City Layoffs Continue, Prompting Anger

By Odette Yousef

Atlanta, GA – Layoffs continued today, as Atlanta tries to close a 140 million dollar gap in the next fiscal year budget. More than four hundred city employees will be terminated by the end of Monday.

WABE's Odette Yousef went to the Atlanta Workforce Development Agency downtown, where many learned in a meeting that they had lost their jobs.

Antwan Dowdell has paved roads for the Department of Public Works for 3 years. He got the bad news first thing this morning:

DOWDELL: You know, they called our names, you know, the ones that were in the lay off. 122 employees. And they gave me my letter, told me to clean my locker out, and come down here to the workforce.

The Atlanta Workforce Development Agency and the Georgia Department of Labor will help the employees find new jobs. Joe Basista is Commissioner of Public Works:

BASISTA: We hope to be able to offer many of these employees reemployment opportunities over the next several weeks.

But that's cold comfort to many, like Nelson Trimble:

TRIMBLE: They're saying that it's going to be jobs. You know, they're gonna try to transition us to jobs, but then they closed all the vacant positions. So there's nothing. There's nothing for us. And they just try to make us feel better about telling us to get out.

Trimble made $11.81 cents an hour paving roads, and has five young children. He says if he goes to work for another county or city, he'll take a cut in pay and benefits:

TRIMBLE: Any way it goes, we're going to end up having to cost the government some money. Cause we gotta go get unemployment. We gotta transition. The world is in a recession. The gas just went up. The milk is going up to $5.

Those let go will receive two weeks pay.

Many were angry. Antwan Dowdell says he and his coworkers are paying for mistakes made in City Hall:

DOWDELL: The ones in the offices messed up the city budget. And we're the ones that have to suffer. The ones that go out, do the work, and I don't feel that's right..

The city's budget gap is due to rising pension and health care costs, budgeting errors, and declining revenues in a slowing economy.

Odette Yousef, WABE News.