Self-Description by EDD Challenged

Written in response to a story about victims of plant closings who were not informed by the state Employment Development Department of the availability of government-sponsored retraining programs. (“Jobless Miss Out on Helpful Programs,” Jan. 15.) Your article about Quoc Le quoted a supervisor from EDD as stating EDD’s first priority is to help people find jobs. I found that their first priority is to enforce the EDD rules. Help with finding a job is only an incidental priority, if it is a priority at all.

After obtaining an engineering degree from Stanford in 1960, I learned a lot about fuel combustion at Garrett Turbine Engines in Phoenix. I came to Orange County in 1972, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, to assist in curing air pollution. I conducted a lengthly series of research programs, under sponsorship by EPA (Environmental Protection Agency), that developed new ways to control air pollution. Many industrial plants throughout the South Coast Air Basin benefited from my work, which has been helpful in the painfully gradual improvement of air quality in the Los Angeles area.

At the beginning of the Reagan Administration, EPA research was basically abandoned, at least the part dealing with fuel combustion; efforts were turned to hazardous wastes. This eventually resulted in my being laid off for “lack of work,” a difficult anomaly for an air pollution engineer living in Los Angeles.

I received an immediate job offer through friends but it involved many miles of rush-hour travel. So I elected to look for work close by and also gave thought to starting my own business. Meanwhile, since I knew that some of the revenue I generated for my prior employer was spent for unemployment insurance, I felt I deserved to collect some benefits. I applied at the Santa Ana EDD office.

What happened was that I got no help at all in finding a job, no “stack of documents” about job seeking, no information about job referrals. I filled out a form, was told to record my interviews and was given a booklet full of rules. All EDD says is: “You need to find a job.” I already knew that.

To make an agonizing story short, I eventually made the mistake of mentioning I was trying to start my own company. That not only terminated my benefits, but I was forced to repay prior benefits.

I feel very sorry for those who have no other recourse but to depend on EDD. It would be interesting to analyze the effectiveness of EDD in actual job placement.

SKILLMAN CANNON

HUNTER

Acropolis Software

Laguna Hills

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