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Ex-Test Site workers training to be truckers

Tuesday, Sept. 7, 1999 | 11:34 a.m.

The Department of Energy is presenting a $1.2 million grant to the Teamsters union to establish a retraining program at the Nevada Test Site.

The program, coordinated with Teamsters Local 631, will be designed to teach basic truck driving skills necessary to pass the commercial driver license exam. The initial grant will be used to establish a permanent center to train displaced workers in Southern Nevada, the union said.

Six students will participate in the first eight-week program this fall, and the DOE grant should allow at least 42 workers to be trained, the Teamsters said.

The grant will be presented to Teamsters General President James P. Hoffa in Washington Thursday. Priority will be given to former workers at the Test Site, but union membership is not required.

Located 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas, the Nevada Test Site was used to test the nation's nuclear arsenal from 1951 until 1992, when President Bush established a moratorium on nuclear testing. The center employed more than 8,000 workers at its height in the 1980s; today, it employs less than 3,000.

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