Inside the United Auto Workers Local 1183 union hall, it’s a study in survival.
The News Journal
By Andrew Eder
In one room, volunteers from the West End Neighborhood House give a seminar on financial management to a few dozen former autoworkers. In another corner, a pantry and two freezers hold food for those in need of an emergency supply. Lights are turned off in spots to keep the electric bill low, as leaders struggle to keep the doors open at the union that once served thousands of local autoworkers.
Since Chrysler closed its Newark assembly plant in December, hundreds of autoworkers have grappled with an uncertain future in a job market that many are ill-prepared to enter. It’s a scenario that will be repeated when General Motors Corp. closes its Boxwood Road plant near Newport next month, idling 450 hourly workers.
“When Chrysler closed, that was disheartening enough,” said Deborah Armstrong, a liaison between United Way of Delaware and local labor groups, who has worked with the Local 1183 since the plant closing. “It was a crisis, and now it’s a disaster.”
The state’s auto industry — which has virtually disappeared in the span of a half-year — may be the most visible symbol of blue-collar job loss. But it’s happening elsewhere, too, with employers like Invista and GE Energy shedding jobs. The state has lost 4,700 manufacturing jobs, or 14.5 percent of the sector’s work force, in a year.
The closing of the auto plants is symbolic of the end of the era of lifetime jobs, where workers would graduate from high school, sign up at the local factory and work there until retirement, after which they would be taken care of by their former employer.
It raises the question: Just where in today’s economy do these displaced workers fit? And how will they get there?
The federal government, which shepherded both GM and Chrysler into bankruptcy, is preparing to pump federal funds into training programs for displaced workers, which President Barack Obama has described as a critical piece of recovery efforts.
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act doles out $3.8 billion to state labor departments, including $8.8 million to Delaware. The money boosts existing programs for unemployment insurance, job-search assistance and job training.
Last month, Obama announced rule changes designed to help displaced workers get more education and training while still keeping their unemployment benefits.
“The idea here is to fundamentally change our approach to unemployment in this country, so that it’s no longer just a time to look for a new job, but is also a time to prepare yourself for a better job,” Obama said.
The administration’s auto task force includes a “recovery czar,” Ed Montgomery, who is the White House liaison for communities affected by the industry’s restructuring. Montgomery and other officials visited Midwestern communities hit by plant closings last week, as the administration announced new programs and funding to retrain laid-off workers.
Delaware’s congressional delegation sent a letter to Obama last week asking his administration to remember the displaced autoworkers outside the Midwest.
“Many communities in Delaware, like their counterparts in the Midwest, have been dependent on auto manufacturing and should benefit from federal support such as job training, re-employment, living assistance, and career counseling,” the letter stated.
Gov. Jack Markell said Thursday that Montgomery will be coming to Delaware next week to discuss what additional federal resources may be available to the state.
On Tuesday, the day after GM said it was closing the Boxwood Road plant by the end of July, Markell and other officials visited the factory, meeting with plant leaders and workers. The governor said he told the workers that the state would follow through on its commitments.
“They’re entitled to our best efforts to help them stay on their feet and keep moving,” Markell said.
There are a host of government programs designed to help workers search for and obtain new jobs. The largest program is the Workforce Investment Act, which established the nationwide system of “one-stop” centers that consolidate services including unemployment insurance, job listings and counseling.
The services at one-stop centers are separated into core, intensive and training categories. Anyone, whether employed or unemployed, can take advantage of the core services like job searching on the center’s computers.
If a job seeker qualifies, he or she can receive more hands-on coaching from the center’s staff or publicly funded job training. But if someone has eligible skills, the state is required to send them out for job interviews, said Bob Strong, a deputy principal assistant with the Delaware Department of Labor. Job seekers must meet federal guidelines to qualify for subsidized job training.
“It’s not a decision we make or take lightly,” Strong said.
Those who qualify for training can pick a program from a list of approved providers that offer training in areas like nursing, computer repair and tractor-trailer operation. The goal is to funnel people into high-demand occupations.
Keith Holoviak lost his job in January when Chrysler’s Mopar parts-distribution center closed. The Townsend resident qualified for training money because he was involved in a plant closing, and he’s working toward completing his prerequisites at Delaware Technical & Community College.
Holoviak, who is doing landscaping work and looking for a full-time job, doesn’t yet know what he’ll study at Del Tech. But, with a 7-year-old daughter, any course of study will have to meet the financial and time demands of caring for a family — a major roadblock to training for many job seekers.
“I’m not 21 years old and living at home,” Holoviak said. “I’ve got a family and mortgage and bills to take care of.”
In spite of the hundreds of millions in taxpayer dollars headed to job training programs, there’s little evidence about their long-term success or their cost-effectiveness.
Peter Schochet, a senior fellow for Mathematica Policy Research Inc. in Princeton, N.J., said a handful of studies have been done on the impact of federal training programs.
Schochet, who researches public labor and education programs, said those studies show training programs to be effective in boosting participants’ earnings a small amount in the short term — three to four years after the program.
“Over the long term, no one really knows, because these people aren’t followed for 20 years,” Schochet said. “The word’s still out on a lot of these programs.”
Schochet said there’s also not much evidence about whether federal work-force programs provide bang for the taxpayer’s buck. But he said the one-stop centers serve a valuable niche, helping workers like those laid off from the auto plants.
“A lot of them, they’ve been working in the same industry forever, and all of a sudden they’re being laid off,” Schochet said. “A lot of these people don’t have high levels of education. They lose their jobs, and they don’t know what to do. If you go to a one-stop center, they’re used to serving that type of population.”
UAW Local 1183 leaders are doing their best to help the former Chrysler workers. The union is renting out office space in an effort to keep the doors open, and Wilmington nonprofit West End Neighborhood House is offering seminars on topics like household budgeting and foreclosure prevention.
The seminars are open to the public at 1 p.m. on Thursdays at the union hall on Old Baltimore Pike in Christiana. Next Thursday, West End will have information on low-interest loans.
“Sadly, what we’re finding is retraining and getting them working again is just one part of keeping them stable,” said Barbara Reed, director of West End’s housing and financial management program.
Reed said many laid-off autoworkers struggle to maintain their credit and housing situation. When they do find job opportunities, “the positions that are available for them are far less than the hourly wage they’re used to,” she said.
And many former autoworkers simply don’t want to ask for help, said Larry Dixon, president of the Local 1183.
“They got pride,” Dixon said. “They don’t want to come forward and stand in the unemployment line and be belittled.”
Len Church sees the difficulties his former co-workers face, and he sympathizes with the GM workers who are about to enter the same situation when the Boxwood Road plant closes.
Church, a Wilmington resident who worked 10 years as a body-shop coordinator at the Newark assembly plant, volunteers at the Local 1183′s food bank, which hands out emergency food packages to people — not just union members — who get a referral from the United Way.
Church took a retirement package from Chrysler that pays “barely over four digits a month,” and he also gets by on odd jobs and savings. But he knows that a lot of his former co-workers are worse off than he is, and he tries to help out by volunteering his time.
“I’m saying to myself, out of all this mess,” Church said, “something good has to come out of it.”
Contact Andrew Eder at 324-2789 or aeder@delawareonline.com