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Archived News Release--Caution: information may be out of date.

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF LABOR

VETS Press Release: Herman Urges Congress to Keep Veterans' Employment Services At Labor Department [05/13/1999]

For more information call: (202) 219-5573

Calling the Veterans' Employment and Training Service "my link to 15 million working veterans," Labor Secretary Alexis M. Herman urged Congressional leaders to keep the agency "an integral part of the Department of Labor's team that is creating the employment and training system of the 21st century."

In a letter to the chairmen and ranking minority members of the House and Senate veteran's committees, Secretary Herman challenged many of the recommendations made by the Congressional Commission on Servicemembers and Veterans Transition Assistance which charged in its report that employment and training programs for veterans have failed. The letter accompanied a detailed response which was required by the law that created the commission. It was sent to Congress today.

Herman said that many of the commission's recommendations failed to take into account recent improvements in program performance, ignored the impact of new legislation such as the Workforce Investment Act and based many of its conclusions on old data.

Herman recognized that the commission performed a long overdue service in reviewing all federally-funded veterans assistance programs. But she said the commission's ultimate goal of moving VETS to the Department of Veterans Affairs "wastes taxpayer dollars and denies veterans access to the best employment services available."

"To ensure that America has the work force it needs to prosper in the new millennium, veterans must be fully integrated into all our programs and policies," Herman said. She praised VETS' participation in planning, writing and implementing draft regulations to guide the new public employment system authorized in the Workforce Investment Act by making sure that veterans' rights were recognized and protected.

The department's response analyzed the commission's recommendations in the areas of transition assistance program workshops, veterans employment specialists in the public employment service system, marketing veterans to employers, electronic employment assistance, access to federal training programs, hiring by federal contractors, linking employment services to vocational and rehabilitation services, homeless veteran programs and agency administration.

The commission did not report on new VETS' initiatives including an Internet-based national data base providing occupational credentialing, licensing and certification information; a pilot program providing targeted transition assistance and transition assistance to service members overseas; expanding and improving efforts to identify and secure job listings from Federal contractors and subcontractors; obtaining data to measure progress on strategic goals and improved program coordination, and a special survey on targeted veterans groups conducted by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

"America's veterans have earned the best and most comprehensive benefits that this nation can offer," said Herman. "VETS can best serve all of America's veterans as an active and respected member of the Labor Department team."

The Labor Department's complete response can be found on the agency's Internet web site at http:\\www.dol.gov/dol/vets.

Congress passed legislation creating VETS in 1982, consolidating veterans' employment and training services that had previously been scattered among several Labor Department agencies. The agency's mission is to assist veterans make the transition from military to civilian life, train for and find good jobs and to protect the employment and reemployment rights of veterans, reservists and National Guard members.

Archived News Release--Caution: information may be out of date.