About Us

A VOICE FOR WORKERS

The Workforce Investment Act of 1998 requires each state and local Workforce Investment Board (WIB) to include two or more labor representatives to represent the interests of all workers in their WIB’s jurisdiction.

The AFL-CIO Working for America Institute has historically helped these labor representatives to serve more effectively on their WIBs.  Early in 2005, a group of labor representatives (known as the High Road Network Organizing Committee) sought to enhance this provision of services and began forming a new WIB labor representative membership group within the Institute: The High Road Network.  The Network will operate as a project of the Institute and will provide WIBs and their individual members with a range of services to connect more job seekers to their community’s better jobs.
Among the benefits of membership for a labor representative, or other WIB member, are:

• Voting membership in the project and a registration discount at an annual conference;
• A website with training materials, events calendar and policy updates;
• A listserv for WIB labor members;
• Experienced resource people for state and regional labor training and other events

Practical advice and support to help WIB labor reps and their allies:

• Strengthen their role in strategic planning
• Review state and local plans or agreements
• Set self-sufficiency and job quality standards
• Use sector-based approaches to workforce development
• Encourage labor-management partnership engagement with the public workforce system
• Evaluate training proposals
• Understand performance measurement systems

While Workforce Investment Boards will profit from better-informed, more experienced labor representatives, direct benefits to the Boards will also include:

• Assistance in filling labor vacancies on the Boards;
• Orientation for new labor representatives;
• Support in recruiting important local employers to fill business vacancies on the Boards
• Access to certain areas of the organization’s website