By Brian Boyd
South Coast Today
October 17, 2009
NEW BEDFORD — Workers who lost their jobs when the Eagle Industries plant shut down this summer will have more opportunities for job training and adult education thanks to additional state funding.
The state gave permission a few weeks ago for the Greater New Bedford Workforce Investment Board to draw down the first half of $565,000 in state funding. Any of the 350 who lost their jobs can go to the Greater New Bedford Career Center, which is overseen by the board, and sign up for services now, said Leonard W. Coriaty, the board's executive director.
"People can walk in the door, and there is no delay in services," Coriaty said Friday.
The board will be able to access the other half of the state money in two months, pending a review. The board is also working with state officials to apply for $1.4 million in federal money for training about 500 laid-off workers, most of them from Eagle.
If the board succeeds in winning the federal grant, the money would cover whatever the state had kicked in up to that point, so the total would not exceed $1.4 million, Coriaty said.
The state money covers the hiring of four more staff members at the career center, as well as adult education, English language lessons and job training. Most of the former Eagle employees need help in all three of those areas, he said.
"There is a high and deep need for the population that was in the company, in terms of education and skills, whether English skills or occupational skills," he said.
The sooner workers sign up for this training the better because the lessons could take months and officials want workers to be ready when more jobs become available, he said.
In March, Alliant Techsystems Inc. bought Eagle Industries and its South End plant, where military backpacks were made. Less than two months later, ATK announced it was shutting down the plant and moving the work to Puerto Rico. Before Eagle took it over, the plant had served as the Michael Bianco Inc. factory, the site of a massive federal immigration raid in March 2007.
While Workforce Investment Board officials are working on training the former Eagle employees, a new textile business, New Bedford Tactical Gear, was launched in August and has hired people who had worked at the closed factory.
New Jersey Headwear Corp. of Newark, N.J., the parent company of Tactical Gear, now employs 16 people at the New Bedford facility and expects to add another 15 to 20 next month. It aims to reach a total of 70 by the end of the year and will continue to give preference to former Eagle employees.
"We're basically on schedule," Mitch Cahn, president of New Jersey Headwear, said Friday.
Tactical Gear started by making ammunition bags. Cahn said he will be able to ramp up operations if he gets more orders under his current contract, wins another military contract or secures a separate contract with a private company, possibly manufacturing bags for Victoria's Secret.
He also expects to shift some of his baseball cap manufacturing from New Jersey to New Bedford, which will help support a staff of 70.
"I have enjoyed working in New Bedford," Cahn said. "I really do find it an easy place to do business."
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