Major Owens: “in the current budget there is a recommendation to eliminate certain programs for the training of the unemployed.…”

“in the current budget there is a recommendation to eliminate certain programs for the training of the unemployed. Programs which offer training for only 6 months have finally been declared unworkable by the Secretary of Labor. For many years we have been saying to the Secretary of Labor and everybody else concerned that programs which offer only 6 months of training did not work. We wanted a minimum of 1 year for training programs. Now they have discovered it does not work, but instead of replacing the unworkable programs in communities like mine, where there is high unemployment, the unemployment rate is three times the national average for adults. Instead of replacing the unworkable programs with programs that do work by offering 1-year training, they are moving the programs out and taking them to places where defense workers are being laid off. Mr. Speaker, I am all in favor of training and retraining workers who have been laid off in defense plants, but do not take the money away from the high unemployment area.”