Laid-Off Workers Eligible for Job Transition Program

Five hundred Price Pfister employees who have been laid off since the Pacoima company moved some jobs to Mexico are eligible for a federal program offering expanded unemployment benefits, U.S. Rep. Howard L. Berman (D-Panorama City) announced.

The Transitional Adjustment Assistance Program was passed in 1993 as part of the North American Free Trade Agreement. The program provides career counseling, job training, job-search allowances and an extra year of unemployment compensation for workers who have lost their jobs because their companies moved to Mexico or Canada, Berman said.

Price Pfister, the nation’s third-largest faucet company, has laid off about 500 workers from its Pacoima factory since January when it overhauled its manufacturing methods. Although about 900 jobs remain in the Pacoima plant, many of the lost manufacturing jobs were shifted to a lower-cost factory in Mexicali, where Price Pfister opened a plant nine years ago.

Company officials said they will decide by the end of 1997 whether to close the Pacoima facility.

The federal program “alleviates some of the pain and suffering of the layoffs,” said Peter Olney, director of the Los Angeles Manufacturing Project, which is supporting the workers. “But you’re talking about good union jobs leaving Pacoima and [the program] doesn’t address that.”