STATE OF WISCONSIN
LABOR AND INDUSTRY REVIEW COMMISSION
P O BOX 8126, MADISON, WI 53708-8126 (608/266-9850)

MARTA R. TERRY, Claimant

TRADE ACT DECISION
Hearing No. 02607568MW


An administrative law judge (ALJ) for the Division of Unemployment Insurance of the Department of Workforce Development issued a decision in this matter. A timely petition for review was filed.

The commission has considered the petition and the positions of the parties, and it has reviewed the evidence submitted to the ALJ. Based on its review, the commission makes the following:

FINDINGS OF FACT AND CONCLUSIONS OF LAW

The claimant worked for about 19 years in several capacities for Tower Automotive. Her last day of work there was August 28, 2000 (week 36). The claimant then received unemployment insurance benefits. After she exhausted those benefits, she initiated a claim for benefits under the Trade Act. She received basic Trade Readjustment Allowances (TRA) from September, 2001, through the week ending March 2, 2002.

The claimant's TRA Coordinator had, in August 2001, proposed to the claimant that she satisfy the training requirement under the Trade Act by enrolling in an Associate Degree program in Interior Design. The claimant decided not to take the training. Subsequently, in October 2001, the claimant's TRA Coordinator developed and proposed to the claimant a Computer Skills Training program. The claimant was scheduled to sign a contract to pursue that training on October 1, 2001, but she then decided not to do so. At that point, the claimant was indicating to her TRA Coordinator that she believed she had the skills that would allow her to obtain employment. The claimant's TRA Coordinator then issued a waiver of the claimant's training requirement, in connection with which the claimant was subject to a work search requirement.

In March, 2002, the claimant qualified for and began receiving federal Extended Unemployment Insurance benefits. These benefits ended with the week ending June 8, 2002. At that time the claimant had a remaining entitlement to basic TRA benefits which she had not exhausted, and she was notified that she should contact her TRA Coordinator to reinstate her claim for TRA benefits, but she did not do so, and as a result these benefits did not resume at that point.

The claimant finally contacted her TRA Coordinator in late July, 2002, and asked why she was not receiving benefits. Her TRA Coordinator informed her that in order to be eligible for basic TRA benefits she had to either be in approved training, or to have been conducting the job search required in the case of a training waiver. The claimant then informed her TRA Coordinator that she had started a training program at "PC Productivity". The claimant had not previously informed her TRA Coordinator that she was involved in such a program.

The claimant's TRA Coordinator decided not to approve the claimant's training at PC Productivity as approved training under the Trade Act. She made this decision because she believed, based on the claimant's previous rejection of a substantially similar training program developed by the TRA Coordinator, and based on statements the claimant had made to her, that the claimant was not a candidate for training and that the claimant was not making a serious effort to receive training to satisfy the requirements of the Trade Act but was simply attempting to do what was necessary to qualify for weekly benefits.

The claimant did begin receiving basic TRA benefits again once she contacted her TRA Coordinator, but her eligibility for these basic TRA benefits was exhausted as of the week ending August 24, 2002. It is a requirement of the Trade Act that recipients of "additional" TRA benefits, which are payable after exhaustion of basic TRA benefits, actually be in approved training under the Trade Act. Because the claimant was not in approved training, as her request for approval of the program at PC Productivity had been denied, she was not eligible to receive additional TRA benefits after the exhaustion of her basic TRA benefits.

The issue for decision is whether the decision not to approve the claimant's training at PC Productivity as approved training under the Trade Act was correct.

Under the Trade Act, training may be approved only if certain conditions are satisfied:

There is no suitable employment (which may include technical and professional employment) available for an adversely affected worker;

the worker would benefit from appropriate training;

there is a reasonable expectation of employment following completion of such training;

training approved by the Secretary is reasonably available to the worker from either governmental agencies or private sources;

the worker is qualified to undertake and complete such training; and

such training is suitable for the worker and available at a reasonable cost.

19 U.S.C. § 2296. The commission is persuaded that the decision not to approve the claimant's program at PC Productivity as approved training under the Trade Act was correct, because there was substantial reason to question whether there was no suitable employment available to the claimant without training, whether the claimant would benefit from the training, and whether the claimant was qualified to undertake and complete such training, as those terms and phrases are used in this section of the Trade Act. The claimant had indicated that she believed that she already had the skills that would allow her to find work without training. She had, by her conduct in twice turning down training programs that were developed or proposed for her, indicated a lack of genuine interest in pursuing training. She had also made statements indicating that she did not relish the idea of pursuing training and that she was concerned with doing whatever she needed to do in order to continue receiving weekly benefits. These things were a reasonable basis for the claimant's TRA coordinator to determine that the required conditions for approval of training were not met.

The commission therefore finds that the claimant's request for approval of training was appropriately denied, within the meaning of 19 U.S.C. § 2296.

DECISION

The decision of the administrative law judge is affirmed. Accordingly, the claimant is not eligible for additional TRA allowances.

Dated and mailed April 17, 2003
terryma . trr : 110 :  TRA

/s/ David B. Falstad, Chairman

/s/ James A. Rutkowski, Commissioner

/s/ James T. Flynn, Commissioner

cc: 
Attorney Jolene Shellman
Tower Automotive

NOTE: The commission had no disagreement with any of the material findings of fact made by the ALJ. It has issued its own decision in this matter in order to be able to set forth more fully the reasons it agrees with the result reached by the ALJ.


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