The state House Labor and Industry Committee advanced an unemployment compensation reform bill Wednesday aimed at helping the hundreds of employees from the Joy Global plant in Franklin that closed in 2016.
The bill, introduced by Rep. Lee James (R-Venango/Butler counties), would increase the time workers and employers have to appeal unemployment compensation decisions from 15 to 21 days.
Since the deadline is extended for both employees and employers, the change is fair, James said.
“The need for this reform was brought to my attention when local workers were applying for benefits after the plant shut down,” James said. “I’ve been fighting for this change and workers like them ever since that happened.”
After the plant closed, union representatives asked James how the state could best help the workers, the representative said, and extending the appeal timeline came up in the conversations.
Milwaukee-based Joy Global is a mining equipment manufacturer. It closed its Franklin plant because of the decline in the coal industry and moved all production to other facilities. The closure affected 382 people.
Joy Global’s underground mining division lost money in the quarter ending in January 2016, declining 29 percent to $274 million after orders fell 31 percent compared to 2015.