Federal official gets earful in Valley on how to aid jobless

By David Skolnick

WARREN — A top official at the U.S. Department of Labor heard from Valley leaders about what the federal government should be doing to help prepare workers for new technology jobs.

“The key to recovery is diversity,” said Mark Catello, business manager of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 573 in Warren. “We finally understand we’re not just steel and car makers. Those are great industries, but we need to diversify.”

To properly do so, the federal government should offer financial incentives to companies to upgrade, renovate and expand their facilities, and keep them in this country rather than relocating elsewhere, Catello said.

Catello and others spoke Friday with Jane Oates, assistant secretary for the Department of Labor’s Employment and Training Administration.

The meeting was at the Warren office of U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan of Niles, D-17th, who participated in the discussion.

The ETA administers job training and programs to help the unemployed.

Oates praised job training done at Youngstown State University — which she called “a diamond in the rough” — and at Eastern Gateway Community College.

Eastern Gateway wants to build a wind turbine so it can offer classes in wind energy, said Dr. Laura Meeks, the college’s president.

Oates said a congressional bill proposes providing $125 million to community colleges for job training programs through a competitive process. The bill, if approved as currently written, would guarantee at least 30 percent of the funding would go to community colleges from smaller areas such as the Mahoning Valley, she said.

Ryan and other Valley leaders have complained that bigger cities, which employ grant writers, have an unfair advantage over communities here when it comes to competitive funding programs.

Oates is among several high-level federal officials traveling throughout the country to commemorate the one-year anniversary passage of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

President Barack Obama signed the $787 billion bill, also known as the federal stimulus package, on Feb. 17, 2009.

Ryan voted in favor of the bill.

skolnick@vindy.com