Trust, but verify

Here in the patch, everyone knows the answer to the question of, “Which came first, the immigrants or the coal mines?

The answer is, of course, the coal mines.

We have scoured the history books, and can’t find ANY reference to H.C. Frick even remotely saying something like, “We want to open a new coal mine and call it Continental No. 2, and build a whole town around it to boot, but we can’t do that because we just can’t find enough qualified workers.”

No siree, Bob. Good old H.C. Frick built the mine and built the patch, and the workers came, proving the old adage, “If you build it, they will come.”

Can you imagine anyone recruiting hundreds or thousands of immigrants from Europe and the deep South, without a job for them to go to?

Like a magnet to steel, people go to where the jobs go. That’s what happened in the 1950s when a mass exodus from Fayette County landed many former residents in places like Cleveland and Detroit. It’s what happens everywhere else today … except for Fayette County, Pennsylvania.

Here, Fay-Penn Economic Development Council wants to blame the county’s public education system for the failure to provide enough qualified workers to meet employers’ needs, and is lobbying hard to build a new vo-tech school on Fay-Penn property.

“Every employer we meet with tells us he is having a hard time finding people to fill his jobs,” Fay-Penn head honcho Mike Krajovic said in the Herald-Standard on March 27. Krajovic went on to say, “The problem is not a lack of jobs but education.”

Fay-Penn officials then went on to say there are 400 good--paying jobs “available right now” in the county.

While the newspaper dutifully reported this statement as fact, no one bothered to ask Fay-Penn a very valid question: Where, exactly, are these jobs? Interested and qualified workers should know where to send their resumes. It’s not a tough question to ask -- if you have the courage to call the bluff.

This lack of verification didn’t stop the Herald-Standard from jumping on the Fay-Penn bandwagon, authoring an April 10 editorial which praised Fay-Penn’s idea to hold forums across the county in an attempt to address this issue.

Here are three statements from that editorial, following by the general reaction here in the patch:

1. The good news is that the jobs apparently are here. Now we just have to find a way to train our young people so they can fill them.

* Apparently? Isn’t it the job of a newspaper to ask the tough questions and provide a complete picture? Would they print that someone apparently robbed a liquor store, or voted for a tax increase, or won the lottery? Whatever happened to “trust, but verify”?

2. School officials have contended that they don’t have the funding for a new vo-tech school, especially given the fiscal crunch they are currently facing. They certainly can’t be blamed for wanting to keep a lid on any tax increases for local residents in these tough economic times, but they have to realize that all ideas have to be weighed and given careful consideration. Nothing should be taken off the table, even a possible tax increase.

* You must be kidding us -- a tax hike so that Fay-Penn can muscle its way into the education system? Fay-Penn’s mission statement, taken directly from its federal tax return, is “to promote economic welfare in Fayette County.” They should stick to and master that task.

Maybe Mike Krajovic, the $180,000-a-year man, can pay higher taxes (Part II of Fay-Penn's Form 990 for 2009, avaiable for free viewing at Guidestar.com) … but most residents in the county, where median household income in 2008 was $34,050, cannot. http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/42/42051.html

3. Simply put, we all need to find a way to work together to keep our young people here, and the best way to do that is provide them with good-paying jobs. They certainly shouldn’t be forced to move elsewhere in the search for better jobs.

* If other Fayette County employers are like the Herald-Standard, which did away with its pension plan for new workers, froze it for existing ones, and cut wages 10 percent, is it any surprise that they can‘t attract or retain employees?

Here in the patch, our sentiment sides with Dr. Phil Savini, superintendent of Brownsville School District, who in his own commentary asked, “Who else will Fay-Penn blame?”

Every year, hundreds of Fayette County youths go on to college and technical school and acquire the skills and education needed to succeed, in all fields. The vast majority never come back, not because they lack qualifications, but because the job opportunities simply don’t exist.