Susan Valot
April 21, 2009
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Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger toured an Employment Development Department call center in Buena Park Monday. It's one of six call centers in the state. The operators there try to connect people with jobs and KPCC's Susan Valot says they've been busy.
Susan Valot: Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger wore a gray suit as he stopped and said hello to workers in a giant room full of cubicles, answering calls from the state's unemployed.
Call operator: I'll get calls in Vietnamese, Cantonese, Mandarin, you know, Spanish.
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger: Four different languages.
Director of call center: Yes, five different languages.
Schwarzenegger: Five different languages.
Valot: Last month, workers at this Buena Park call center helped file 80,000 unemployment claims. A little more than 150 workers answer the calls here. It means callers can wait on hold for a long time before getting any help. Schwarzenegger says they're trying to shorten those wait times.
Schwarzenegger: We have made a decision to hire an additional 1,150 people to answer the phones because there's such an enormous demand for filing for unemployment benefits.
Valot: Most of that's being funded by the federal government. The governor also announced extended hours at the call centers, so they're now open on Saturdays, from 10 in the morning until 2 in the afternoon. Denise Allen is one of the workers who answers the calls.
Denise Allen: Honestly, it's kind of like being the only life preserver on the Titanic.
Valot: Allen has fielded unemployment-benefit calls for eight years. She says it used to be you'd get a lot of calls from people trying to milk the system.
Allen: Now, I'm talking to doctors. I'm talking to lawyers. I'm talking to Ph.D.'s that
can't find work in this environment. It's disheartening.
Valot: Pam Cruz has been answering unemployment calls for more than two decades. She says the tone of the calls has changed over the past few months.
Pam Cruz: They're desperate. Everybody's desperate. And we try to be courteous and help each person that we can. But it's definitely desperate.
Valot: Unemployment specialist Denise Allen says that desperation is non-stop. She hopes the governor's plan to speed up the hiring of more workers at the call centers will help.
Allen: [laughs] Everybody that I talk to, I answer, the first thing out of their mouth is, "Don't hang up on me." And I say, "Don't worry, I'm here with you. If it takes 40 minutes, we'll get through it. But I'm here now." And I basically tell 'em, 3,000 people are here to answer the phones. 50,000 people are dialing that number, so that's the problem.
Valot: The union representing workers at the state Employment Development Department say managers have ignored pleas for more staffing for the past year. The union claims the governor's plan uses contract workers – which bypasses the union and its contract.
