The Employment Transition Program (ETP) records include grant proposals (funded and non-funded), training manuals, publications, and project development files relating to studies on unemployment and intervention training programs for displaced auto workers, including life education planning programs and life education advisors. The record group is organized into four series: Grant Proposals, Project Development Files, Publications, and Contracts. The activities of the Employment Transition Project (ETP) are best documented in Grant Proposals and Publications. The activities of the Life/Education Planning Program (L/EPP) from 1985 to 1998 are best documented in Contracts.
The Employment Transition Program (ETP) began on September 1, 1982. The original project, a three-year intervention in the unemployment experience, was administered by Jeanne Prial Gordus and was a test of whether it was possible to substantially reduce the period between involuntary job loss and re-employment.
The name of the first project, ETP, stuck with the group of professionals and students who came to the Industrial Development Division in 1983 to conduct research with Gordus. Thereafter, ETP was an umbrella term used to group a number of projects having the same job search and career change objectives. These projects were directed at unionized, blue-collar workers, through enhancement of personal, educational, and vocational skills. Projects also sought ways to prevent the harmful physical and mental health effects often associated with prolonged unemployment.
Although the ETP conducted many projects across many industries, it focused primarily on autoworkers. This collection of materials best documents the Life/Education Planning Program (L/EPP), which was a twelve-year joint project of the University of Michigan, Ford Motor Company, and the United Auto Workers (UAW) from 1985 to 1998. L/EPP was grant funded by the United States Department of Education, Fund for the Improvement of Post-Secondary Education. The Ford Motor Company and UAW-Ford provided other funding.
The goal of L/EPP was much the same as the goal of the overall ETP program: to provide training, retraining, and developmental opportunities to both active and displaced autoworkers. The purpose of the program was to stimulate the involvement of workers in a comprehensive range of educational, personal development, and training opportunities. In order to accomplish this goal, the ETP recruited and trained Life Education Advisors (LEA). An LEA was assigned to one or more Ford plants, depending on plant size. The LEAs worked with community colleges, technical schools, and vocational training centers to develop classes for the plant workers. The LEAs also counseled the plant workers on class selection and helped to make them aware of the opportunities that continuing education and personal development classes offered them. They assisted the workers in identifying their personal goals and helped them develop plans to attain these goals. At the height of the L/EPP project, there were approximately 60 LEAs working in UAW-Ford plants in the states of Michigan, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, and Missouri.
The role of the University of Michigan was threefold: 1) to employ professionals from human service fields to provide education services and programs to union represented workers; 2) to monitor program progress; and 3) to conduct research on program effectiveness and the impact of in-plant advisory service. The University of Michigan linked its mission with the L/EPP through research and service. The design of this research provided the opportunity to observe, analyze, and interpret data important to several fields (psychology, sociology, and economics). The university also provided service to non-students while acting as a facilitator by enhancing human investment in Michigan's then current workforce.
Plant workers were not required to participate in the program, however most did and the program was undoubtedly a success. During its lifetime, the program won several awards. In 1987 it was recognized by United States Department of Education as one of the most promising guidance programs in the United States at the time.
The ETP began in the Industrial Development Division, under the direction of Jeanne Gordus. She and the program moved to the Institute for Science and Technology in 1983 and then finally to the School of Social Work in 1988. Gordus directed the ETP until her death of cancer in 1990. Robert Toronto, a professor in the School of Social Work, succeeded her and was director until the program's end in 1998. Larry Root, Professor of Social Work, was the co-director of the L/EPP from 1988-1990.
