STATEMENT OF GARY GOLAS, CHAIRMAN, NEW BEDFORD 

 SEAFOOD INDUSTRY COALITION 



Mr. GoLAS. I want to thank you, Senator Kerry, for allowing me 

 to testify at this hearing this morning, and on behalf of the seafood 

 industry would like to welcome you to New Bedford as well, and 

 last express our gratitude for all your help that you've done for the 

 industry, and especially in this situation with the Canadian inci- 

 dent. 



My testimony today is the issue of economic aid to the fishing in- 

 dustry here in New Bedford. 



I'd like to speak of my direct involvement and experiences in this 

 economic aid issue. I'm involved in three ways. 



No. 1, I am involved with organizing the efforts of trying to get 

 this aid possible for the industry; No. 2, I hold a position for re- 

 cruiting unemployed fishermen in the new directions job training 

 program here in the city; and last we're just starting to put a 

 bunch of informational workshops together fx)r the people of the in- 

 dustry to understand the financial aid packages that are available 

 to them. 



Although I have to tell you that it's too early for us to say how 

 effective the $30 million economic aid is here in New Bedford be- 

 cause of the lack of statistical information, I'd like to inform of you 

 a number of serious concerns that we have here in New Bedford 

 regarding this aid. 



The concerns we have really are leading to a number of difficul- 

 ties and the requirements associated with getting this aid, and it's 

 leaving a wake of frustrations, confusion, and anger along this 

 whole waterfront. I think people everywhere along this waterfront 

 on both sides got the clear impression when Commerce Secretary 

 Ron Brown made the announcement in March that the $30 million 

 will be available to help them get out of their financial difficulties, 

 I think everyone got the clear impression that it was going to be 

 simple to get financial aid. And right now I think what they're 

 finding is that it's just the opposite, it's starting to get more dif- 

 ficult to get. 



When John Bullard came into town in January he had asked us 

 a number of questions. One of them. What are our problems and 

 how they can be solved? We provided plenty of testimony on that 

 line. We talked about the need to refinance vessels; we talked 

 about the great need for unemployment compensation and health 

 coverage; we talked about vessel buy-back plans; we talked about 

 retraining, not only providing retraining but also the social services 

 to support those that are unemployed; we talked about marketing 

 underutilized issues and trying to deal with the high cost of run- 

 ning a vessel and the personal injury insurance issues. 



Sadly I have to report to you that the people that are dealing 

 with these programs or trying to get these programs find that these 

 programs are not easy to understand. No. 1. No. 2, they're not easy 

 to land. And some of these programs, frankly, don't answer some 

 of the more pressing needs that we have. 



And let me just explain just a few of those areas. 



No. 1, there have been no offers so far of unemployment assist- 

 ance or social support financing for those that have either run out 

 of benefits, unemployment benefits, or have never been entitled to 



