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.

The Consortium for Worker Education is seeking a detailed snapshot of how COVID-19 and the recession are affecting New Yorkers on the community-level, through a new survey of residents of the Queens neighborhood of Astoria.

CWE presented testimony about our network of workforce development community-based organizations (CBOs) and union partners to work to ameliorate the increasing numbers of unemployed New Yorkers.

New York City is home to 695,000 union members. What can they teach the rest of us?

The novel coronavirus has devastated New York’s restaurant industry, leaving hundreds of thousands of restaurant workers unemployed or underemployed, while presenting new challenges to those who remain on the job. At the peak of the pandemic, many restaurant workers have turned to the Restaurant Opportunity Center (ROC) New York, a service organization that has spent nearly two decades organizing and supporting the city’s restaurant workers.

Jacob A. Riis Neighborhood Settlement listens to the community about what they say they need and develops responsive programs. In recent years, the organization has taken that to the next level by building leadership and advocacy skills so students can organize, advocate, and ensure that institutions meet their needs.

The latest report in a series from the New School’s Center for New York City Affairs and the Consortium for Worker Education shows that the coronavirus pandemic and associated recession continue to have a devastating impact on New York workers.

The Consortium for Worker Education and the New York City Central Labor Council launched CWE-CLC Workers Count2020 to ensure that New Yorkers get counted. Working with affiliate unions and community partners, CWE census outreach workers organized residents across the city to participate.

Immigrants are more likely to be essential workers and are among those hardest hit by COVID-related job losses, but these workers have been excluded from economic support programs passed by Congress in recent months.

With New York City’s economic reopening well under way, CWE census outreach workers are back in the streets, organizing for a complete census count.

A new report from the New School’s Center for New York City Affairs and the Consortium for Worker Education finds that the economic recession sparked by the coronavirus pandemic is hitting low-income workers of color hardest.