Regarding Reinstatement of Funding for America's Jobline®
A2003-01: Regarding Reinstatement of Funding for America's Jobline®
Adopted In : 2003
Topics : Employment
WHEREAS, America's Jobline® is a public service provided free to any job-seeker by state agencies, with assistance from the National Federation of the Blind and the United States Department of Labor; and
WHEREAS, JobLine® is an accessible and useful tool not only for blind people, but also for any job-seeker who has difficulty accessing a computer or printed material, or who prefers to use a telephone to search current information about job openings and apply for jobs electronically; and
WHEREAS, the Minnesota Workforce Center system funded JobLine® for a number of years, but in July 2003, this valuable service became unavailable to Minnesotans because the workforce center system partners wrongly concluded that it was not used enough to justify continued funding; and
WHEREAS, many blind job-seekers in Minnesota did use and depend on JobLine® for the ability to conduct informational research and perform job searches independently; and
WHEREAS, the workforce centers deliberately did not promote JobLine® as they promoted their other services--most of which are not usable by the 74% of working-aged blind people who are unemployed or underemployed; Now therefore
BE IT RESOLVED by the National Federation of the Blind of Minnesota in convention assembled this 2nd day of November, 2003, in the city of St. Paul, that this organization call upon Minnesota's workforce Center System to reinstate America's JobLine® in Minnesota and to publicize far and wide its availability and benefits for any job-seeker with a telephone.