Brooklyn Heights Woman Needs a Job

By on April 5, 2010 12:00 pm in Brooklyn Heights

The NY Daily News profiles Brooklyn Heights resident /job seeker Carol Vitkay an executive secretary with over 40 years of experience at investment firms.   Contact her – cavitkay AT yahoo.com if you’ve got a position or lead for her:

NY Daily News: The first time the company Carol Vitkay worked for was sold, she survived with her job intact. The second time, 30 years later, she wasn’t so lucky.

After four decades as a secretary at Manhattan investment bank White Weld, and then at the giant firm that bought it, Merrill Lynch, Vitkay longs to get back to work. She lost her job in December 2008 when her boss left Merrill after it was sold to Bank of America.

She can’t afford to retire because during her final decade at Merrill, Vitkay was a temp worker, meaning she didn’t have health insurance, paid vacations, sick leave, 401(k) contributions or bonuses.

She has been tapping savings to pay her health insurance premiums, which are now more expensive than her rent in Brooklyn Heights.

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  • Paul

    Her final DECADE was as a temp worker???? And this was at one of the wealthiest companies in the world? Truly, what a bunch of scumbags. Just unbelievable.

  • fulton ferry res

    It was quite common for financial firms to downsize, and then “hire” back the same people as contingent workers, to use the term in vogue these days. But I am surprised that this happened to someone in an executive secretary position. Also, the IRS/Dept of Labor have strict rules against companies keeping perma-temps. Generally speaking, if the employer “controls” when and how you perform your tasks, they are treating you as an employee, and can be sued for retroactive benefits. Microsoft, for one, was pursued vigorously in the 1990s for all of their long-term consultants who were mis-classified. Here’s a sample guide from the IRS:

    If you have the right to control or direct not only what is to be done, but also how it is to be done, then your workers are most likely employees.

    If you can direct or control only the result of the work done — and not the means and methods of accomplishing the result — then your workers are probably independent contractors.