'Show us Jobs' rally visits Valley

By PETER H. MILLIKEN
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
WARREN -- The American dream of homeownership is becoming a nightmare of foreclosure for thousands of Mahoning Valley residents as homeowners lose their jobs, speakers said at a labor-sponsored rally here.
"The foreclosures have just escalated to the point where they consume the majority of my day. Actually, there aren't enough hours in the day to be ahead of the game with these foreclosures," said Sophia Rintala, foreclosure coordinator for the Trumbull County sheriff's office.
She was one of many speakers at an AFL-CIO-sponsored "Show us the Jobs" rally Monday afternoon in front of the county courthouse.
Visiting the rally were several busloads containing 51 people, one from each state and the nation's capital, many of them telling of the financial struggles they endured after losing their jobs because of layoffs.
About the tour
The AFL-CIO-sponsored tour of 18 cities in eight states began last Wednesday in St. Louis and will end Wednesday in the nation's capital. The tour is targeting states the AFL-CIO thinks will be decisive in this year's presidential election and stopping in cities that have been hit hard by job losses.
At the Warren stop, tour participants stood in front of the courthouse, each holding a photograph of a Trumbull County home that has undergone foreclosure proceedings.
More than 11,000 homes and rental properties have been sold in foreclosure proceedings over the past five years in Trumbull, Mahoning and Columbiana counties, and all three counties have seen their yearly foreclosure totals soar over that period, the AFL-CIO said in a news release.
In Trumbull County, foreclosures have soared from 654 in 1999 to 1,289 in 2002 and 1,209 through Nov. 30, 2003. Rintala's office auctions up to 100 homes a month, and occupants have 30 days to move after their home is sold, she said.
Homeowners being foreclosed upon call her daily to report they've fallen on hard financial times because they've lost their jobs, she said.
"With much regret, it even gets to the point after the sales that the homeowners refuse to accept the loss of their homes, so we also have to go out and physically remove them," Rintala said.
Rider from Youngstown
One of the bus tour participants is Demetrius Robinson, 41, of Arlington, Va., who grew up on Youngstown's East Side. He has been looking for a new job for 10 months since being laid off from his position as an information technology manager in a corporate restructuring.
Robinson, who is a semester away from completing his bachelor's degree, said he now works for substantially less money as an independent contractor in his field.
"It's covering white-collar jobs. It's covering blue-collar jobs -- all demographics," he said of the job loss problem the country faces. "Jobs are being outsourced. Jobs are leaving this country at an accelerated rate."
The labor-sponsored bus tour follows bus tours last summer and last month by members of President Bush's Cabinet, which promoted the administration's economic policies in key political battleground states.
Criticizing tour
Robert T. Bennett, Ohio's Republican Party chairman, blasted organized labor's bus tour as "a political sham intended to promote John Kerry's reckless economic agenda" in a news release that was e-mailed to the press Monday.
"Maybe, instead of abusing these workers for political gain, the AFL-CIO should use its considerable resources to help them find jobs and pay for occupational training," he said. Bennett accused Kerry of having "a jobs-destroying economic record that includes at least 350 votes in favor of higher taxes."
Bennett's news release cites a U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics report showing Ohio leading the country in job growth. He also cites an Ohio Bureau of Labor Market Information projection that Ohio will create more than 660,000 new jobs by 2010.