Job Corps Workers Take a Stand Against Proposed Shutdown

Earlier this month, CWA members in Massachusetts took to the streets in outrage over President Trump’s plan to end the Job Corps program, the nation’s largest residential career training venture.

Hundreds of members at IUE-CWA Local 81206 and CWA Local 9413 who work directly for Job Corps face mass terminations if Trump’s plan is allowed to move forward. Members work as residential counselors, instructors, drivers, academic advisors, and mentors to the youth matriculating through the program.

In Chicopee, Mass., home of IUE-CWA Local 81206, students, members, and allies rallied in opposition to the closures. Local 81206 President Lance Green spoke to MassLive about the cuts, saying, “It’s my belief that it’s purposeful, designed to hurt working men and women and the working poor.” He added, “This attack is meant to disrupt and disenfranchise the next generation of union workers.”

A federal judge in Manhattan temporarily blocked the shutdown of the program.

Introduced in 1964, Job Corps provides low-income students with education and housing in all 50 states and Puerto Rico and has served over 2 million students since its inception. Approximately 4,500 previously unhoused youth rely on Job Corps for shelter and face a loss of housing if the program is disbanded.

CWA members and Job Corps trainees remain in limbo until a final determination is reached but are proactively speaking to legislators in Congress to preserve funding—which was not included in Trump’s 2026 budget proposal—for the program. Activists have also secured a bipartisan congressional letter calling on Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeReemer to halt cuts to Job Corps.

 
IUE-CWA members who face mass layoffs at Job Corps locations joined trainees, retirees, and community allies to rally earlier this month in opposition to the Trump Administration’s plan to close down the program.

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This post originally appeared on cwa-union.org.