Ruling bars shutdown, for now, of Job Corps programs nationally, including 3 Mass. sites
The order by a U.S. District Court judge in New York City comes less than a week after the Department of Labor announced that 99 Job Corps programs across the U.S. would close. The 60-year-old program is credited with helping participants gain skills that lift them out of poverty.
On Tuesday, the National Job Corps Association, a trade group, sued the labor department and Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer, claiming the decision to close the nation's largest residential career training program was unlawful and based on faulty information about its effectiveness.
Late Wednesday, U.S. District Court Judge Andrew L. Carter Jr. granted the plaintiffs' request for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction that bars the labor department from continuing a fast-paced plan to dismantle the Job Corps.
Carter's ruling says both job losses and the removal of students from program sites must stop, pending hearings later this month. The action doesn't remove the possibility the programs will end, but will at least slow that down.
In Chicopee, David Baker, the center director, had been ordered to begin to move some of the program's 352 students off the campus it occupies on the grounds of the Westover Air Reserve Base. He said in an interview that he and other center directors faced a June 30 deadline to end all activities.
The closing would have also ended operations of the Shriver Job Corps Center in Devens and the Grafton Job Corps Center in North Grafton.
All Job Corps programs nationally work to provide both vocational and academic skills to young people, aged 16 to 24, who come from difficult backgrounds and were not able to consider attending college. In the Chicopee program, nearly a third of participants were considered homeless before joining.
The judge's ruling says the government cannot take 'any further action to eliminate the Job Corps program without Congressional authorization.' Congress created the program in 1964 at the time of President Lyndon B. Johnson's 'Great Society' legislative initiatives to fight poverty and inequality.
Since then, hundreds of thousands of young people, including those from poor families and rough neighborhoods, have gained job skills.
The complaint notes that when Congress created the program, it anticipated that the labor department might elect to close certain Job Corps sites, 'but did not provide authorization for DOL to cancel the program wholesale. And Congress has imposed specific guardrails on the closure of any individual Job Corps campus.'
Carter gave the defendants a deadline of June 17 to provide motions related to the case.
In their request for judicial intervention, the plaintiffs, including Education & Training Resources, the entity that manages the Chicopee, argued that eliminating the Job Corps program was illegal.
'It contravenes the statutory provisions governing Job Corps and DOL's own regulations concerning the program,' the complaint filed Tuesday reads.
'It is fundamentally irrational. Shuttering Job Corps will have disastrous, irreparable consequences, including displacing tens of thousands of vulnerable young people, destroying companies that have long operated Job Corps centers in reliance on the Government's support for the program, and forcing mass layoffs of workers who support the program,' the complaint reads.
On Monday, dozens of participants of the Westover Job Corps rallied to save their program. Students told The Republican that the closing would interrupt their efforts to master new trades — and to significantly improve their chances of making a living wage as young adults.
Justin Quiles of Pittsfield said he had expected to eventually earn $45 an hour as a bricklayer, once his training was complete and his career launched. But the shutdown, he said, would likely force him to take a job at Walmart for $16 an hour.
'Wow, it's getting taken away from us,' he said Monday afternoon of his intended career. 'I won't be able to complete my trade.'
In interviews, several students said that finding a career path meant a great deal to them after early disappointments, family poverty and lack of opportunity.
'All I knew was taking care of kids,' said Brianna Sasnowitz, 19, of Monson, who came to the Chicopee program a year and a half ago and is now student body president studying welding. 'I thought I was going to be stuck with that.'
As many as 80 of the program's 352 students were expected to have left by Tuesday, Baker said.
The complaint notes that other federal courts have acted to halt similar moves to end programs mandated by Congress. 'Plaintiffs urge this Court to do the same.'
Education & Training Resources, the company that runs the Westover Job Corps, was created in 1991, the complaint notes, and has operated Job Corps sites since 1997. Today, including the Chicopee program, it oversees 11 campuses with 3,325 students.
In all, more than 25,000 students are participating in Job Corps programs.
Read the original article on MassLive.
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