New York Early Alert and Layoff Aversion Report

New Tools to Take on the Recession: A New York Early Alert System to Avert Layoffs

A Presentation of the Steel Valley Authority

Sponsored by the New York Department of Labor

SEWNStrategic Early Warning NetworkStrategic Early Warning Network

Early AlertNYATEP ConferenceWorkforce New York 2008Creating Opportunities – Aligning Resources

Niagara FallsOctober 30, 2008

Quick overview, SVA and the SEWN Network

WORKING TOGETHER TO SAVE JOBS

WHAT IS THE STRATEGIC EARLY WARNING NETWORK?

The Steel Valley Authority is a unique development agency founded in 1986 to retain and revitalize the region’s economic base and preserve jobs.

In 1993, the State of Pennsylvania charged the Steel Valley Authority with developing a Strategic Early Warning Network to help save area companies and jobs. Since then, the Steel Valley Authority has helped scores of companies and saved thousands of jobs.

Our Strategic Early Warning Network provides a wide variety of professional and consulting services at no charge. We work with all interested parties: workers, management and owners.

Our only objective is to save jobs in Pennsylvania.

Experience shows us that a company’s problems are easier to address before they reach the crisis stage. It is also easier and less costly to save an existing local company than to create a new business or attract one from outside the region.

With 48 hours of your call, the Steel Valley Authority’s staff will contact your company’s management, owners or employees to set up site visits and plant tours. We will assess the situation and help to define your company’s critical problems. Then, working with all parties concerned, we’ll inventory all available resources and help develop solutions.

Saving Jobs and Manufacturers is Possible

Newton Falls is a village of 400 inSaint Lawrence County in the Adirondack Park. The village was named for James Newton, who built a sawmill in 1894 which became the Newton Falls Paper Mill.

The mill closed in 2000, taking with it more than 100 jobs. According to the NYT, most of the 75 houses in this hamlet soon fell into disrepair, their frames thrashed by weather and hardship. Some families moved and small firms closed.

Saving Jobs and Manufacturers is Possible

The mill was reopened in late 2007 as Newton Falls FinePaper. Through the efforts of former mill workers and townresidents, a Canadian company was found to buy the Mill, and will spend $20 million to upgrade. New Falls FinePaper will bring back 120 workers.

Saving Jobs and Companies

“As if in a fairy tale, the shuttered mill has come back to life, thanks to a healthy dose of luck, a longtime paper executive’s willingness to take a chance, and the unbending commitment of two men to the place where they had labored for two decades.

“For eight months now, the mill has churned out an average of 200 tons of coated paper a day, or 2,000 feet per minute, 54 percent more than it did before it went dark. It runs 24 hours a day, every day…”

Among the workers who returned are Andy Leroux and Levi Durham Jr., longtime friends and residents.

Saving Jobs and Companies

“While the mill was closed, Mr. Leroux and Mr. Durham lubricated machines, dusted crevices and corners, shoveled snow and occasionally called former co-workers to ask whether they would be willing to return were the mill to make paper again.”

They also gave tours to prospective buyers. Those who seemed interested in reviving the plant found it heated in the winter. Those who wanted to tear it apart and sell the machines overseas did not. “We had to do what we had to do to get our mill going again,” shrugged Mr. Leroux, 44, a third-generation mill worker.“

• “Many credit them with saving the mill — and, along with it, Newton Falls.”

On the Economy and Economic Development

What’s Happening in the Economy?

NEW YORK TIMES New York Report

Friday, September 19, 2008

Downturn Drives Up New York’s Jobless Rates The unemployment rates for New York City and State shot up in August as the rapidly spiraling economic downturn left more people without jobs, the state’s Department of Labor said on Thursday.

The city’s unemployment rate rose to 5.8 percent from 5 percent in July — the largest monthly increase in more than 30 years — as about 5,200 private-sector jobs were eliminated, the department reported. Many of the layoffs came in the tumbling financial sector, which is one of the city’s biggest employers and the provider of nearly one-fourth of its annual wages and salaries.

New York State lost 250,000 jobs, or 25% of its manufacturing jobs, in the last decade. By 2007, manufacturing dropped to 550,000 jobs.*

As of May, 2008, the NY-DOL’s Division of Research and Statistics reported continued broad-based manufacturing job losses—a loss of 17,600 jobs since the prior year.

The June 2008 Empire State Manufacturing Survey, conducted by the Federal Reserve, reported a further slide in its manufacturing index.

*Data from Fiscal Policy Institute

New York’ State’s Manufacturing Jobs?

Why Manufacturing Still Matters

Despite these problems, New York’s

“hard industries” contributed $63 billion

in value-added to the state economy

in 2005 and were:

Tied with the finance and insurance super-sector for the fifth largest source of private jobs in the state.

Tied with health care as the fifth largest source of value added.

A company’s problems are easier to address before they reach the crisis stage. It is also easier and less costly to save an existing local firm than to create a new business or attract one from outside.

Within 48 hours of a call, Retention Staff contact company managers, owners and labor reps to visit the firm, to assess the situation, define critical problems.

Then working with all parties, they inventory all resources and help develop solutions.

Why Early Warning?

Layoff aversion strategies are likely to work best with:

•Early identification of a troubled firm and affected workers

•Adequate lead time to organize an effective response

•Broad partnerships that mobilize education, workforce and economic development resources

•Sufficient capacity through outside business consultants or state personnel to assess the viability of firms and implement retention strategies

(Source: NGA Center for Best Practices)

Making Layoff Aversion Work

New York City: Focused Sectoral Strategies Model The New York Industrial Retention Network (NYIRN) NYIRN is a non-profit corporation that directs or brokers a number of key focused services to industry sectors.

Massachusetts: State Financial Intervention Model The state-chartered Economic Stabilization Trust (EST) provides turnaround management assistance to companies, in addition to financing ESOPs and business loans. The state Workforce Department is also exploring a new early warning system.

Cleveland: Neighborhood-based Industrial Cooperation ModelThe Westside Industrial Retention and Expansion Network –WIRE-Net--is a membership-based non-profit development organization that seeks to retain and grow manufacturing-related businesses and to provide employment opportunities in manufacturing.

How are States and Communities Responding?

Pennsylvania: Statewide Core Services Contractor Model SVA’s Strategic Early Warning Network (SEWN), operating as a state municipal authority, directly manages and brokers professional turnaround and consulting services. SEWN also operates an early warning system.

Ohio: Assessment Model, Utilizing Consultants Kent State’s Ohio Employee Ownership Center (OEOC) provides funding and technical assistance for pre-feasibility studies to assess turnarounds or buyouts. The State’s workforce department also set up a $300,000 turnaround fund.

Missouri: Regional Retention/Warning Teams Model The Missouri WIBs constructed regional Business Retention and Early Warning Teams, utilizing coordinators, to broker assessment services to firms (from MEPs, etc.)

How are States and Commnities Responding?

In 1993, the State of Pennsylvania commissioned the SVA to construct an early alert network to help save area companies and jobs. In 2005, SEWN expanded to 49 counties.

As of 2008, SVA has directly impacted 700 firms and saved or created over 14,000 jobs.

SEWN provides direct services:

•Financial restructuring

•Buyouts and ownership transition

•Labor-management assistance

•Operations and cost management

In Pennsylvania, SEWN…

How’d we do in 2007-2008?

Assisted an estimated 70 manufacturing businesses

Had direct impact on 17 firms, retaining/creating 670 jobs

Maintained a cost-benefit of $1,000-2,000 per job retained (historically under $5,000)

Leveraged additional capital and investment funds for troubled businesses

Launched a statewide inter-agency collaboration to respond to auto suppliers

And on the Auto Crisis, the Governor Responded…

…And the SVA Led the Response Team.

•

• Commonwealth of PENNSYLVANIA• Office of the Governor

• Harrisburg

•• As a Pennsylvania manufacturer participating in the automotive supply chain,

you are already well aware of the tremendous restructuring the U.S. automotive manufacturing sector continues to experience….

• To help our Pennsylvania manufactures adapt to these structural changes, I have organized a specific outreach initiative to focus state resources on our motor vehicle parts industry, which is quickly becoming an at-risk market for many of our manufacturers.

•• Edward G. Rendell• Governor•

The Nuts and Bolts of Early Warning…

Key Steps

• Early Warning Analysis and Assessment--Early Warning Monitoring--Pre-feasibility of Companies-in-Stress

• Response and Layoff Aversion --Core Retention Steps--Sectoral/Cluster Strategies--Workplace Change and Training

Early Warning: What it is… Early warning is a multi-stakeholder approach toidentifying companies at risk. It seeks to: Identify individual firms that may be at-risk to develop

and implement response strategies that prevent layoffs and support the firms in remaining viable;

Identify potential layoffs of workers that can not be prevented to be able to provide adjustment services as quickly as possible; and

Identify labor market trends to develop and implement economic/workforce development strategies.

So, Logical Network Stakeholders are?

Regional Rapid Response Offices Regional Development Offices Workforce Investment Boards (WIBs) City, county and regional development groups Modernization Extension Programs (MEPs) Industry associations Labor councils and L/M groups Banks and investment groups, Independent managers and consultants Industry policy groups

NY Early Alert Stakeholders

State StakeholdersAs a starting point, New York’s workforce and economic development departments have aligned their regionaloffices into ten divisions, potentially greatly easing information sharing, communications and coordination. NY Department of Labor NY Empire State Development Corporation NY Manufacturing Extension Partnerships (ITAC, etc.) NY State Energy Research and Development Authority NYSTAR and Centers of Excellence SUNY and Universities Local Governments and Workforce/Development

Agencies

NY Early Alert Stakeholders

Partner StakeholdersAmong other critical stakeholders from the private, laborand non-profit sectors:• Manufacturers Associations • Business Council of New York State • Regional Business Councils • The New York State Economic Development Council • International Unions, CLCs • Workforce Development Institute • New York Industrial Retention Network • Policy and Workforce Groups, like the FPI and

Monitoring and Analysis

Early Warning Sources

General DOL Monthly Workforce

Industry Data Unemployment

Insurance Claim Filing Notices Reports -Individual Claims Records -UI Claims Summary

Reports -Mass Layoff Report

ES-202 data -Employer Births and

Deaths Information

DOL Rapid Response WARN Reports (The

Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act)

Trade Adjustment Act Petitions

Workforce Intelligence Reports

Shared Work Requests

Early Warning Sources

General ESDC Business loan

delinquencies

MEPs Business Problems

Industry Clusters DOL Regional

Transformation Partnerships

ESDC Cluster Report

Early Warning Sources

Private Sector, OtherInformation

Banks: Loan Delinquencies, Banks

District Court: Records of Bankruptcies

Direct Referrals

Manufacturing Assn’s. Chambers Local Officials Local Economic

Development Groups Union Reps and

Workers

WARN as Starting Point

Through the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (WARN), employers must give local Chief Elected Officials, the State Rapid Response Dislocated Worker Unit, and workers, and their representative, advance notice of a plant closing or mass layoff.

Thus, an informal “network” of informational channels already exists. The logical network of early warning “informants” include states, local mayors and council members, local unions, civic and religious institutions, chambers, and other institutions.

Research Tools: LMI

Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor

The SVA has an agreement with the State Labor Department workforce information system to predict closures. DLI runs data system that tracks firms with inordinate layoffs and UI claims, against industry trends.

D&B and other financial services firms offer:For a cost, a stressed company list--companies that can be selected by industry, that have high financial stress scores. It is a strong predictive tool.

How is it Used?

The SEWN Network discreetly shares it:

•With state business calling agents…

•With state development offices…

•To determine if visit or call needed.

Research Tools: Dun and Bradstreet

Two years ago, the SEWN program worked with multiple referral services in Pennsylvania, engaging 64 referred clients. This included 4 from L&I and 2 direct WARN notices, 13 from the private sector, 7 from local economic development and 9 from GAT. The following chart shows the historical breakdown of SEWN cases by referrals.

 

Referral Sources:

SEWN Cases By Referrals

2 8 717

4 2 2 10 4 4 1 3 4 1

87

68

54 53

4339 37

34

23

15 14 13

6 7

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

Unio

n

Managem

ent/O

wner

Local E

con D

ev.

Private

Secto

r

L&

I (o

ther

than

warn

)

WA

RN

Notice

Sta

te / R

egio

nal

Econ D

ev.

GA

T

Oth

er

Public

Sourc

e

IRC

New

s

NE

C (

Not E

lsew

here

Cla

ssifie

d)

BR

EP

Public

Offic

ial

2006-2007

Total Years

Early Warning Assessment:

Providing pre-feasibility assessments

to determine continued financial and

market viability of business or facility.

Response and Layoff Aversion

Response and Layoff Aversion

Sectoral StrategiesDeveloping urban and rural models targetingindustrial sectors in geographic areas.

Workplace Training/ChangeSupporting high-performance workplaces to: promote incumbent worker training and labor-

management cooperation, etc. improve working conditions, stabilize employment improve performance

Workplace Training and Change By addressing the training needs and knowledge

practices of workers, the workplace change approach does not just provide training on specific skills and techniques of the job or production.

Workplace change and training models include modernization skills upgrading and cross-training, “high performance” workplaces, and “learning” workplaces.

We should promote greater cooperation between management and workers in production techniques as firms attempt to re-direct operations or upgrade their production capabilities.

Response and Layoff Aversion

Core Retention Steps:

Financial Restructuring Company Buyouts Business Continuity Operations and Cost Management Labor-Management Cooperation

So, what are the alternatives? Financial restructuring Cost reviews New market development and conversion to

new products Incumbent worker training, work-sharing Bringing in new management Labor-management cooperation Succession planning Employee and management buyouts Strategic company buyouts Modernization and technology upgrades

For New York, A Joint Venture?

ESDCMECs

NYSTARNYSERDA

DOL

NEW YORKEARLY ALERT

NETWORK

For New York, A Joint Venture?

NY Early Alert NetworkStaffed by

Professionals and Consultants

Partners/Advisors:•Labor•Manufacturers•Business Asst’s•Cities and Counties

Special Funds:•ESOPs•Assessments•Sector Projects

Regional Pilots•Western state•Northern state•New York City

Why we’re here: Good Jobs Now, and in Future

Western PA SEWN Main OfficeSteel Valley Authority1112 South Braddock AvenueSuite 300Swissvale, PA. 15218

412-342-0534 (Voice)412-342-0538 (Fax)

Toll Free 1-866-SVA-8832www.steelvalley.org

ContactInformation