Posted on: Tuesday, May 18, 2004

EDITORIAL
Federal 'bundling' ban hurts small business

Why would one make a rule that would make it harder if not impossible for workers laid off from small companies to get trained for new jobs?

Beats us.

The U.S. Labor Department has taken the seemingly short-sighted tack of banning states from "bundling" together small groups of laid-off-workers so they can reach the 50-person threshold for national emergency retraining grants.

The Labor Department says the change is meant to make the rules governing those grants simpler and more consistent.

Shouldn't the federal government be more concerned about getting the unemployed back into the work force rather than streamlining their rules?

The anti-bundling rule does not bode well for thinly populated states, and, in the case of Hawai'i, thinly populated islands. Nor does it help O'ahu, where small businesses make up a major part of the economy.

For example, two separate companies on O'ahu could not qualify for the training dollars because they didn't have enough laid-off people. Would the Labor Department prefer these companies lay off more people to meet their minimum?

The message this new rule sends is that the federal government is only interested in helping big business.

We urge the Labor Department to rescind this rule. Bureaucracy should serve the people, not make life easier for bureaucrats and big business.