Outbursts mark Congress jobs hearing in Las Vegas

By Ken Ritter

Published Tuesday, Aug. 30, 2011 | 12:09 p.m.

Updated Tuesday, Aug. 30, 2011 | 2:14 p.m.

Audience outbursts interrupted testimony Tuesday to a trio of Congressmen in Las Vegas for a hearing about employment and improving federal job training in a state saddled with the nation's highest unemployment rate.

"I support training. But I need a job!" declared Linda Overbey, 54, an unemployed union painter who became the first of three people removed by police from the otherwise orderly hearing at the Ralph and Betty Engelstad campus of Opportunity Village.

Overbey and about a dozen other union members - who got up and left after the demonstration inside to set up a protest outside - directed their ire at Rep. Joe Heck, R-Nev.

"I share the frustration of people who expressed their concerns," Heck responded during the hearing headed by congressional Education and the Workforce Committee Chairman John Kline, R-Minn., and Rep. Howard P. "Buck" McKeon, R-Calif.

Heck said his daughter, a recent graduate in a hotel program at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, had to move out of the state to find a job.

State officials put the Las Vegas jobless rate at 14 percent, and the statewide rate at 12.9 percent.

McKeon, a former chairman of the workforce committee, acknowledged the passions that prompted what he termed "the little disruption we had."

"People are really frustrated. They want jobs," McKeon said. "I don't know what jobs they want or what their training is."

Kline said the hearing was the sixth in a series leading toward reauthorization of the Workforce Investment Act of 1998, which set up one-stop centers for workers to receive job training and employment services. The law has been due for reauthorization since 2003. The committee chairman said he wants to reduce regulations and streamline the process to help workers gain skills and training necessary to succeed.

"We want it to work," he said.

Henderson Mayor Andy Hafen, economic analyst Jeremy Aguero, St. Rose Dominican Hospitals executive LeRoy Walker and Darren Enns of the Southern Nevada Building and Construction Trades Council spoke about the problems facing Nevada's economy and workforce.

"The numbers are nothing short of staggering," said Aguero, of Applied Analysis in Las Vegas.

Nevada was for 20 years a national leader in growth, job creation and investment, Aguero said. Since the recession began in 2008, the state lost 140,000 jobs, or 15 percent of its workforce. Nevada now leads the nation in unemployment and home foreclosures.

Aguero put the Las Vegas-area unemployment rate at higher than 10 percent for 31 consecutive months.

"For those lucky enough to remain employed, hours and wages have been cut," he said. Average hours worked by private sector employees has dropped almost 12 percent, and average weekly wages have dropped almost 11 percent.

Kline said the panel wanted to address what he termed "a disconnect between training and preparation of workers and where they are needed."

Enns, the trades council official, said he feared a national focus on helping employers, developers and educational institutions left out the workers.

"We need your help to create jobs," he said.

Opportunity Village chief Ed Guthrie, Nevada Workforce Connections director John Ball and College of Southern Nevada executive Rebecca Metty-Burns focused on the need to be flexible in adapting job training to job openings.