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Commercial Fisheries News
Volume 33 Number 10
June 2006
MA fishermen, families assistance centers reach end of the road
GLOUCESTER, MA – After 12 years of providing job retraining, counseling, and other kinds of help to nearly 3,000 individuals, Massachusetts’ three Fishermen and Families Assistance Centers may be closing for good.
By April, the Gloucester center had run out of funds and was being staffed by volunteers who could direct clients to social service and other aid agencies. The Hyannis center, which was waiting for a final grant installment, was staffed just part-time and had 16 people waiting to begin training. The situation at the New Bedford center was similar.
But the US Department of Labor (DOL) had made it clear that it was finished making funds available.
“The DOL is not interested in continuing,” said Linda Roher of Commonwealth Corporation, which applied for and administered the grants for the Massachusetts centers.
She explained that the source of the funds had been the DOL’s “National Emergency Grants” program, which is usually tapped to provide retraining over 12-18 month periods in situations such as manufacturing plant shutdowns.
$20 million
Between 1994 and 2006, DOL channeled nearly $20 million to the Massachusetts centers to help ease the pain of the dramatic downsizing of the state’s commercial fishing industry.
According to a historical synopsis of its grants, the program began providing services primarily to boat owners and their wives and quickly expanded to assisting other family members involved in the family fishing business, crew members, and fishing-related industry workers.
In addition to providing retraining and re-employment assistance, the program began to offer English as a second language courses, high school diploma equivalency test prep courses, adult basic education, and computer use training.
The list of jobs acquired by program graduates fall into at least 39 different employment categories, ranging from able seaman, tugboat operator, and marine construction to plumber, mechanic, and truck driver. Other jobs included: accounting clerk, secretary, graphic designer, teacher’s aide, bookkeeper, licensed practical nurse, chef, computer programmer, and software engineer.
Supplemental income
The Fishermen and Families Assistance Centers also evolved from focusing on retraining displaced fishermen to providing training to help fishermen who wanted to remain in the business find ways to supplement their incomes.
“Our program has helped people leaving the fishing industry but also those staying, those fishermen who now only have 22 days-at-sea,” explained Angela Sanfilippo, director of the Gloucester center and president of the Gloucester Fishermen’s Wives Association.
According to Sanfilippo, the Gloucester center retrained 960 people and also made “endless thousands” of referrals for families in need of food aid, health care, housing assistance, domestic abuse and substance abuse counseling, and much more.
With the assistance of Catholic Charities and the support of a state senator, the Gloucester center’s rent was paid up through June. After that, Sanfilippo said she wasn’t sure what would happen, and she found that extremely troubling.
“I don’t understand why (the federal government) can’t come up with a couple hundred thousand dollars to help the people they are putting out of business,” she said. “In July, we will be shut down and the fishermen will have no place to go.”
Lorelei Stevens
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