Welcome to Wisconsin — Volunteers Will Be Fined.

With unemployment figures in Wisconsin growing every day, it’s understandable lawmakers feel pressure to make new jobs out of thin air. But unless Gov. Jim Doyle revises his recent budget proposal, it may be impossible for future volunteers to make a difference in Wisconsin.

The change would be small but significant. Under the current law, Wisconsin is required to pay union workers competitive rates when they are working on any public projects, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. This means union workers will have state employment for big projects and be paid similar rates to what a private firm would receive. This system seems both logical and functional. Unfortunately, any municipal project that is being supported by state funds in excess of $2,000 would no longer be able to accept help from local volunteers. Even if community members have worked to fundraise for local initiatives through additional donations, if the project receives any public funding, the project will be affected by this change. So without relying on local volunteers, very few fundraising projects would be able to build new playgrounds or facilities in their community because they would be forced to pay the high wages of union workers.

While Doyle is clearly attempting to counter unemployment in Wisconsin, siphoning jobs from volunteer initiatives is not the way to go. Doyle has already shown he is working to stop job losses throughout the state. According to his website, Doyle announced last month a $5.89 million “for Strategic Workforce Initiatives” over the next two years to help employers hire workers in high-growth areas of the economy.

Yet Doyle is still under heavy pressure from the Republican Party of Wisconsin, saying Wisconsin’s Democrats are “Killing Wisconsin Jobs” on their website. With such heavy fire from Republicans, it is understandable Doyle would be attempting to create whatever job opportunities he can. Despite the intense external pressure the Governor’s office faces regarding the need for jobs, eliminating volunteer opportunities would only be detrimental. Altering the language of the proposal is a necessary change to assure that volunteering will not go extinct in Wisconsin.

It is unlikely this issue will become a full-blown scandal since the proposal’s shift in public projects seems to be motivated by good intentions. After all, outlawing volunteer projects would be tantamount to political suicide for any legislator. As Dan Thompson, the executive director of the Wisconsin League of Municipalities, said in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, “I can’t imagine the governor or legislators wanting to prevent donated projects from being built.” The proposal’s goal is simply to provide jobs for union workers by eliminating competition from free sources of labor.

But volunteers are not the enemy here. The real problem is companies who are allowed to clean up on contracts by exploiting the labor of undocumented workers for next to nothing, while concurrently cheating unionized workers out of jobs. Regardless of one’s personal stance on the immigration issue, everyone can agree these companies are run by embezzling highwaymen who take jobs away from legal citizens while cheating undocumented and disadvantaged workers in the process. Shamelessly exploitive companies make the existing challenge of creating jobs in a recession a nearly insurmountable task and they are the real villains here, not poorly worded proposals attempting to provide employment to union workers.

What the heads of Wisconsin’s labor unions need to realize is, even though legislators are trying to do as much as possible to provide union members with work during an economic crisis, there is no such thing as recession job security. As much as legislators would love to guarantee you and your friends all spots in their lifeboats, there’s no saving seats, even if you called it. The Wisconsin Department of Revenue estimates that unemployment will continue to rise until it peaks in early 2010. This means despite legislative efforts, layoffs will likely continue. Criminalizing volunteers will not create jobs as much as it will bring community enrichment programs to a screeching halt.

Everyone is hurting during this recession and it will get worse before it gets better, but that makes volunteering more important than ever. If people cannot come together and help neighbors and friends without asking anything in return, weathering the recession will be that much harder. We all want a spot in a lifeboat, but legislatively tossing volunteer projects overboard will only undermine local initiatives and hurt future community projects in Wisconsin.

Casey Skeens ([email protected]) is a senior majoring in French and English