Labor Department works to get answers to unemployed NYers

Hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers who have lost their jobs due to the coronavirus pandemic have not received their benefits from the state Department of Labor. Credit: JUSTIN LANE/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock/JUSTIN LANE/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock
Daily Point
NYS Labor Dept. to provide more info and updates
Just more than a week after a Newsday editorial suggested that the state Labor Department should provide residents who have filed unemployment claims with more information and regular updates, Labor Department Commissioner Roberta Reardon announced a plan to do just that.
In a call with reporters Friday afternoon, Reardon announced that the Labor Department was starting an email and text update program that would inform filers when their applications had reached certain milestones and would provide instructions for any next steps.
Reardon said she expects the new alert system to be rolled out “early next week.”
“We are throwing everything, including the kitchen sink, at processing your applications and paying your benefits,” Reardon said.
The announcement came as Melissa DeRosa, secretary to Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, said Friday that the state has paid out $6.8 billion to 1.6 million New Yorkers over the last seven weeks, noting that in all of 2019, the state paid out only $2.1 billion.
“We haven’t experienced anything like this, period,” DeRosa said. “We’re literally building the plane while we’re trying to fly it.”
DeRosa said state officials were “doing everything we can” to help those now on the unemployment rolls. The latest national statistics released Friday show that 20.5 million Americans lost their jobs last month, resulting in a 14.7% unemployment rate.
“None of these are good answers to people who are waiting and who are struggling and to those people we continue to apologize,” DeRosa added.
Perhaps at least a bit more information coming their way will help, as they continue to wait for their checks.
—Randi F. Marshall @RandiMarshall
Talking Point
Torres case gets dismissed
A U.S. District Court judge in Brooklyn pretty much ruled that if you live by the sword, you die by the sword when he dismissed a lawsuit brought by Michael Torres, the Suffolk Conservative Party stalwart who has a knack for turning his political connections into lucrative patronage jobs.
Judge Brian Cogan has dismissed Torres' claim that his 2015 firing from a $105,000-a-year Board of Elections job violated his First Amendment rights. Torres claimed that Republican Board of Elections Commissioner Nicholas LaLota said he was let go for refusing to give the Conservative line to GOP judicial nominee Tara Scully and instead giving it to the Democratic nominee. At the time, the Republican Party was at war with the Conservative Party led by former Chairman Ed Walsh, who preferred to make deals, especially on judgeships with Democratic Party chair Rich Schaffer.
While finding that indeed was the reason Torres was let go, the judge said the dismissal was permissible because Torres served in a job where party loyalty was required. The judge said Torres clearly was in a policy-making job that negated his free speech rights. "In the end, plaintiff held a position on the Board that demanded party loyalty and his termination was therefore fair game under the policymaker exception," the judge wrote.
In a comic challenge to the reality of Suffolk County politics, Torres, a senior assistant commissioner, unsuccessfully argued that his job was "menial" and that he was not involved in partisan politics. Cogan noted, however, that Torres was hired in 2007 at the request of then-GOP party chair Harry Withers and that he was fired eight years later at the request of John Jay LaValle, who succeeded Withers.
But shed no tear for Torres, Schaffer has taken care of him. He now works at Suffolk OTB despite his prior convictions for gambling. One way or the other, party loyalty pays off in Suffolk.
—Rita Ciolli @RitaCiolli
Pencil Point
Scapegoat

Ed Wexler
For more cartoons, visit www.newsday.com/cartoons
Final Point
Tourism advocates’ vacancy signs are on
While all the numbers in Friday’s monthly unemployment report were eye-poppingly painful, nothing stuck out more on tourism and restaurant-heavy Long Island like the hospitality sector. Nationwide, it has lost more than 7 million jobs from the time the coronavirus pandemic began to mid-April, when this snapshot was snapped, and those numbers have surely gotten worse.
On Long Island, tourism is a $6 billion industry that directly employs more than 100,000 people and generates an estimated $740 million a year in local and state tourism tax revenue.
But this year, according to Discover Long Island Communications Director Maggie LaCasse, hotels in the region are down 68% year-over-year since the crisis began.
And while the $2.2 trillion CARES Act Congress passed in late March includes help for many of the tourism- and service-related businesses affected by stay-at-home orders and social distancing, much of its aid isn’t available to the organizations that make much of that tourism happen.
It’s a big enough problem that Long Island’s congressional representatives have come together to sign a letter asking House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy to make 501 (c) (6) organizations eligible for Paycheck Protection Program aid in future coronavirus legislation and to make it clear they are eligible for Economic Injury Disaster Loans.
The 501 (c) (6) organizations are ones that, like local trade associations, destination marketing organizations and conventions and visitors bureaus, promote a common interest.
“These organizations are a key to highlighting what Long Island has to offer and making it a destination for everything from weddings to vacations to industry trade shows,” said Rep. Lee Zeldin. “They are crucial to making sure the Island and the state’s hospitality industry has a fast and strong recovery.”
Discover Long Island President and CEO Kristen Jarnagin said the organization attracts visitors from around the globe, and the hotel and motel tourism taxes are its primary source of funding.
“Our budget is decimated for the undetermined future, and our ineligibility for the PPP program due to our C(6) non-profit status limits our ability to assist our local businesses and tourism industry in this most desperate time of need,” Jarnagin said.
—Lane Filler @lanefiller