(upbeat music)
- Hello and welcome to our new season of In Wisconsin.
I'm Patty Low.
This week, find out how this manufacturer's struggle
to save the life of this company affects your wallet.
Meet a family uprooted first by Hurricane Katrina
and now weathering another storm.
- We still have no sense of direction.
It's still like nowhere to go.
- With the state primary less than a week away,
learn how changes at the polls will affect how you vote.
And take flight with winged wildlife
at one of our state's natural areas in Wisconsin.
- Major funding for In Wisconsin is provided by
the people of a lient energy who bring safe, reliable, and
environmentally friendly energy to keep homes, neighborhoods,
and life in Wisconsin running smoothly.
A lient energy, offering energy saving ideas on the web.
UW Health, providing specialty and primary care
for all ages throughout Wisconsin.
Information on UW Health Physicians and Clinics
and on University of Wisconsin Hospital
is available on the web.
And Wisconsin's Technical Colleges,
providing local education for the crucial occupations
essential to our communities, Wisconsin's Technical
Colleges, communities first.
Additional support for coverage of the great lakes
is provided by the Wisconsin Coastal Management Program
and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
- We face a number of serious problems in Wisconsin,
high taxes, rising healthcare costs, school funding.
These are problems that our next governor will need to solve.
In the weeks leading up to the election,
we'll examine what the gubernatorial candidates say
they do to fix these problems.
Our series is called What's the Plan?
And we begin in Milwaukee, where Frederica Freiberg reports
that the challenges facing state manufacturers impact all of us.
- Experts agree the health of the state economy
depends on the economic health of its largest city, Milwaukee.
And it's manufacturing that remains the bedrock
of our economic health, manufacturing.
Making things like the cookware and automotive parts
manufactured at this Milwaukee plant.
But even for 100 year old companies, it's
a whole new world.
- There's one more robotic longer we just installed
that's going to be started up in the full production
by the third quarter of next year.
- REST manufacturing company manager, Stephen Pankowski,
gives a tour of his metal production plant,
including its robots that speed up the welding process.
- The rest of the people's quality gets uploaded
from our mainframe to this PC.
- And its computerized system that has replaced the need
for workers to manually calibrate measurements.
They don't turn knobs and use protractors anymore.
Instead, they are proficient on computers
and required to understand the inner workings
of each giant press so they can troubleshoot.
- People that we have on staff, the people that we have
on the plant floor allowed us to turn very quickly,
and change very quickly and be flexible with our operations,
be flexible with our processes.
As the market started to change, as the customer base
started to change, as the industries that we were
focusing on started to change, we had to do different training,
different type of processes, different type of
operations out in the plant.
- For example, the plant is set up,
so this worker performs multiple tasks instead of just one
that reduces the number of employees needed
and the cost of doing business.
- Normally I would rather just do one step of the thing
over here I would do the least that
to do the final thing, but different.
- But perhaps the biggest switch for this company,
the move to value added product.
Here, that means combining metal parts
to make a more expensive piece, buyers will pay more
for one stop shopping.
- And once the assembly has finished,
to put it into this, what we call our
polky-o-checking fixture, polky-o-canza Japanese
term for mistake-proofing.
The manager says it's that kind of value added attention
to quality that allows this company to compete
with places like China and not just hold on,
but boost profits and grow.
Rest manufacturing is adding a third shift of workers.
Outfront on the plant, a banner says it all, now hiring.
But even with wages between 10 and $24 an hour,
it's hard for this company to find applicants,
applicants that can pass reading, writing,
and math tests, who can multitask and
change gears quickly.
- It's extremely hard.
It's extremely hard.
It's difficult in the interview and process
and the recruiting process to find the market out there,
find the right people out there to come in and fill that pool.
- And according to a new survey of manufacturers
in Southeast Wisconsin, it's the same all over,
a lack of quality workers.
Rest manager, Steve Pankowski, says his company
has traditionally worked with technical colleges,
but has now turned to local high schools,
hoping that working directly with teachers
to develop curriculum will deliver a new generation
of skilled tool and die employees.
Rest offers a snapshot of the changing needs
of manufacturers in Wisconsin, a need for skilled workers,
new training and methods, new technologies.
Experts say old-style manufacturers in Milwaukee
are destined to buckle under the weight of global competition.
They say just enough have modernized to
provide job growth, but more manufacturers
must climb on board.
With that backdrop, we ask the candidates for governor,
what's the plan for growing manufacturing jobs
in Southeast Wisconsin?
Democratic incumbent governor Jim Doyle.
- We've really committed to modernizing
improving manufacturing in this state,
a full commitment to lean manufacturing,
and much of the work we do at the state level,
our commitment to manufacturing, extension partnership
of helping to modernize improved manufacturing,
our commitment to worker training
to really help workers get the skills they need
for the new kind of manufacturing jobs.
- Republican gubernatorial candidate Mark Green
proposes another approach to grow jobs.
- I'm gonna replace the Department of Commerce
with a public-private Wisconsin Economic Development
Corporation, one that will operate like and move
at the speed of business.
The WEDC will be led by a nonpartisan 12 member
board of directors.
I myself will serve as chairman of the board,
and I'll appoint a cabinet-level CEO
to run this corporation.
- Green says for any company looking to create new jobs,
he would also install a job line that rings directly
to the governor's office, and Green Party candidate
for governor Nelson Iseman.
- If we elected a leader who wasn't influenced
by government, by corporate contributions,
and was free to serve the people of Wisconsin,
that leader, that governor, would advocate
for universal healthcare.
- If we took universal healthcare off the backs
of the business people trying to do startup business,
they would be able to be much more innovative.
- One thing the candidates agree on
is the need for better education.
Jim Doyle says that's why he's called for requirements
of three years of math and science for high
school graduation.
Mark Green says to better prepare the future workforce,
he would attack K-12 schools in Milwaukee.
And Nelson Iseman says he wants the state
to fully fund education, including college tuition.
Additionally, Jim Doyle touts tax law changes
during his tenure that help manufacturers.
Mark Green says he would give employers tax credits
for creating good paying jobs and for employers
who cover tuition for their workers.
Nelson Iseman would start a statewide volunteer jobs program
for college graduates to lend their skills to employers
in return for their state-funded tuition.
- Our exports are new.
- We took the candidates plans to a Wisconsin expert
on job growth.
Professor Samus White is director of the Center
for Workforce Development at UW Milwaukee.
- We have to have a work.
- White listened to what the candidates had to say.
White says Doyle's efforts are on target,
but flawed by lack of funding.
- We have a grow Wisconsin initiative.
We have a workforce initiative in Southeast Wisconsin.
Half a million dollars isn't gonna go very far.
So what we need is to develop new resources,
a stronger state, the economy, so that there are more
resources to direct toward these issues.
- White says Green's plan of becoming, quote,
"zar" of an economic development corporation seemed vague.
- That implies that what we need to do
is attract a lot of new businesses to the state.
It sounds good.
We have been terrible at doing that.
What I see is our future depends on
the expansion of existing businesses
and the growing of new businesses,
because we're much more likely to succeed
with who is here than who it is we might bring in.
- As for Iseman's plan for universal healthcare,
White says business leaders are increasingly interested.
He says there are examples where full out social spending
makes a mark on job creation.
- Who are the most entrepreneurial
economies at the moment?
The ones that you wouldn't put on your list, Finland.
High tax rates, free education, a lot of free services,
but 50% income tax.
What have they done?
They all have provided opportunities for people
to get educated and to create.
It's tough to get there.
- For his part, the expert on these matters
believes the best plan for growing jobs
and workers to fill them lies in urban education,
and not just tech schools, colleges, or K-12,
but in giving Wisconsin citizens a leg up on the competition
by starting public education in preschool.
- In the coming weeks, we'll examine property taxes,
healthcare costs, and school funding
as part of our ongoing series, What's the Plan?
Wisconsin's primary election is September 12th,
and it's the first one held since a federal rule
standardized election procedures throughout the country.
Art Hackett tells us how the Help America Vote Act
will affect you on election day.
- Next week will be a voting landmark
for Howard Kaufman of Milwaukee.
Under the new federal law passed in 2002,
all polling places are supposed to have
some sort of automated system to assist people
with disabilities.
Kaufman can't read the ballot because he's blind.
Kaufman demonstrates how the machine called the
"Automark" scans the same ballot everybody else uses,
but reads it to the voter overhead phones.
In the past, blind voters would have an election
official read the choices to them,
often with several poll watchers as witnesses.
- You know, it is the right that every citizen has
of a private and secret ballot.
- The auto-mark allows voters who have trouble
holding a pen steady to vote on their own
using a touchscreen.
This isn't the only technological change.
Next Tuesday's primary will also be the first election held
using another new federal requirement,
the statewide voter registration system.
In the past, Milwaukee kept its own list
of who was eligible to vote.
Now registrations are tracked on a state elections board
computer in Madison.
- We've been on it now for two months.
There were some problems initially when we went live,
but the state election board staff has been very helpful.
They've been in our office working with us all along.
And to be quite honest, my staff are very pleased with it.
- Some local elections officials are not as happy
with the system.
- Well, there's a hard to read form for one thing.
And it's hard for people to read when they are filling it out
and meant for us to enter.
And we have to enter things in two registration systems,
the old registration system, and the new statewide
voter registration system.
- That's because the new system still can't
produce custom reports used to mail absentee
ballots to voters who need them on
a regular basis.
- There are some Wisconsin communities like Verokra
that have had no problem changing to the new system
from the old system because there was no old system at all.
- Jim felt us discovered this when he tried
to find a voter list to start a petition drive.
- The person list, right.
- And I talked to the town clerk and she didn't think
they had a current one.
And I talked to the county clerk and they didn't
have one available.
- There was no voter registration.
The pollists were there.
They were blank and felt out as the voters came in.
You got a potential of only little over 200 people on award.
Well, you know everybody.
- What may be the most important change
under the new federal law affects voters
who register at the polls?
If they have a driver's license or state ID card,
they'll have to provide the number.
If they don't have a license, they can use the
last four digits of their Social Security number
or sign a forms wearing they don't have either one.
If they can't remember the numbers,
they can still cast a provisional ballot.
But they'll have to return with the numbers
before the vote will be counted.
Find out more about the candidates
competing in the primary by going to WisconsinVote.org,
our election year online resource.
One of the races that gets narrowed down in the primary
is for state attorney general.
You can help make your voting decision
by tuning into what those candidates have to say
on this week's Here and Now.
It airs Friday night at seven.
(upbeat music)
Even as we look ahead to the fall elections,
this time of year has us reflecting
on two devastating national disasters.
It will be five years next week since the terrorist attack
on the World Trade Center.
Life forever changed that day and many of us still
struggle to understand how the world has shifted.
Wisconsin Public Television will air a series
of special programs on Monday the 11th,
including America Rebuilds 2, Return to Ground Zero,
the film airs at 8 p.m.
and follows how victims' families and others
are trying to move forward.
We also just marked one year since Hurricane Katrina hit,
a disaster that killed more than 1,000
and left tens of thousands homeless.
In the weeks and months following Katrina,
some of those people were relocated to Wisconsin.
Federica Freiberg has been following the progress
of one of those families over the past year
and reports that their experience is best described
as bittersweet.
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A sunny day in early summer finds the brew sisters
from New Orleans dangling their feet in the pool
at their apartment complex in Cateh?e.
It's peace, right?
This neighborhood, when we don't have the word
about our children to go outside and play,
without getting into nothing, you don't have to worry
about him police all night.
Without those worries, the family set out last fall
to make a new start in the safety of suburban Milwaukee.
At Christmas time, they were surrounded by family
and holiday decorations in their small apartment.
And one of the brew girls was beyond grateful.
Because it was this perfect.
Like, before we never had nothing,
but now we have everything we dream of.
Because what this family escaped from was a nightmare.
I had a baby girl and I had my baby sister.
And my nephew, they was...
Cherika Brew cannot forget escaping the hurricane floods.
She carried the smallest children through
chest deep water, making it on that frantic
day to the super-dome.
She had no idea where her mother was,
no idea where her other two sisters were.
And she had her sister, Cherika, and does little boy with her.
It was her who would know that I didn't know where he was
and what his condition was.
On the day, Cherika Brew arrived in Wisconsin.
She pled with officials here, including the governor,
to help her find her son.
The hurricane had separated five-year-old
Brian from his mother because he had been
visiting with his aunt when the water rose.
Her son and his aunt found refuge at the super-dome
and were eventually evacuated to Houston.
As for Cheranda, rescuers plucked her and her baby
off the streets of New Orleans and flew them 1,000
miles north for shelter.
They arrived in Milwaukee with nearly 200 other evacuees
on a FEMA chartered airplane last September.
We thought we was going to text everybody who
was on their plane.
Thought we was going to text it.
That's what they told us.
Instead, the evacuees found themselves in Wisconsin,
many carrying their only belongings
in black plastic garbage bags as they got off
the plane in Milwaukee.
The bedraggled hurricane-shocked evacuees
were escorted by air-national guard soldiers
off the tarmac toward safety and disaster services.
The Wisconsin soldier who escorted Cheranda Brew
was Lieutenant Colonel Jim Pelagrand,
also a commercial airline pilot.
She told the Colonel she was missing her kindergartener.
I was touched by her story when she got off the airplane.
And so the military man took uncommon action.
OK. OK, that's what
we're working on now.
We're just trying to find out where you're at, exactly.
Colonel Pelagrand located the boy and his aunts
at a shelter in Houston and had them all flown to Milwaukee.
The pilot also found the boy's grandmother
and another of her daughters who were taking shelter
in different states.
[INAUDIBLE]
And he said he was going to find the clothes.
And what happened?
It did.
At first, the Brew family stayed at the Red Cross shelter,
then a hotel, and finally, the Cudahay apartment complex.
The children started classes in the fourth school
they'd attended since the hurricane hit.
Through it, all the air guard pilot and his family
offered help and support.
These people actually kept mourning my mind
to comprehend that they do.
But despite the carrying of complete strangers
and the sense of safety for the children,
there was always something missing in Wisconsin
for these hurricane evacuees and income.
That's what really, what we're really worried about now
is being able to get a job to keep our little places
until we find out what we're going to do.
That never happened.
None of them found work.
Five adults in total.
I tried, I tried so hard.
I tried so hard to find me a job.
My boyfriend tried to find him a job,
and it was-- it's nothing.
Without work, this family could not hold on any longer,
could not hang on to their apartment.
Not after FEMA discontinued their rent payments in June.
If I had the rent assistance, I probably
could stay because it didn't my rent be paid.
We're pretty appalled by that.
And again, we felt that it was unfair.
In addition, FEMA will no longer pay for travel,
so if these people wanted to go back down south,
there's no money for those plane tickets.
There's no money for that travel.
We brought those issues up.
All the states have sent letters to FEMA,
but there's been no response.
That's been very frustrating to us.
For its part, FEMA says disaster rental assistance
is by law designed to be short term.
Longer term recipients must meet specified criteria.
About 40 families, some of the 200 flown here by FEMA,
lost housing payments in Wisconsin in June.
FEMA is working one-on-one with all of those individuals
as we have throughout the process trying
to help them get the assistance that they need
and that they're eligible for.
While they may not be eligible for FEMA assistance,
they may be eligible for US Small Business Administration.
There's assistance through the American Red Cross
and other options.
Wisconsin Emergency Management Officials say
FEMA originally told states rent assistance
would be provided for at least 12 months,
but then changed course.
And I think FEMA feels that they can no longer afford
possibly to take care of them or for whatever reason.
They don't fit the normal disaster criteria
for this long-term housing, but these people are still here.
They're still in all 50 states.
They still need this ongoing assistance.
Does that act correct that you feel
that you can no longer take care of them?
I think that there was some misunderstanding
regarding our program.
As I said to you, the Emergency Sheltering Program,
as it was designed, FEMA did let the states know
that we would provide that service up to 12 months,
not as a guarantee.
The agency had always wanted to transition
to its traditional individuals and households program.
And that process began, the deadline was in June,
but certainly, you know, 60 days before then,
we began to coordinate.
With the individuals, the individual evacuees,
on a case-by-case basis.
I feel like I'm living the same tragedy over again,
but without, you know, the war and everything.
So I'm losing another part of it now.
This family says without jobs and no way to pay rent,
they felt forced to leave Wisconsin.
I am so tired for Dr.
Rico. My feet are swollen.
They once again packed belongings in black
plastic garbage bags for the trip out.
And Hurricane was the worst thing that ever happened to me.
And I don't think I ever want to go back to New Orleans.
Instead, Jolanda Brue will take her two youngest daughters
to Virginia.
Her older daughters, Sharianda and Shureka,
are going to different states where they hope to find work.
We're going, but it's like we still have no sense of,
you know, direction.
It's still like, no way to go.
So I say we're just going and hoping for it for the best.
But the move is perhaps hardest on 15-year-old Ray Net Brue.
I miss a lot of people here that I admit.
I don't want to go.
I want to.
Because I just started getting in and meeting everybody.
And now I have to go and do it all over again.
The pilot and his family had taken young Ray Net
under their wing from day one, seeing a certain spark
in her personality, a drive to succeed.
They planned to keep pushing her toward her goals, even
from afar.
She's very talented, very smart, good.
And I think she'll do real well in the whatever she does,
but she needs to set her mind to it.
It's not easy to start over and start over again
and start over again.
And so we're just hoping and praying that Virginia
is a successful location for them.
They don't live.
You know.
This is all it.
The little boy whose story touched the heart of a soldier
and ended up bringing his whole family together
appears happily unaware of the latest turmoil,
but appearances can be deceiving.
He always talking about another hurricane.
Are we going to have to move another hurricane, though?
The boy learned there would have to be another move,
another family exodus, not an escape of water this time,
but in search of work, anywhere they can find it.
I got a challenge to call.
We got a challenge, Texas.
I got one of Mississippi's split up my family.
A family splintered again.
For the families deemed eligible for longer term housing
assistance, FEMA says they must get re-approved every three
months by calling FEMA's 1-800-HELP line.
After criticism that the help line was constantly busy,
FEMA has tripled the number of operators.
As for travel back home, FEMA says it will still pay for it,
but only on a case-by-case basis.
You can get more information by going to our website
at www.org/inwisconsin.
According to FEMA, there are still about 1,700 evacuees
living in Wisconsin.
A nonprofit human service agency called New Concept
offers assistance.
You can also get more information about New Concept
on our website.
And that's our program for this week.
For In Wisconsin, I'm Patty Lo.
See you next time.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Major funding for In Wisconsin is provided by the people
of a Lyent Energy, who brings safe, reliable,
and environmentally friendly energy
to keep homes, neighborhoods, and life in Wisconsin
running smoothly.
A Lyent Energy offering energy saving ideas on the web.
UW Health, providing specialty and primary care
for all ages throughout Wisconsin.
Information on UW Health Physicians and Clinics
and on University Wisconsin Hospital is
available on the web.
And Wisconsin's technical colleges, providing the people
of Wisconsin with the knowledge and skills they'll need
for the economy of tomorrow.
Wisconsin's technical colleges, communities first.
Additional support for coverage of the Great Lakes
is provided by the Wisconsin Coastal Management Program
and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
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