43
Brown: Extend two programs for jobless
BOARDMAN
When the U.S. Senate returns to session Jan. 25, Sherrod Brown said he’ll work to extend two programs for the unemployed.
Speaking Friday at the Mahoning County One-Stop office in the Boardman Plaza, the senator said Congress must extend the Health Care Tax Credit and the Trade Adjustment Assistance program. Both expire in mid-February.
Brown, a Democrat from Avon, said the programs are critical to thousands, including Delphi Corp. salaried retirees, whose pensions have been cut and health-care coverage eliminated.
The programs “are lifelines for tens of thousands of Americans who, through no fault of their own, lost their job or their pensions and health-care benefits,” Brown said. “We can’t pass trade agreements that undermine Ohio workers, and then turn our backs on those workers when they lose their jobs.”
Mary Ann Hudzik, vice president of Warren’s Delphi Salaried Retiree Association, who also was at the One-Stop, said without extensions many Delphi retirees will have to go without health care.
The tax credit pays 80 percent of health-insurance premiums for qualified trade-affected workers and retirees.
Thousands of Delphi salaried retirees, including about 1,500 in the Mahoning Valley, lost health-care coverage and a portion of their pension when the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. took over the plan during the federal government’s restructuring of General Motors in 2009.
Hudzik said she lost 40 percent of her pension and all of her health and life insurance.
The adjustment assistance provides training and re-employment services to workers who lost their jobs because of foreign trade.
Janet Cornwell, who spent 14 years at Delphi before losing her job when the work she did was outsourced to Mexico, is being trained in pharmacy technology at Mahoning County Career & Technical Center, funded by the federal adjustment assistance program.
A single parent of two, Cornwell said Friday that he expects to graduate shortly and find a job with medical benefits.
The U.S. Senate on Dec. 23, the last day the legislative body met in 2010, voted to extend the two programs by six weeks. Funding for the programs were to expire Dec. 31.
Brown said it will be difficult to persuade enough Republican senators to continue the programs. Ideally, Brown said, the extensions should last 18 months.
After Friday’s press conference, Brown was asked about any changes he’s making in security at public events because of last Saturday’s shootings in Tuscon, Ariz.
U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was shot in the head by a gunman who opened fire at an event at which the congresswoman invited constituents to meet with her.
Six people were killed at the event. Giffords is among the 14 people wounded.
“I’m not going to run and hide,” said Brown, who added he received death threats during the health-care debate.
Brown said he’s asked local law enforcement agencies to provide security at certain events he feel could be unsafe in the past, and will do so in the future.
There was no security at Friday’s event.