'It's scary': While hundreds of workers face layoff in Brooke County, WV lawmakers move to slash th [View all]

‘It’s scary’: While hundreds of workers face layoff in Brooke County, WV lawmakers move to slash the benefits they’ll rely on


Just south of Weirton, Shannon Baldauf spends her work days suited up in layers of fire-retardant clothing, climbing atop massive, blazing furnaces that purify tons of coal.

“It’s a heat like you’ve never experienced,” she said.

But come this summer, Baldauf and nearly 300 others who work at the Cleveland-Cliffs coke plant in Follansbee will be out of a job. The plant is closing, and Baldauf isn’t sure what comes next.

“It’s definitely scary,” she said.

West Virginia’s unemployment system is meant for moments like these: to exist as a safety net for people like Baldauf who are unexpectedly between jobs. But while that’s the reality for Baldauf, 200 miles away under the Capitol dome, state lawmakers are advancing bills that chip away at that safety net by slashing the length of time workers can stay on unemployment benefits.

Read more: https://mountainstatespotlight.org/2022/02/24/wv-lawmakers-move-to-slash-unemployment-benefits/