Skip to main content

NEWS BRIEFS

Date Posted: November 14 2003

Internet jobless claims open to all 
Now, just about anyone who wants to, can go online to file a claim for unemployment in benefits in Michigan.

On Oct. 27, David Plawecki, deputy director of Michigan's Department of Consumer and Industry Services, announced "we have completed the major unfinished piece of our Internet-based system for accepting unemployment benefit claims." The state had been phasing in the system according to geographic area over the past several months.

The state has eliminated the requirement that unemployed workers must have filed an unemployment claim within the previous 10 years in order to file a claim over the Internet. Unemployed workers can file a new unemployment claim or reopen an established claim by visiting the state Bureau of Workers and Unemployment Compensation web site at www.michigan.gov/bwuc.

To file a claim online, unemployed workers must:

*Live in and have worked only in Michigan during the past 18 months; and

*Have no wages from the federal government.

The bureau's website accepts online claims applications Monday through Friday, from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., including holidays that fall on weekdays. The bureau also operates a general question toll-free customer service answer line at (800) 638-3995 during those hours. 

Bush donors win big in Iraq
Major campaign donors to President Bush have been awarded $8 billion in construction contracts to rebuild Iraq and Afghanistan, said a new study released Oct. 30.

The study by the nonpartisan Center for Public Integrity of more than 70 U.S. companies and individual contractors turned up more than $500,000 in donations to the president's 2000 campaign, more than they gave collectively to any other politician over the past 12 years.

The study concluded that most of the 10 largest contracts went to companies that employed former high-ranking government officials, or executives with close ties to members of Congress and ties even to the government agencies awarding their contracts.

Major contracts were awarded without competitive bid. The top contract recipient was the Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Brown and Root, with more than $2.3 billion awarded to support the U.S. military and restore Iraq's oil industry. Halliburton/KBR, with major Associated Builders and Contractors ties, was headed by Vice President Dick Cheney before he resigned to run with Bush in 2000.

Bechtel was the second-largest recipient, with a $1 billion contract to repair Iraq's roads and infrastructure.

Unions, strikes Are few in Iraq
With death a daily occurrence in Iraq, workers' rights may seem a smaller issue on the agenda.

Still, it is telling that the U.S.-named Coalitional Provisional Authority that now runs Iraq will not change Iraqi labor law - which severely curtails unions - for at least two years, and on Oct. 16, banned strikes.

Two unionists who visited Iraq said that "already low wages have been frozen" and profit-sharing and bonuses were eliminated. Refinery workers earn $60 a month.

Another small step ahead for construction
It's increasingly looking like the prognosticators are correct, and that the U.S. construction industry in 2003 is going to do slightly better than 2002.

McGraw-Hill Construction Dodge reported Nov. 7 that new construction starts in September increased 1 percent from the month before to a rate of $518.3 billion. The company said the construction industry is also up 1 percent over the first nine months of the year compared to the same period in 2002.

McGraw-Hill and others have predicted that construction would increase 1 percent for all of 2003, and then increase another 1 percent in 2004.

"The improved contracting for stores and hotels in the first nine months of 2003 is a good sign that commercial building is finally turning the corner, following the declines of 2001 and 2002," said Robert A. Murray, McGraw-Hill's vice president of economic affairs.