Public Employee Press

Layoff Trauma

KANE NOEL is one of Queens Library Director Thomas W. Galante's 44 layoff victims.

"Yeah, it's my last day," Noel sighed as he stood outside the system's Central Library in Jamaica, where his coworkers gathered Sept. 3 to protest the layoffs. Galante ordered the layoffs even though the City Council restored $17.6 million to the institution's budget for fiscal year 2011.

Having suffered heart attacks, Noel, 32, said he fears losing his health insurance. Now that his only income will be unemployment insurance, he is also very worried about the possibility of not being able to meet his household expenses.

Before the layoff, Noel and his sister, a children's services worker, pooled their salaries to support their retired parents at the family's house in Cambria Heights. They also used their pay to help out their grandmother and family in Haiti.

But without Noel's $26,000 salary, the Queens family's income has been halved overnight. Noel's mother has a modest pension from her 25 years as a unionized Nurse's Aide, but his father, who drove a cab, has no pension. Noel and his sister will now be scrambling to come up with the $2,300 monthly mortgage payment.

Noel worked part-time at the library for four years before he became a fulltime Customer Service Representative on Dec. 2, 2008.

"I love helping people, and I love this place," he said, reflecting on his job at the library, where he shelved books, worked at the checkout desk and assisted patrons looking for resources.

Faced with a bleak economic future, Noel said he will continue to pour himself into his church work. He's studying to be a minister. "It is tough," he said.

—Gregory N. Heires