'It is worth fighting for': Legislators protest shuttering of federal Jobs Corps program

DEVENS — Two of Massachusetts congressional representatives called on their constituents to raise their voices to protest the scheduled shuttering of the federal Jobs Corps program that offers vocational training to the country’s most vulnerable youth and provides skilled and reliable workers to local employers.

U.S. Rep. James McGovern, D-Worcester, joined U.S. Rep. Lori Trahan at the Devens Shriver Job Corps facility to assure the students, staff and employers that they would fight to ensure that funding for the program is reinstated.

“It is worth preserving; it is worth fighting for,” McGovern said, promising to ”knock some heads,” to persuade his legislative colleagues to agree with the premise. In his opening remarks, he admonished President Donald J. Trump, telling him to “keep his God dam hands off Job Corps.”

A federal judge sitting in New York extended a temporary restraining order that blocked the federal Department of Labor from shuttering the program pending a hearing June 17. That stay is set to expire June 25, Trahan said. The federal government had set June 30 as the proposed closure date.

Calls from the Telegram & Gazette to the Department of Labor to determine the status of the program were not immediately returned.

Even as the move is challenged in court, the Trump Administration has already rescinded contracts with companies that provided background checks of applicants, barring new students from entering the program, according to McGovern.

But McGovern said he is still hopeful that his colleagues in Washington will see reason and fund the program, describing it as the type of program that Republicans seem to favor.

“Businesses, labor leaders, everybody love the Jobs Corps,” McGovern said.

Trahan: Program one 'president claims to support'

Trahan characterized the program as one that the “president claims to support,” alluding to what she sees as the illogic surrounding its shuttering.

“I’ve seen first hand the Job Corps graduates,” Trahan said. “They have jobs, pay taxes. Shutting down the facilities is reckless and wrong.“

Trahan described the effort as “pulling the rug out from under,” youngsters who have applied to the program in an effort to emerge from difficult circumstances. “It’s about shutting down the potential.” Closing the sites, she said, would also affect the local economy, throwing educators and mentors out of jobs — 120 at the Devens facility who contribute $17 million annually to the local economy.

Trahan said she is skeptical that the Department of Labor looked at the data or talked to the students whose lives they are moving to upend.

“Why the hell are they going after Job Corps?” McGovern asked the rhetorical question and promised that legislators will hear from business owners, employers, and union and labor leaders about the lack of skilled workers in the U.S. once the program has been shuttered.

“We are hopeful we can convince our colleagues,” McGovern said, explaining that several Republican legislators have praised the program. “We appreciate your kind words, but we need your votes.”

Free training for about 25,000 young adults a year in U.S.

There are 99 program sites throughout the U.S. that train, for free, an average of 25,000 young adults a year.

Massachusetts has three Job Corps sites in Grafton, Devens and Chicopee. The move to strip the program of funding was made on the heels of an April study released by the federal Department of Labor that claimed the program was not cost effective, requiring large financial investments in each student and low graduation rates of less than 40%.

However, Massachusetts legislators claim local programs buck the reported trend with a 95% graduation rate at the Devens facility and a better-than-average graduation rate in both Grafton and Chicopee.

The same report, which utilized data from 2023, found that the Devens center had a traditional graduation rate of nearly 90%, highest in the country, while the Grafton site also had an above average traditional graduation rate (42.7%). The report found that the cost per enrollee was about $53,000 at Devens and about $49,000 in Grafton; participants earned an average of $20,583 annually in Grafton and $19,000 annually at Devens.

The Grafton Job Corps Center offers vocational training in eight trades, a GED program and an online high school diploma program. The Grafton center also offers an advanced manufacturing program with the Blackstone Valley Education Hub. The majority of students come from the cities of Worcester and Boston.

The facilities offer both residential and day programs. Many of the youngsters attending the classes would become homeless and jobless if the program were terminated.

'Great recruitment resource right here in our back yard'

Several graduates attended the afternoon meeting Wednesday including Isaac Diaz, 27, of Leominster, who has been working at the Ayer Valley Rehab and Nursing  facility for the last two years.

“They come to us, already to go right off the bat. It’s a great recruitment resource right here in our back yard,” said Dan Ziarnik-Case, the facility’s human resource director.

Zach Shepard, who just purchased a home in Gardner, graduated from the automotive program in 2013. In the intervening years, he has worked his way up the ladder to his current job as parts manager for the Herb Chambers BMW group in Sudbury.

“It’s a job that deals with customer service, but you also have to know your cars,” Shepard said. He started as a lube technician, shadowed the more experienced staff and then started working in the parts department. His first promotion to parts manager at Colonial saw him the youngest auto parts manager in New England.

“Job Corps is a stepping stone for those who want to take it,” Shepard said. “It gives people an opportunity that would not be there otherwise. I don’t know where I’d be without Job Corps.”

Harrison Ingels, who went from sleeping in his car parked behind a Gardner apartment complex to his current job teaching high school English at Gardner High School, said this year he tackles ninth grade honors after several years teaching sixth graders.

The educator lost his  parents at 18 and had nowhere to go. Jobs Corps, he said, gave him a roof over his head and opportunities. He graduated from the business administration course, through which he learned to type and along with other office-related skills. He got a job, attended community college and then transferred to Worcester State University, where he earned his degree for teaching licensure.

Shuttering the program, Ingels said, leaves youth with limited options including becoming homeless or joining the military.

“They will be painted as losers,” Ingels said.