OKLAHOMA CITY -
Companies who are
supposed to be creating jobs in Oklahoma, instead are collecting checks and
moving jobs out of state. It's a program our investigative team first told you
about in November 2012.
Now one lawmaker
is pushing legislation he hopes will not only change that, but also put
veterans back in the workforce.
News 9 revealed
the incentive program that created tens of thousands of good paying jobs here
in Oklahoma, rewarded companies that cut jobs and sent them elsewhere. After
four years of pushing the same bill to prohibit that, Rep. Eric
Proctor hopes this time it will gain the momentum it needs to pass.
Outsourcing good
paying jobs outside the state of Oklahoma is a problem Proctor says has been
on-going for decades.
"If you're going
to create a job overseas while you're reducing your investments, or jobs in the
state of Oklahoma, you can do that," said Proctor. "But, you're not going to do
it with our money."
The hope is to
put more accountability into the "Quality of Jobs Act" that Proctor says
doesn't exist. Now, for a fourth year in a row, Proctor is hopeful with a
unanimous vote coming out of the House, it won't be blocked by special interest
groups.
"When I came back,
I just asked for a job, and I was willing to settle for something," said Sgt.
Shane Hannaford. "I didn't ask for a lot of money, just enough to put food on
the table."
After seven tours
of duty in Iraq, and two purple hearts as a U.S. Marine, Hannaford returned
home to his family in Tulsa in 2008 unemployed. He was without work for six
months, and says, at the time, he was married with two step daughters and a
son.
"It's tough," said
Hannaford. "It is, and it's really scary for a lot of vets."
Proctor, hopes to
encourage Oklahoma companies to hire veterans like Hannaford with his newest
bill. It would require companies to have at least 10-percent of military
veterans as their new hires in order to get money from the state, part of the
"Quality of Jobs Act."
"One out of every
four people in the state who are unemployed, are military veterans," said
Proctor. "That's unacceptable."
Hannaford now
runs a very successful construction business in Tulsa. Unemployment for
veterans remains well above the national average.
Outsourcing good paying jobs outside the state of Oklahoma is a problem Rep. Eric Proctor says has been on-going for decades.
