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Inslee listens to a constituent.

Montage of Wing Point in Bainbridge Island and the Edmonds Ferry.

Jay Inslee: Washington's 1st Congressional District

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Boeing Retraining Funds

Late last year, I was contacted by a laid-off Boeing worker, who was upset because Washington State was halting payments to him that he was assured he would receive while he retrained for a new job. The payments are similar to unemployment benefits, and people need them to help pay the bills while they are enrolled in a retraining program. After investigating his case, I found that thousands of other laid-off workers were in the same situation [ summary ].

The families receiving this assistance had been promised that they would receive assistance during their entire retraining period. Consequently, many planned their future around receiving the help. In late November of last year, workers who were entered into the program were told that their assistance would be cut off mid-December.

I took the lead in working with other Members of Congress from Washington to ensure that workers received the retraining assistance that was promised to them by the government.

Together, we were successful in obtaining a supplemental National Reserve Grant (NRG) of $9.8 million to help these families [ meeting ].

This grant covered the thousands of laid-off workers through the holidays, and until March 31, 2000 [ N.R.G. ].

For a long-term solution to this problem, I again worked with the Washington delegation to urge the U.S. Department of Labor to determine whether the estimated 23,000 laid-off Boeing workers qualified for Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) [ TAA Letter 1 ]. TAA is designed to help communities retrain workers who have been hit by a large number of lay-offs due to trade related job loss. Ultimately, the Department of Labor granted the needed help for our communities. In addition, the State of Washington also passed an extended benefits bill for laid-off Boeing, timber, and fishery workers [ story... ].

Unfortunately, despite the concerted effort by the Congressional delegation, the keen interest by the Department of Labor, and the bill passed by the State Legislature, about 500 workers who were laid-off before mid-February of 1999 were still threatened with having their assistance cut off by March 31, 2000. The U.S. Department of Labor has approved conditionally our request to modify our National Reserve Grant to allow the 438 Boeing workers to continue getting Needs Related Payments [ TAA Letter 2 ]. The approval will cover these 500 workers through June 30, 2000. Coverage after June 30th will depend upon the Washington State Department of Employment Security continuing to meet conditions set by the U.S. Department of Labor. The Department of Employment Security will be working hard to meet the necessary conditions.

[ Summary ] [ Emergency Meeting ] [ National Reserve Grant ]
[ TAA Explanation ] [ TAA Letter To Dept. Labor ] [ Second TAA Letter ]
[ Link to Ex-Boeing Employee's Reaching Out Site ] [ Contact Me ]