Jobs to Build On, Worker Service Centers, and Immigration Protection Group have provided job training, career placement, and other services to tens of thousands of workers.

On March 7, the City Council’s Committee on Small Business, chaired by Council Member Julie Menin, held an oversight hearing on how the New York City Department of Small Business Services (SBS) has responded to the crisis to support New York businesses and workers. CWE provided written testimony to the committee on the work of the CWE network of labor unions and community organizations that are helping workers recover from the COVID recession.

Last year, the Governor’s office declared a first-in-the-nation gun violence disaster emergency in New York. Gun violence is concentrated in neighborhoods that have faced decades of disinvestment. To provide young people in New York City communities with pathways away from gun violence and toward viable employment and career opportunities, CWE partnered with the New York State Department of Labor to create the CWE Young Adult Gun Violence Prevention Program.

To support young New Yorkers, the Consortium for Worker Education is partnering with the New York City Department of Small Business Services to launch License 2 Careers. The new two year program will work with young people ages 18-24 to build skills and place them into jobs in the unionized public and private transportation sector.

The New York City Council has been a leading voice for New York City’s forgotten workers. The City Council founded three programs, Jobs to Build On, Worker Service Centers, and Immigration Protection Group, to fund workforce development and protection services for the New York communities most in need. These programs, administered by CWE in partnership with dozens of community organizations around the city, deliver life changing services to thousands of residents every year.

Industries that formed the employment core for New York City before the pandemic, like hospitality and tourism, have been among the hardest hit by the pandemic. The incoming City Council, which is increasingly diverse and representative of New York’s varied neighborhoods, has an opportunity to tackle the monumental challenge of a COVID recovery for all workers.

The COVID-19 pandemic has been a twin public health and economic crisis across the globe. To understand the economic trends that have come out of the pandemic and what response is needed in New York, the State Assembly Labor Committee held a hearing on November 15th.

Bronx workers face many challenges in realizing their economic dreams. SoBro was founded five decades ago to help them overcome those obstacles and build stable careers for their families and communities.

To stem the gun violence and begin to give residents resources to reduce their own risk, New York is investing millions of dollars across the state in workforce service providers so that unemployed young adults have viable employment and career opportunities. In New York City, the new program will be implemented by the Consortium for Worker Education and a network of neighborhood-level partners, funded under the New York State Department of Labor.

Census statistics released this month show that 8.8 million people now live in the five boroughs. The 629,000 person increase is due in part to the influx of immigrants and other transplants who have moved to New York over the last ten years, but much credit goes to city leaders and the hundreds of community organizations who fought through federal threats and the pandemic to ensure every New Yorker was counted.

The New York City Council restored funding for key job training programs to pre-pandemic levels in the recently passed city budget.

This month, CWE and six partners across New York City were selected by the Department of Labor to outreach to eligible community members and educate them about the Excluded Workers Fund.

El Covid-19 no solamente solo fue una crisis de salud para las familias trabajadoras de la ciudad de Nueva York. También fue una crisis laboral, crisis de alimentos y crisis de vivienda. Para poder sobre llevar estas múltiples crisis, muchas personas se acercaron a organizaciones comunitarias que les habían brindado apoyo anteriormente y gracias a estas instituciones locales salieron adelante.

A first-of-its-kind survey focused on COVID impacts facing workers at the neighborhood-level.

For many immigrants, the road to a stable life in the United States is a difficult one, and the last few years only made it harder. As the federal government rolls back some of the harshest policies of the Trump administration, CWE’s Immigration Protection Group and our partners are educating immigrants on what the changes mean for them and how they can prepare for what’s next. For Thanaa, help from IPG member the ANSOB Center made the difference in her becoming a citizen.

La pandemia COVID-19 puso al descubierto las desigualdades en nuestra sociedad, desde el acceso a servicios de salud hasta las disparidades de tipo racial sobre quién realiza aquellos trabajos que exponen mayor riesgo. A medida que la pandemia forzó el cierre económico de diversos sectores e instituciones, muchas personas que ya vivían en circunstancias de necesidad en cuanto a vivienda, alimento o pobreza extrema fueron empujados mas al límite.

The COVID-19 pandemic laid bare the inequalities of our society, from unequal access to healthcare to racial disparities in who performs the most dangerous jobs. As the pandemic forced sectors of the economy and other institutions to close, many who were on the brink of homelessness, hunger, or poverty were pushed over the edge.

The COVID-19 pandemic sparked the worst economic recession since the Great Depression, but as with the health impacts of the virus, some Americans have been hit harder than others. Young workers are facing higher rates of unemployment than other workers and will need additional job training and job placement support to enter, or reenter, the workforce.

During the Trump administration, CWE launched the Immigration Protection Group to bring together the organizations in New York that were responding to aggressive immigration enforcement and heightened scrutiny of citizenship applicants. When the group met this month for its first time since the inauguration of President Joe Biden, a lot had changed, but it was clear that there is still much work to do.

As we take steps toward putting this health crisis behind us, we must also consider what support displaced, incumbent, and new workers need to succeed in their careers in the pandemic's wake. The CWE network of community organizations and labor unions are already creating that vision and putting it into practice.