Rally planned to protest closing of job offices

Valuable face-to-face assistance for the jobless will be lost if the plan is implemented, a critic says.
By NORMAN LEIGH
VINDICATOR SALEM BUREAU
LISBON -- A labor union is organizing a rally for next week to protest the state's planned closing of three area employment offices, including one here.
The event is being planned by Ohio Civil Service Employee Association, which represents many of the employees who work at the area job offices.
The rally will be from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday at the Lisbon employment office, located at 7860 Lincole Place.
Citing economic concerns, the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services announced in February that its employment offices in Lisbon and Warren will close sometime in the next 15 months.
Also to close during that period is a claims center in Salem that isn't open to the public. Its function is to handle particularly complex unemployment claims referred to it from other employment offices.
Phone center: The employment office on South Avenue in Youngstown will be converted to a telephone center where the jobless can call for aid.
The area office closings are part of a statewide plan by job and family services that calls for closing 56 employment offices around the state and replacing them with 21 phone centers.
State officials say the phone system will work efficiently and be more convenient for users than making personal visits to an employment office.
Ed Connors, who works at the Lisbon employment office, disagrees, however.
Many jobless individuals function better through face-to-face contact with experts trained to assist them, insisted Connors, who is president of the OCSEA's Chapter 1500.
"We deal with all walks of life here," Connors said. "People aren't just a Social Security number."