Unemployed find federal relief program not working

JOB RETRAINING: VEC handbook on the Trade Adjustment Act

A program for thousands of unemployed workers eligible for additional federal benefits has been hampered by complicated regulations, low staffing levels, and processing backlogs at the Virginia Employment Commission and locally operated work-force centers.

Many of the unemployed worked for memory-chip maker Qimonda, which in February announced it was closing its eastern Henrico County plant. The company did not provide severance, failed to issue many final paychecks, and cut health benefits.

One silver lining emerged when Qimonda won federal Trade Adjustment Act certification, which meant employees were eligible for extended unemployment insurance, job training, health-care subsidies and relocation assistance. The certification is intended to assist workers who lose their jobs because of foreign competition.

But there are holes in how the program is administered, with applicants and officials saying the process is cumbersome, the system is overloaded, and answers are few.

"It's the opposite of help," said Kevin Quinn, a former Qimonda engineer. "We learn stuff at each step in the process and we don't have all the required paperwork, and this delays things by up to a month each time."

After missing out on one training program in June, Quinn has decided to pay nearly $6,000 to take a class in August.

"If I had taken [the class] in June and paid for it myself, I'd probably have a job by now," said Quinn, who has been out of work since January.

Qimonda alone represents more than 2,750 eligible former employees. An additional 1,100 laid off from Reynolds Foil also are Trade Act-eligible. And more applications are being approved each day.

. . .

To get access to the federal funding, applicants first must take a careerand skills-assessment test, meet with a counselor, and craft a plan. Training often is part of that plan.

The assessment process is handled through several work-force centers coordinated through the Capital Regional Workforce Partnership. Once finished, applicants are sent to the Virginia Employment Commission, which makes determinations on funding, training and other details. Both entities have small staffs to handle the applicants.

The VEC has six Trade Act specialists, said William Walton, manager of the VEC's Metro Richmond North work-force center in Mechanicsville.

Other caseworkers can handle waivers and routine procedures, and Walton said he is trying to bring on more staff.

The Capital Region Workforce Centers have two people that can do testing and three people who can write reports, said Ann Stone, deputy director of the centers.

As with the VEC, the work-force centers are dealing with all dislocated workers and not just those who are Trade Act-certified. Work continues on nights and weekends to handle the influx, Stone said.

"We're processing people as fast as we can," said Anna Rice-Wright, the VEC's Trade Act program manager. "We're all working around the clock to accomplish the goals. It's just sometimes the goals are not accomplished as fast as the workers want."

The backlog was most extreme earlier in the year when Qimonda employees were approved for the program. A 90-day wait from assessment to meeting was not unusual, said Roslyn Key-Tiller, director of the Capital Regional Workforce Partnership.

"We were inundated, and I also think it was confusing," she said.

Initially the commission did not want to enroll applicants in classes until the fall.

"That caused a brouhaha," said George T. Drumwright Jr., Henrico's deputy county manager for community services. "When you tell someone who is unemployed that you're certified but we're not going to pay for classes until the fall . . . I don't blame people. I'd be mad as heck."

Drumwright was instrumental in setting up in March a regional transition center for dislocated workers in a former Innsbrook library where a lot of Trade Act assessments are done.

Key-Tiller said employees at work-force centers, which are not overseen by the VEC, have been told not to discuss Trade Act regulations with clients because they don't have training and they will not get training. "We don't really know all the trade regulations," she said.

Quinn agreed. "There's nobody that knows how the whole procedure works," he said.

The time-consuming process comes with strict deadlines. You can get extensions through waivers, but they must be reviewed every month.

Walton could not provide the number of waivers the VEC has issued or the number of applications moving through the system. He estimated it was at least 2,000 applications.

. . .

Training is a key component of the Trade Act, and it has been a contentious issue.

To continue eligibility for benefits, a person has to be enrolled in training or have a waiver within eight weeks of when a company is certified or within 16 weeks of their last day of employment, whichever is later.

After Quinn had his assessment, it took three months before he could sit down with a counselor to craft a training plan.

He received a waiver and then his paperwork was set aside, causing him to miss out on taking a class to learn a Microsoft programming system.

He decided to pay for the class himself after it became apparent he could not meet another deadline.

Rice-Wright said applicants must follow the rules, be active in the process and be patient. Benefits also are not automatic, which means each person must be certified.

"We have to treat every person individually," VEC Commissioner Dolores Esser said. "That does make for a slow process, no doubt about that."

Esser said she has not heard any Trade Act complaints, but others have sounded alarms.

Quinn complained to Rep. Eric I. Cantor, R-7th, whose office assigned a staff member to look into the situation.

Drumwright also has said the process is flawed and has complained to the VEC over the operation of the Trade Act program.

"If there was any way we could take it over, we would do it differently," Drumwright said.

Contact Emily C. Dooley at (804) 649-6016 or .