Laid Off Workers

Forty-four of the 392 Baltimore County workers laid off in February are seeking reinstatement and back pay through a suit to be filed today.The suit charges that County Executive Roger B. Hayden did not follow proper procedures in making the layoffs and other job cuts Feb. 11 and 12.People whose jobs were eliminated were told to leave their offices immediately, though they were given severance pay and help in finding new jobs.The suit also charges breach of contract, said Towson attorney J. Carroll Holzer, who is representing the group.

Laid-off Hostess Brands workers, including 192 in Maryland, are eligible for federal trade assistance benefits, the U.S. Department of Labor said Tuesday. The Trade Adjustment Assistance program offers retraining help and other aid, coordinated by state workforce agencies, to people who lost their jobs as a result of foreign trade. The Labor Department said its investigation showed "increased imports of baked products contributed importantly to the company's sales declines and worker separations.

Dawn Zeigler was preparing for her wedding when she learned that the Pentagon had canceled the Navy's A-12 stealth fighter.A quality-assurance engineer at Westinghouse Electronic Systems Group in Linthicum for only 15 months, she knew her job might be at risk."

In all of the clamor about deficit reduction and fiscal cliffs, the assumption is that the U.S. economy is basically fine. The "jobs slump" is just that - a slump - so with proper government intervention (or lack thereof), the happy days of full employment will return. After all, the "recession" is just temporary, isn't it? There is a more devastating prospect: that the lost jobs are gone forever, leaving tens of millions of Americans, concentrated at opposite ends of the age scale, who may never work "permanently" again.

The Baltimore County Council last night approved a measure that would allow three veteran workers to buy the government pensions for which they were only months away from qualifying when they were laid off in February."

Bill Milligan is used to helping unemployed bank vice presidents, clerk typists and construction workers find work. Now he'll have to help some of his own -- state employees who'll be losing their jobs because of Gov. William Donald Schaefer's budget cuts.Milligan is a job finder at a Maryland Department of Economic and Employment Development placement office in Annapolis. He's also part of DEED's Rapid Response Team, a specialized crew trained to deal with massive layoffs and plant closings.

An article yesterday incorrectly reported the notice given laid off workers at Merry-Go-Round Enterprises Inc. The workers were given 60 days' notice.The sun regrets the error.

Numbers-- The number of newly laid off workers filing claims for unemployment benefits increased to 336,000 last week, a gain of 7,000.

As the recession and economic restructuring continue to cut a swath through the white-collar work force, many companies are hiring specialized consultants to soften the blow.Counselors who offer "career transition" services say corporate shutdowns and downsizings have generated a demand for their work.Such consultants help laid-off managers and executives cope with their loss and learn how to search for a new job in a tight economy.Employers who hire such consultants help not only those laid off. They also help the frightened ones who fear that they might be next.

An Anne Arundel County company that specializes in highway excavation and vegetation control warned Maryland regulators that it will lay off 75 employees because a contract was not renewed, the state said Tuesday. Mercier's Inc. in Harmans told the state that the cuts would come at the end of the year, but it expects many of the laid-off workers will land jobs with the new contractor. The company could not be reached for comment. jhopkins@baltsun.com twitter.com/jsmithhopkins Text BUSINESS to 70701 to get Baltimore Sun Business text alerts

An Anne Arundel County company that specializes in highway excavation and vegetation control warned Maryland regulators that it will lay off 75 employees because a contract was not renewed, the state said Tuesday. Mercier's Inc. in Harmans told the state that the cuts would come at the end of the year, but it expects many of the laid-off workers will land jobs with the new contractor. The company could not be reached for comment. jhopkins@baltsun.com twitter.com/jsmithhopkins Text BUSINESS to 70701 to get Baltimore Sun Business text alerts

Forrest Martin is looking at the same help-wanted listings as all the other Sparrows Point workers, the jobs with wages of $10 an hour, $13, $15. The jobs that could mean a pay cut of half — or more — from his steel mill days. But Martin, 31, isn't exactly in the same boat as everybody else. Half of the mill's workers started at Sparrows Point before he was born. Hundreds of its laid-off workers are eligible, if not able, to retire. Martin is part of a smaller group — about 280 of the 1,700 hourly employees — who are in their 20s or 30s and have most of their working lives ahead of them.

Baltimore County will hold sessions next week for Sparrows Point workers and others affected by the steel mill owner's bankruptcy. The workshops will offer resources for the laid-off workers, particularly information about federal aid for retraining and other benefits available to them through the Trade Adjustment Assistance Program. State and local agencies will have staff on hand to answer questions. The sessions will run from 9 a.m. to noon and from 1 to 4 p.m. on Sept. 4 and 6 at the training conference center just inside the Sparrows Point complex.

Northrop Grumman Corp. will lay off 90 workers in Maryland as part of a nationwide cutback of 400 workers in the company's Electronic Systems sector, the company reported Tuesday. Plans to eliminate as many as 800 jobs nationwide were announced in October. The defense contractor, one of the largest private employers in Maryland, is trimming the workforce based on the business outlook for Electronic Systems and in anticipation of defense spending cuts, the company said. The laid-off workers, who received notice Tuesday, will work through the end of January, said Jack Martin Jr., a spokesman for Northrop Grumman Electronic Systems.

While nearly 14 million unemployed Americans are searching for work, some employers are limiting their hiring to preferred candidates: People who already have jobs. Recruiters and worker advocates say companies are screening out applicants who don't have a job or who haven't worked for many months. The unfairness — at a time when nearly 45 percent of the unemployed have been out of work for more than six months — isn't lost on the jobless. "How ridiculous is that?

Baltimore County is holding information fairs this week to assist the more than 1,000 workers who have been laid off from the Sparrows Point steel mill as part of a temporary idling of the primary steelmaking operations. The fairs will be held Thursday and Friday at the Severstal Sparrows Point Conference and Training Center, with morning and afternoon sessions each day. Each session will include presentations about unemployment insurance, federal Trade Adjustment Act benefits, union benefits and health care benefits.

Northrop Grumman Corp. will lay off 90 workers in Maryland as part of a nationwide cutback of 400 workers in the company's Electronic Systems sector, the company reported Tuesday. Plans to eliminate as many as 800 jobs nationwide were announced in October. The defense contractor, one of the largest private employers in Maryland, is trimming the workforce based on the business outlook for Electronic Systems and in anticipation of defense spending cuts, the company said. The laid-off workers, who received notice Tuesday, will work through the end of January, said Jack Martin Jr., a spokesman for Northrop Grumman Electronic Systems.

DETROIT -- General Motors Corp. has spent $497.9 million to pay laid-off workers since October, according to participants in a meeting in Dearborn, Mich., Thursday of 300 United Auto Workers officials from GM plants around the country.Even so, UAW officials believe that the $4.3 billion GM set aside to maintain the incomes of laid-off workers will last as long as it's supposed to -- until September 1993 -- unless the recession worsens.Last month, however, GM told the union it expects the $4.3 billion to beexhausted by the summer of 1992, unless the economy improves, according to a GM official who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Mildred Miller was just notified that her unemployment benefits will be cut off two weeks before Christmas. She can't think about it without breaking down. "I don't know what I'm going to do; I really don't know," Miller said Monday, her eyes welling with tears as she scanned job listings at Baltimore County's work force development center in Essex. "I don't want to get evicted. If we get on the street, I don't know where we'll be. " The Middle River resident, a single mother with a 6-year-old son, is one of thousands in Maryland and about 2 million nationwide whose payments will be phased out in December if the federally funded emergency unemployment compensation program expires Tuesday as planned.

Five former ESPN Zone employees filed a class action lawsuit Monday against the company, alleging it had violated federal standards for notifying and paying workers who lost their jobs when the Inner Harbor location closed in June. The federal lawsuit claims that ESPN Zone, owned by Walt Disney Co., did not provide laid-off workers the mandated 60 days' notice of termination under the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification, or WARN, Act. The company has previously stated that it followed the federal regulations.