PEP, March 2010: A road to jobs for the unemployed

Public Employee Press

Part 3 in a series on jobs and unemployment

A road to jobs for the unemployed

The public libraries are providing vital services to the city’s unemployed during the Great Recession.

By GREGORY N. HEIRES

For most patrons, the neighborhood library is a warm place to read a newspaper or magazine, borrow a bestseller, roam the Internet or check out a DVD.

For the victims of the brutal Great Recession, public libraries are a pathway to employment.

“During times of economic crisis, the libraries are an invaluable resource for people who are out of work,” said Eileen Muller, president of Brooklyn Library Guild Local 1482. “Our members help out in many ways, from helping people design their resumés to identifying potential employers.”

Paul Otto, a Supervising Librarian II and the local’s treasurer, works for the Skills Training & Employment Project at the Business Library at 280 Cadman Plaza. Otto is one of about 30 Local 1482 members who volunteered to devote part of their workweek to the program, which was established a few years ago with a U.S. Labor Dept. grant.

Extensive services

“The anticipation was that the program would be dedicated to Brooklyn’s chronically unemployed,” Otto said. “But that’s changed with the recession. Now we see so many people who have been downsized.”

Besides the Business Library, 13 branches offer services for the unemployed and other job seekers.

Library staffers meet individually with patrons, review resumés, offer help with the computer and advise them about interviewing and job searches. Workers also hold unemployment seminars and steer patrons to printed resources, help them search for work on the Internet and refer them to training and placement agencies.

“With the training we’ve received, librarians have really been able to provide extensive services,” said Supervising Librarian I Maud Andrew-Quintana, who worked on the grant. “It is unique for a library to provide one-on-one counseling.”

The New York Public Library, which serves Manhattan, the Bronx and Staten Island, has similar services available to the more than one in 10 New York City residents who are out of work. The jobless get help at the Bronx Library Center and the Job Information Center in the Science, Industry & Business Library in Manhattan.

At SIBL, Supervising Librarian Armand Isip teaches resumé-writing classes with groups ranging from a handful to 15 people. “We help set them up on the computer and make sure they can use the program for creating their resumé,” he said. “When they are done they can save the resumé to a flash drive and print it out.”

“The quality of resources we can offer free is amazing,” said Sr. Librarian Emerenciana Bravo, who teaches a class on how to use the library databases to find information on the job market and even self-assessment tools.

Specialist 3 Amy Armstrong works as a career coach and helps set up seminars with job specialists. One of the sessions was recently posted on YouTube.

Library Technical Assistant Alejandro Montalvo helps patrons use the center’s computer and directs them to other resources. His fluency in Spanish is a plus for patrons who come from Latin America.

Consoling the jobless

Sometimes, his job is simply to be empathetic to people experiencing the pain of being without a job. He recalled consoling one Spanish-speaking woman who broke down in tears. “I was one of the few people able to speak to her in Spanish,” Montalvo said. “I offered her a tissue and told her she could sit down here all day to do job searches and that we would be here to help.”

On a recent afternoon, DC 37 retiree Carolyn Jones accompanied her grandson Khalid Bethea to the Business Library in Brooklyn.

“I want to learn about finding full-time work,” said Bethea, a part-time City University employee who moved to the city a few weeks ago to stay with his grandmother.

“There are millions of dollars in cuts to the city’s library systems in the mayor’s proposed budget,” said Carol Thomas, president of New York Public Library Guild Local 1930. “It would be a tragedy to reduce the resources available for the jobless at a time when support is so needed. Ironically, if the hundreds of layoffs projected by the city for the three systems go through, our members could be among those going to the libraries for help.”

New start for laid-off child services staff

More than 150 laid-off children’s services workers will be able to go back to work at the Human Resources Administration in coming months.

Already, about 70 of the 330 Local 371 members laid off in September at the Administration for Children’s Services have accepted HRA job offers and are being trained for their new positions.

When the Child Welfare Specialists were laid off, they were put on a four-year “preferred list” established for possible callbacks at ACS.

Arguing that the duties of the ACS workers are similar to those of Caseworkers, Local 371 convinced the Dept. of Citywide Administrative Services to give the laid-off workers first chance at the Caseworker civil service positions opening at HRA and other agencies. Most of the laid-off members were Caseworkers before they became Child Welfare Specialists in an ACS restructuring a few years ago.

“The union has always maintained that these layoffs were initiative-driven, rather than budget-driven, making this large number of layoffs unnecessary. However, we are working in partnership with the city to bring workers back as expeditiously as possible,” said Local 371 President Faye Moore.

While HRA has informed the local about its short-term plan to hire about 150 workers, the cloudy budget picture makes additional hiring uncertain.

“I said ‘Thank God’ when we were called again,” said Belen Abualroub, who was among a group of laid-off ACS workers who went through a 10-day training program in February. She now has a job as a Caseworker in HRA’s home services program, which involves helping the elderly.

“But this job pays less and we have to do field work, which we didn’t do before,” she said.
Depending on their assignment, Caseworkers earn about $3,000 to $6,600 less than Child Welfare Specialists. “I am still angry about the layoff, but I am happy to have a job now. Watching the news, you see how bad the economy is.”

Gayle Unger will work for the Adult Protective Services program. She is a little apprehensive about the fieldwork, but looks forward to her new responsibilities.

“It’s a lot to learn, but it’s very interesting,” said Unger, who didn’t suffer a significant pay cut because she gets an assignment differential for working in the adult services program. “I am happy to have the opportunity for the training and hope everything will work out.”

“I hope a lot more of my co-workers come back,” said Unger, who stays in touch with several of her former colleagues who are still out of work.