Bill Fletcher, Jr., Dr. Frances Fox Piven, Saket Soni. Sources: The Greanville Post, What

It’s been decades since the U.S. has had a powerful labor movement and recent efforts to revive it have mostly fallen flat. But there is hope for a new U.S. labor movement. It’s a vision that goes beyond the unions.

On this edition, we’ll hear from an array of panelists discussing the future of labor in the U.S. It was recorded at the 2010 Left Forum in New York City.

Special thanks to Between the Lines at WPKN Radio in Bridgeport, Connecticut.

Featuring:

Dr. Frances Fox Piven, Left Forum 2010 ‘Future of Labor in the U.S.’ moderator & CUNY Graduate Center sociology & political science professor; Dr. Stanley Aronowitz, CUNY Graduate Center sociology, cultural studies & urban education professor; Bill Fletcher, Jr., labor activist & BlackCommentator.com editorial board member and columnist; James Gray Pope, Rutgers School of Law-Newark professor & Sidney Reitman Scholar; Saket Soni, New Orleans Workers’ Center for Racial Justice Director; Elaine Bernard, Labor and Worklife Program at Harvard Law School Executive Director.

–

1. Dr. Frances Fox Piven makes opening remarks

–

2. Dr. Stanley Aronowitz speaks about why organized labor is in the sorry state it’s in.

–

3. Bill Fletcher Jr. offers ideas on how a different labor movement can emerge.

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4. James Gray Pope speaks about the need for organized labor to be more strategic and realistic.

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5. Saket Soni, New Orleans Workers’ Center for Racial Justice Director talks about some successes he’s had uniting organized labor and the immigrant workforce on the Gulf coast.

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WEB ONLY EXCLUSIVE:

6. Elaine Bernard, Labor and Worklife Program at Harvard Law School executive director gives her view on the future of labor and moderates the panel discussion.

–

For more information:

Between the Lines

A weekly radio news magazine show

The Black Commentator

Mullica Hill, NJ

CUNY Graduate Center

New York, NY

Labor & Worklife Program at Harvard University

Cambridge, MA

Left Forum 2010

New York, NY

Rutgers School of LawÐNewark

Newark, NJ

Articles, Blogs, Films, Reports, Other:

Audio recordings of panel discussions recorded at the Left Forum, March 20, 2010 in NY.

Music:

Mass Appeal by Gangstarr

Lovesick by Gangstarr

Cleaning the BP Oil Spill. Photo credit: CHRIS WILKINS/AFP/Getty Images

With their land, traditions, and livelihoods all thrown into chaos and their future in doubt, you might think that the people of Southern Louisiana would be calling for major changes to the way the oil companies do business, or leading the charge for an overall ban on underwater drilling. But as correspondent Julia Botero reports, the economic realities are much more complicated, and many of those most closely affected by the devastation of the gulf spill are, in fact, not calling for any change at all.

Check out the whole show: Beyond BP: A Future Without Oil

Cleaning the BP Oil Spill. Photo credit: CHRIS WILKINS/AFP/Getty Images

BP’s Macondo well seems to be capped, and we can all breathe a sigh of relief… or can we? Many blame BP or the US government for the lack of oversight of the well and the efficiency of the response to the leak. But there’s a larger issue at hand–our society’s continued use of oil. Even George W. Bush said we were addicted, and that was in 2006. On this edition, we go to the Gulf Coast to hear why, despite the dangerous and deadly consequences, locals aren’t ready to turn their back on the oil industry. What does that mean for the rest of us, as we pursue a future free of fossil fuels?

Featuring:

Antonia Juhasz, Global Exchange’s Chevron Program director and author of The Tyranny of Oil: the World’s Most Powerful Industry and What We Must Do To Stop It; Carla Perez, Movement Generation Justice & Ecology Project Program coordinator; Lulu DarDar and Scotti, BP cleanup workers; Albert Naquin, Isle de Jean Charles Band of Biloxi-Chitimachas Tribal Chief; Terry Labouche, R.J. Molinair & Clairece Fralou, Gulf Coast residents; Robert Gorman, Catholic Charities Houma-Thibodaux Executive Director; Aaron Viles, Gulf Restoration Network Campaign Director.

—

‘It’s Not About BP,’ says Antonia Juhasz

Global Exchange’s Chevron Program Director, speaks at a teach-in on the BP Spill and Big Oil, in Berkeley California—July 20, 2010.  She talks about the lack of spill preparation on the part of the entire oil industry, and her own experiences on the gulf coast since the BP well explosion.

—

Due to Economic Concerns, Gulf Coast Residents Still Support Big Oil

With their land, traditions, and livelihoods all thrown into chaos and their future in doubt, you might think that the people of Southern Louisiana would be calling for major changes to the way the oil companies do business, or leading the charge for an overall ban on underwater drilling. But as correspondent Julia Botero reports, the economic realities are much more complicated, and many of those most closely affected by the devastation of the gulf spill are, in fact, not calling for any change at all.

—

Carla Perez on Learning from the Spill

A representative of the Mobilization for Climate Justice speaks about the connection between the BP spill and climate change, and has some suggestions about where we should be looking for solutions to our addiction to oil. At a teach-in on the BP Spill and Big Oil, in Berkeley California—July 20, 2010

—

For more information:

For Videos of the Speeches heard in the show, go to:
Climate Connections Blog

Gulf Restoration Network
New Orleans, LA

Global Exchange Chevron Program
San Francisco, CA

Mobilization for Climate Justice

Movement Generation Justice and Ecology Project
Oakland, CA

Carla Perez

Antonia Juhasz

Act Against Oil-Abolish Offshore Drilling

Biloxi-Chitimacha Confederation of Muskogees

Catholic Charities Houma-Thibodaux
Houma, LA

Videos, Blogs, Articles, Links:

The Women Who Won’t Abandon the Gulf by Antonia Juhasz

Gulf Residents Scared Oil Industry Will Leave:
Will We Ever Break Our Abusive Relationship With Oil?

Louisiana Bucket Brigade

Rising Tide North America:
Confronting the Root Causes of Climate Change

Seize BP

Sierra Club Delta Chapter

Sierra Club Oil Spill Map

Louisiana Environmental Action Network

Mobile Bay Keepers

Texas Environmental Justice Advocacy Services (t.e.j.a.s.)

Earthworks Oil and Gas Accountability Project

Music:

‘It Aint My Fault’
by Mos Def, Lenny Kravitz, the Preservation Hall Band, Trombone Shorty, and Tim Robbins
‘The Great Santa Barbara Oil Slick’
by John Fahey

Salvadoran immigrant Domitila Martinez sometimes recruits friends to help with special farming projects at ALBA, such as transplanting strawberry plants. Source: www.albafarmers.org

It’s well known that the people picking food all across the US are predominantly low-paid Latino migrant workers. It’s ironic that the workers caring for and picking our food, have the least say about how the farms themselves are run. But a non-profit organization in Central California is working to change that, with a dynamic program that turns farm workers into farm operators and owners. Making Contact’s Andrew Stelzer reports.

Special thanks to Tena Rubio who helped produce this piece.

Cheese from Fiscalini Farm in California's Central Valley. Source: gourmetgirlmagazine.com

It’s estimated that dairy products make up a full 20% of our daily food intake here in North America. But with increased focus on cattle waste methane emissions as a factor in climate change, the dairy industry is facing intense scrutiny. Making Contact’s Rita Daniels takes us to one sustainable California dairy farm where solutions are being found, and where waste, as it turns out, makes all things possible.

Source: www.saturdaymarket.com

It’s a historical quirk that the middle of a desert–California’s central valley–has been made into an artificial agricultural oasis. Farmers in the Central Valley are getting a sneak preview of what much of the country, and the world, can expect to see in the next few decades–increasing water scarcity. So how to handle a dry outlook ahead? To look into one idea, Making Contact correspondent Joaquin Palomino visited the nearby Central Coast growing region. The availability of water is a growing issue there, too. And a handful of farmers are finding new ways to make every last drop count.

CASFS apprentice working at the UCSC Farm Source: Source: CASFS

Climate change is upon us. The world’s water supply is shrinking. And increasingly, local, organic food is becoming more than just a fad or a luxury for wealthy foodies. On this edition, we go to California, America’s leading producer of fruits, vegetables, and dairy, to see some examples of how the nation’s agricultural industry is slowly but surely moving away from factory farms.

Featuring:

Joe Schirmer, Dirty Girl Produce owner and dry farmer; Juliet Christian Smith, Pacific Institute Senior Research Associate; William Friedland, University of California at Santa Cruz Professor Emeritus of Community Studies; Jim Leap, UC Santa Cruz Agro-Ecology Center Farm Operations Manager; John Fiscalini, Fiscalini Farms President and CEO; Brian Fiscalini, Fiscalini Farms General Manager; Mariano Gonzalez, Fiscalini Cheese Company Head Cheese Maker; Richard Machado and Christopher Montes, Cheese makers; Gary Peterson, Agriculture and Land-based Training Association (ALBA) Deputy Director; Karina Canto, ALBA agriculturist and farm incubator program participant; Efren Avalos, Avalos Organic farm owner and former ALBA participant.

—

Dry Farming–a Technique for a Water Scarce Future

It’s a historical quirk that the middle of a desert–California’s central valley–has been made into an artificial agricultural oasis. Farmers in the Central Valley are getting a sneak preview of what much of the country, and the world, can expect to see in the next few decades–increasing water scarcity. So how to handle a dry outlook ahead? To look into one idea, Making Contact correspondent Joaquin Palomino visited the nearby Central Coast growing region. The availability of water is a growing issue there, too. And a handful of farmers are finding new ways to make every last drop count.

—

A Waste-Free Dairy of the Future?

It’s estimated that dairy products make up a full 20% of our daily food intake here in North America. But with increased focus on cattle waste methane emissions as a factor in climate change, the dairy industry is facing intense scrutiny. Making Contact’s Rita Daniels takes us to one sustainable California dairy farm where solutions are being found… and where waste… as it turns out… makes all things possible.

—

Turning Farm Workers into Farm Owners

It’s well known that the people picking food all across the US are predominantly low-paid Latino migrant workers. It’s ironic that the workers caring for and picking our food, have the least say about how the farms themselves are run. But a non-profit organization in Central California is working to change that, with a dynamic program that turns farm workers into farm operators and owners. Making Contact’s Andrew Stelzer reports.

Special thanks to Tena Rubio who helped produce this piece.

—

For more information:

Pacific Institute

Oakland, CA

Center for Agro-ecology and Sustainable Food Systems (CAFS), UC Santa Cruz

California Agricultural Water Stewardship Initiative

Occidental, CA

Dirty Girl Produce

Watsonville, CA

Fiscalini Farms

Fiscalini Cheese

Agriculture and Land-based Training Association (ALBA)

Salinas, CA

Videos, Blogs, Articles, Links:

Anaerobic Digestion of Animal Wastes: Factors to Consider

Alternative Generation Options for Methane Digesters

Cow Power: Transforming Greenhouse Gases to Renewable Energy

California Small Farm Conference

Dry Farming

Music:

Music:

‘Be Healthy’ by Dead Prez

‘Similak Child’ by Black Sheep

Dontaye Ball, founder of Good Foods Catering, helped get his business off the ground through the support of the San Francisco non-profit, Renaissance Entrepreneurship Center. Photo Credit: Tamara Palmer

Unemployment teeters on the double digits, and long–term joblessness is at an all time high. When will relief come to those who need a paycheck? On this edition of our series, How We Survive, we look at how the unemployed are getting creative about making ends meet, from starting their own businesses to work-sharing.

Featuring:

Dontaye Ball, micro-entrepreneur and owner of Good Foods Catering; Robyn Fountain, program coordinator, Renaissance Entrepreneur Center; Tamika Edwards, small business owner in San Francisco; Eric Weaver, CEO of Opportunity Fund; Dan Ringrose, worker at Lincoln Door; Neil Rohon, shared-work program coordinator at the Connecticut Department of Labor; Pat Stachen, Human Resources Administrator, Lincoln Door and Hartford Technologies; Kevin Newcomb, worker at Hartford Technologies and union representative for United Auto Workers Local 367; Rosa DeLauro, Connecticut Congresswoman; Dean Baker, Co-Founder, Center for Economic and Policy Research.

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Non-Profits Help Create Jobs by Supporting Micro-Enterprise

Despite Obama’s words of support of small business, experts say some aren’t relying on government, but more and more on community groups and micro-lenders. That’s what Making Contact correspondent Li Miao Lovett found, talking to micro-entrepreneurs in the San Francisco Bay Area.

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Companies Choose Shared-Work Over Layoffs

When there aren’t enough hours of work to go around, why not share them? That’s the premise of ’shared-work’ programs in seventeen states around the country. Instead of laying a few people off during a downturn  in business, companies can choose to decrease the hours of all of their employees, and government provided, partial unemployment benefits can help make up for the rest.  In Connecticut, more than 500 companies have gone the work-share route. Correspondent Melinda Tuhus has more.

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Expert Calls Work-Sharing the Answer to Unemployment Woes

Dean Baker, Co-Director of the Center for Economic Policy Research and author of ‘False Profits: Recovering from the Bubble Economy’ and has written extensively about Shared-Work programs. Making Contact Producer Andrew Stelzer got him on the phone.

—

For more information:

Accion USA

Canal Alliance
San Francisco, CA

Center for Economic and Policy Research
Washington D.C.

Good Foods Catering
San Francisco, CA

Kiva
San Francisco, CA

Lincoln Door
Rocky Hill, CT

Opportunity Fund
San Jose, CA

Renaisssance Entrepreneurship Center
San Rafael, CA

Videos, Blogs, Articles, Links:

Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro

If Germany Is a Winner, It Is Partly Because It Has Work Sharing
By Dean Baker

Washington State Shared-Work Program

(7:32 minutes)

When there aren’t enough hours of work to go around, why not share them? That’s the premise of “shared-work” programs in seventeen states around the country. Instead of laying a few people off during a downturn in business, companies can choose to decrease the hours of all of their employees, and government provided, partial unemployment benefits can help make up for the rest. In Connecticut, more than 500 companies have gone the work-share route. Correspondent Melinda Tuhus has more.

Workers at Streich Bros., Inc., in Tacoma, Washington, taking part in the shared work program. Credit: Joe Barrentine/Tacoma News Tribune/MCT

This segment is part of a 29-minute audio program titled How We Survive: Getting Creative About Jobs.

—
TUHUS: When Dan Ringrose got word in the Spring of 2010 that he could get furloughed one or two days a week at his job as an installer at Lincoln Door in Rocky Hill, Connecticut – he wasn’t exactly thrilled.

Ringrose: I wasn’t sure what it was about. I’ve never been laid off or anything like that. And you hear neighbors and friends being laid off. Then they said it was only one day a week…so, hope for the best.

TUHUS: Business was slow at Lincoln Door, which installs commercial and residential overhead doors. The company had to cut payroll -but instead of laying off workers, management decided to cut back hours, and spare jobs. They used a state program called shared work, which allows employees to collect unemployment benefits for furloughed time. In the end, Ringrose works one less day a week, loses only half a day’s pay, and keeps his benefits.

Ringrose: It’s good in a way that I’m still getting paid, at least for half of that, you know, for that day, so I can still pay the bills. A little tighter, but it’s good to get a little back from everything I’ve been putting in, all the taxes and stuff over the years.

TUHUS: Ringrose works for one of over 500 companies participating in work-share programs in the U.S. At Lincoln Doors, workers’ days off are staggered. Ringrose is using his days off to get things done around the house and spend time with his two children. His wife works full time job. But it’s not a vacation for him, he says.

Ringrose: I’d rather not be in this situation, you know…I can work.

TUHUS: When the Great Recession hit the American workforce, some states were better prepared to weather the storm. Seventeen of them already had shared work programs in place, some of them since the 1970s. Connecticut didn’t get on board until the early 1990s. Neil Rohon of the Connecticut Department of Labor says they borrowed best practices from several surrounding states.

Rohon: What I’ve done with the program since I’ve been in charge since 1995, tried to make it as flexible as possible for the employers, so if it helps them, long as it’s within the framework of the regulations, we’ll allow them to do certain things.

TUHUS: Rohon says the number of participating companies increased ten fold between 2008 and 2009, covering some 20,000 workers. By mid-2010, that number deflated. But the program is still strong, says Rohon.

Rohon: Employers actually have a free hand in how they schedule their employees’ time off. Most of them want to do it in the one 8-hour work day increment, but it’s not required that they do so. What I always advise employers…scheduling the employees’ time off is totally dependent on their operating needs and demands. They might need the people to come in five days a week, but working six hours a day or something like that. A lot of them try to do it on Monday or Friday to give their employees a long weekend; they can shut down their location and save on utilities.

TUHUS: Rohon tries to get the word out about the program in different ways – but he’s sure there are companies out there that still don’t know the program exists. What do unions think of the idea? Rohon responds by snapping his fingers.

Rohon: Most companies that have unions, they sign off on the application in a minute. Generally it really is a win-win for the employers and the employees, especially for the employers that want to maintain their employees that they spent a lot of time training them, educating them, and they don’t want to lose those employees’ skills. That’s the ultimate goal of the program is employee retention.

TUHUS: Rohon acknowledges what he considers minor drawbacks to the program: One is the paperwork, though he says the application is easy to navigate. The other downside is that it might raise companies’ unemployment compensation tax rate.

(sound: DOOR OPENING AND GREETINGS TO WORKER

TUHUS:Walking through the cavernous plant the two companies share, Stachen greets the workers on a recent Monday.

Pat Stachen is the Human Resources Administrator for both Lincoln Door and it’s sister company, Hartford Technologies. The 70-year-old company makes ball bearings for everything from cars to lip gloss.

Stachen: Anything that rolls…there’s ball bearings in it.

TUHUS: Strachen says in early 2009 the company suffered a 40 percent drop in orders, as customers, hit by the recession, used up their inventories. So Hartford Technologies’  union employees began getting Fridays off that March, with all management employees following in April on staggered days off. For administrators like herself, that was a challenge.

Stachen: Even though we were on a four-day work week, we still had the same five days of work, so you had to step it up a little bit, and you had to get done what you needed to get done. The plusses were you enjoyed the springtime and the summer, and those little added projects that you had at home got done, and also you were getting paid a portion of your pay through unemployment, so it didn’t hurt as it would if you had a four-day work week and didn’t get paid. Everyone was in it. Everyone saw the turndown of the business. It just made everyone work together as a team, I think, more. And the fact that they felt that the company was doing something for them other than just saying, ‘Hey, we don’t have the work for you. We need to lay you off.’

(sound: MACHINE NOISE)

TUHUS: An employee named Roland with 50 years’ experience is running the stamping machine that shoots out the bearings.

Kevin Newcomb handles shipping for the company and is the union rep for United Auto Workers Local 367, which represents production workers. In his small office off the production floor, he explains how the steel balls get into a bearing.

(sound: LOTS OF METALLIC SNAPPING)

Newcomb: This is the outer part of the bearing; this is the inner part. As you can see in here, there’s a plastic race holding the balls. And on that machine that Roland’s working on over there, this comes down a conveyor, this plastic race gets put into the outer, then it goes to another station and this inner snaps it in there like that, so it holds all the balls in the race in there.

TUHUS: Newcomb shares Stachen’s enthusiasm for the program. He says he never got any complaints from his workers about the day off and loss of a half a days pay.

Newcomb: I liked the idea of it. At least nobody got laid off. And we did talk about it when we had the contract negotiations. I loved it. I spent a lot of time with my grandson. Oh yeah, I liked the time off.

TUHUS: A bill, the “Keep Americans Working Act” was introduced last year in Congress by Connecticut Rep. Rosa DeLauro and Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island, a state with one of the highest unemployment rates in the nation. DeLauro says the Connecticut program works, and she says her federal bill could actually save the government money, by paying workers to keep working.

DeLauro:  It is, I think, a fantastic model. Workers in 33 states are without these benefits. This is about thousands of jobs. This is an opportunity to expand the Work Share programs that are already in the 17 states. It standardizes the program, provides protection for employers and employees, sets up funds for states to create their own programs. We’re  hopeful that other states are going to involve themselves in this effort. It’s a temporary federal financing of 100 percent of the benefits paid to workers for up to 26 weeks, so we’d guarantee that that money would be available during this period of time.

(sound at Hartford Technologies)

TUHUS: Meanwhile, after a full year on furlough, business began picking up at Hartford Technologies and workers went back to full time in March 2010. Pat Stachen says she expects Lincoln Door to be on the program for six months at the most.  For Making Contact, I’m Melinda Tuhus.

(8:59 minutes)

Despite Obama’s words of support of small business, experts say some aren’t relying on government, but more and more on community groups and micro-lenders. That’s what Making Contact correspondent Li Miao Lovett found, talking to micro-entrepreneurs in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Dontaye Ball, founder of Good Foods Catering, helped get his business off the ground through the support of the San Francisco non-profit, Renaissance Entrepreneurship Center. Photo Credit:Tamara Palmer

This segment is part of a 29-minute audio program titled How We Survive: Getting Creative About Jobs.

—-

[MUSIC]

LOVETT: At this farmer’s market in the foggy southern tip of San Francisco, a girl band entertains the lunch crowd, while vendors sell everything from heirloom tomatoes to ethnic food. One booth has a line of customers for pulled-pork sandwiches and tacos.

(Sounds of grill)

Voice at Good Foods booth: “Folks have any questions on the menu here?”

LOVETT: That’s Dontaye Ball. He prepares the pulled pork in a 3-day braising and smoking process. He’s a San Francisco native who grew up on farmers market food. Several years ago, at the age of 19, he ventured onto the streets with his sandwiches.

Ball: “I sold two sandwiches and three minutes later I had a line outside, and the local bar owner was like, ‘When are you coming back?’”

LOVETT: At the same time, Ball continued to work at restaurants, honing his cooking skills. He took the leap to start Good Foods Catering in May 2009, right before the engines of financial lending had ground to a halt.

Ball: “I have so much creativity and so many ideas that they need to be pushed out…people need to have them. So I was like, I’m definitely going the business route.”   “Recession to me  means opportunity. It means opportunity for smaller micropurveyors.”

LOVETT: Amidst the bustle of activity here on a Sunday morning, you wouldn’t know that the country has been in a recession, with almost 7 ½ million jobs lost. While unemployment ranks have swelled, some have turned to generating income on their own, by starting small businesses that may or may not be on the radar. California is the leading state in microenterprise – businesses employing less than 5 people.

Defying the naysayers, entrepreneurs like Ball have persisted despite the tide of bad economic news. Robyn Fountain is program coordinator at Renaissance Entrepreneurship Center, where she has coached Ball in managing his business.

Fountain: That…mobile aspect to his business has enabled him to be successful in this economy where it doesn’t – sort of – work very well to open up a brick-and-mortar business.

LOVETT: Ball needed a formal office for meetings as well as help with bookkeeping. That’s where Renaissance provided the resources. Since launching his catering business, Ball has had to obtain permits for each of the 4 farmer’s markets where he operates, and comply with city ordinances and laws for handling food.

(sound of cars passing in Bayview Hunters Point neighborhood)

LOVETT: Fountain works with residents of Bayview Hunters Point, a community of mostly African American and low-income folks. Lots of people here don’t have access to credit, or lack the credit scores and business experience required for a traditional bank loan. While Dontaye Ball might be a born businessman, Fountain says many people have turned to entrepreneurship since the downturn in the economy. In the last two years, she’s seen a doubling in the number of clients served by Renaissance.

Fountain: “One of the things that’s happening in this recession is that large banks are not lending credit anymore, which I think… is disproportionately affecting small business owners, and one of the things we do is help business owners identify where they need access to credit and-sort of create relationships with them and bankers, and specifically community development lenders, ‘cause that’s a big piece.”

LOVETT: On a sunny Thursday, Fountain meets with Tamika Edwards, a new client with plans to grow her online crafting supplies business. She hands Fountain a business plan.

(People talking: “The reason I wanted to come back today was to get your feedback on my plan…So tell me about your business…”)

LOVETT: Tamika Edwards is a Bayview native with a wealth of business ideas, but not much access to capital. When she lost her job at a large crafting supplies store, Edwards decided to start her own online venture. She’s considering a microloan for the $30,000 she needs to build inventory and grow her business. Edwards says the support from Renaissance will help take her business to the next level.

Edwards: “It takes a village. You can’t do anything by yourself. I’m really happy that there’s opportunities like this not only in the Bayview but in San Francisco.”

LOVETT: Bayview residents like Edwards and Ball have defied the challenges afflicting their neighbors in a community that has been marginalized, according to Robyn Fountain.

Fountain: “If you don’t have education or you’ve been in prison, it’s like nearly impossible to have access to formal employment, specifically the kind of formal employment that would enable you to support a family. So a lot of the time, entrepreneurship is the only way for people to sort of lift themselves out of poverty.”

LOVETT: Small businesses are vital for generating employment in the community. Renaissance Entrepreneurship Center found that on average, three jobs were created by each business they assisted, in addition to full-time employment for the owner.

Nonprofits aren’t the only ones trying to give a leg up to small businesses in this economy. Through the Small Business Association, or SBA, the federal government offers ARC loans as part of the stimulus dollars to business owners in trouble. But Fountain says that the program hasn’t been as attainable as her clients think.

Fountain: “Clients come in and they say, ‘The Obama administration is giving thousands of dollars to business owners,’ and it’s like, not really (laugh)…the SBA decided these things are so special that we have these ridiculous requirements that nobody can meet, so nobody has access to those ARC loans, unfortunately.”

LOVETT: While the ARC loans are modest, microenterprises don’t usually meet the criteria. Small businesses seeking ARC loans must have posted profits and then suffered a setback.

While Renaissance provides support and resources for start-ups, they don’t provide capital. They refer out microlenders, known as community development financial institutions or CDFI’s.

(sound of streetcar on Market Street)

LOVETT: Eric Weaver, CEO of Opportunity Fund, heads up one of the leading CDFI’s in the U.S. He started Opportunity Fund in 1992, when the Clinton administration began to enforce a law encouraging banks to make loans in redlined communities. Weaver saw a chance to reach out to the underserved; that’s why, as a microlender, they take character into account, not just a credit score.

Weaver: “In general you’re often going to find a reluctance to engage with traditional financial institutions which could have to do with…immigration status, language barriers, past experience that have been humiliating.. We want to provide opportunity for people who deserve it and haven’t had it, and we think that’s wrong.”

LOVETT: Since the economic crisis put a freeze on credit, even bankable entrepreneurs have been denied loans. In 2009, Kiva, a key player in microlending abroad, started supporting small business in the U.S.  They partnered with Opportunity Fund and another CDFI, Accion USA.

Weaver: “We didn’t know anything about international microfinance but we just started doing it and we had the same experience as the people that were doing it overseas. The money got paid back, by and large about a 90% repayment rate, and people’s lives improved.”

LOVETT: Many of the businesses financed by Opportunity Fund provide basic services to their communities: they’re truckers, housecleaners, and caterers, providers of health care and childcare. It’s not the sexy high-tech industry associated with the San Francisco Bay Area, but these businesses play a vital role.

Weaver: “You can’t have engineers inventing new software or faster chips if they don’t have a place for their children while they work.”

LOVETT: Weaver says these businesses are the backbone of the economy. And their backers, such as Opportunity Fund, are scaling up their microlending to meet the increased demand. Dontaye Ball recalls President Obama’s focus on small business in his speeches.

Ball: “He talked about small business owners and how if the country was to get out the recession and turn around, it’s up to us to really push that. This country is founded on small business.”

LOVETT: It’s risky to start a small business in these times, and not everyone will see their business grow as Ball has. And yet, the support for microenterprise that we’re seeing on the local level has tremendous impacts on the health of the U.S. economy as a whole. For MAKING CONTACT, I’m Li Miao Lovett.