Laid-Off Single Mother Can’t Afford to Worry

Joni Talley came back from vacation refreshed and ready to work when she was summoned to her boss’ office in the computer center at Cal State Fullerton July 7.

“She told me I would be receiving a layoff notice,” recalled Talley, a single mother whose 5-year-old daughter recently had her second eye surgery and may face another. “I was shocked.”

Talley knew that part-timers in her department had been laid off June 30. “But I just didn’t think they’d be really laying off any more, especially not in our area because we’re so busy,” the 31-year-old data control technician said.

Although Talley had the right under union contract rules to return to her previous position, that job no longer exists. Nor could she “bump” a probationary computer operator who has been at the university for less than a year because he is in a different job classification. So, after nearly eight years as a university employee, she walked out the door for the last time on Aug. 19.

She is one of 23 non-faculty employees whose jobs have been axed as the university prepares to slash more than 10% from its 1992-93 operating budget to meet a projected shortfall in state funding. It is the largest wave of layoffs in the university’s 34-year history, and has helped send campus morale plunging and sent some employees to the picket lines in protest.

Initially, the university sent layoff notices to 42 employees, nine faculty and 33 staff members. Since July, with retirements and an infusion of about $570,000 from the chancellor of the California State University system, layoffs were rescinded for six faculty and 10 staff members.

Joni Talley wasn’t one of them. At first she thought things would be OK, because she and her daughter were added to the medical insurance policy of her estranged husband, a maintenance worker at the Fullerton campus, from whom she has been separated for 1 1/2 years.

Just days ago, she learned that he, too, would be laid off effective Sept. 30. His medical insurance lapses Oct. 30 unless they can pay $300 or so a month to extend it. That, she said, appears very unlikely since she may not even qualify for $218 a week in unemployment because she has signed up for four classes at the university this fall.

“I usually take six units a semester, but after I got my second ‘Dear John’ letter, or whatever you call those layoff notices, I thought: ‘I’ve got to do something; I can’t just sit around here and pick at the air,” said Talley, who hopes to become a social worker and become fluent in Spanish.

Qualified in a broad range of computer processing skills, Talley has applied for three jobs without success. She’ll hit the pavement again this week in search of something to pay bills, including rent of $545 a month on her one-bedroom apartment and $232 in monthly fees to send daughter Kelcey to a Christian kindergarten. In the meantime, she is watching her pennies, postponing repairs on her car and canceling things like a $150 trip she and Kelcey were to take with the local YMCA to Catalina in September. “I can’t put out money now for something like that,” she said.

And she worries about whether Kelcey’s physician will say the girl needs a third operation to correct an eye muscle condition known as “lazy eye,” a problem doctors have told her can lead to impaired vision, possibly even atrophy if not corrected.

“I’m scared, but I can’t look at it that way,” she said. “I’m going to go to school and keep applying for jobs and hope that something comes up.”