birmingham’s talent to good jobs across the city.

Because workers in Birmingham should not have to settle for just getting by. They deserve to get ahead.

Julie Su is Acting U.S. Labor Secretary and Randall Woodfin is the mayor of Birmingham