Workers ask to expand access to independent workers, digital media workers and those released from prison

Yonkers
Excluded workers, advocates and elected officials launched a campaign this week to give workers permanent access to financial assistance when they lose their job. The measure would transform New York’s unemployment insurance (UI) system and upgrade the safety net with an economy increasingly driven by self-employment.
The workers called on New York Governor Kathy Hochul and leaders in Albany to include $500 million in the state budget for the Unemployment Bridge Program, which would run parallel to the state’s unemployment insurance program and provide workers $1,200 per month if they lose their job.
A report from the Immigration Research Initiative this month estimated that 750,000 workers across New York would be eligible for the program, including 180,000 self-employed and self-employed workers.
Aurelio Castro, a worker with Obreros Unidos de Yonkers, explained that, as a construction worker, work is scarce in the winter season, “from November to February, and in those months it is very difficult for him to pay rent and carry food to their children and many times I have been evicted, having to move with my children to other apartments,” said Castro.
Xavier Arango, a worker at the Mamaroneck and Larchmont Community Resource Center (CRC), called for “state legislators to make sure that workers like me can get support when times get tough, not just as temporary relief, but with a permanent unemployment program.
While the Excluded Workers Fund was primarily targeted at undocumented immigrants, the new program would be for a broader set, including freelancers, digital media workers, artists, photographers and others who can’t access unemployment insurance. The changes would reflect the growing popularity of freelance and temporary work in today’s economy.
“This is the same workforce that pulled our entire state out of the pandemic crisis financially. Undocumented workers, the self-employed, the self-employed, and people just released from prison must fend for themselves when they lose their jobs through no fault of their own. Unemployment insurance is a basic right; no worker should be left out,” said Jirandy Martinez, executive director, of CRC.
- [tabs type=”horizontal”][tabs_head][tab_title]El Programa estaría abierto a cuatro grupos:[/tab_title][/tabs_head][tab]Self Employed and Freelancers: Who have net earnings below the state average ($56,000/year) and who lose multiple clients, experience a significant personal problem, or face other significant adverse events.
- Certain workers in the cash economy: day laborers, domestic workers employed in private homes, construction and landscape workers in small jobs who are paid in cash or non-payroll checks without tax returns and who have net earnings below than the state median ($56,000).
- Immigrant workers without a work permit: A worker who loses most or all of his or her job earns less than the state average ($56,000) and worked at least 18 weeks in the 12 months before losing the job.
- Re-entries: New Yorkers who have been released from incarceration or immigration detention while seeking employment.[/tab][/tabs]
Posted on January 19, 2023