Rally to Save Highly Successful Job Centre

Monday demonstration will demand province reverse 'outrageous, short-sighted decision'

TORONTO, Aug. 26, 2016 /CNW/ - A noon-hour demonstration will be held Monday near Queen's Park to demand that the Ontario government reverse a decision to shut down a valuable program that has helped thousands of laid-off manufacturing workers find new jobs.

WHAT:	Rally to save Job Action Centre for laid-off workers
WHEN:	12:00 noon, Monday, August 29
WHO:	Advocates for laid-off manufacturing workers
WHERE:     .	900 Bay Street (Mowat Block)

"This is an outrageous, short-sighted decision," said Marty Warren, Ontario Director of the United Steelworkers (USW).

"This is a government that has presided over the loss of 300,000 manufacturing jobs and that has no industrial strategy to promote or even safeguard Ontario's manufacturing heartland," Warren said.

"Now this government is destroying one of the few effective adjustment programs that has succeeded in helping so many workers who lost jobs."

Monday's rally will demand that the Liberal government reverse its plan to eliminate funding for the Steelworkers Toronto and Peel Halton Job Action Centres that have been helping laid-off workers across the GTA since 2003.

The Job Action Centres offer assistance to any worker who has lost a job due to plant closures. The centres have been effective because their offices are staffed by workers who also lost manufacturing jobs in the past, who reflect the racial and cultural diversity of local communities and who understand the challenges and needs of affected workers.

"We are requesting that the decision to defund the Job Action Centres be rescinded, so that they, in partnership with the Employment Ontario Service Delivery Network, may continue to provide the valuable, high-quality services that workers need," said Dave Parker, Coordinator of the USW's Toronto Job Action Centre.

SOURCE United Steelworkers (USW)

Marty Warren, USW Ontario Director, 416-243-8792; Dave Parker, Coordinator, Steelworkers Toronto Area Council Job Action Centre, 416-597-1660, 416-389-8326, [email protected]; Bob Gallagher, USW Communications, 416-544-5966, 416-434 2221, [email protected]