CWE Workers Help Thousands Get Counted
CWE organizers hit the streets to get New Yorkers counted
New York has a lot on the line as the once-a-decade census count comes to a close. An undercount of the city’s population could mean New Yorkers lose representation in Washington and lose funding for key public services like transportation, senior centers, and housing.
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.
In total, CWE organizers had 37,175 conversations with New Yorkers about the census and supported 16,334 in completing the questionnaire.
"This was a way to advocate for our communities and a way to influence our country's future,” says Daniel Byers, a CWE Census Team Member. “It was an amazing way to be part of the labor movement. I'm proud of that.”
As 2020 got underway, CWE’s outreach centered on students in workforce development classes at CWE partner non-profits and labor unions. When the coronavirus pandemic upended in-person outreach, CWE organizers shifted to phone, text, and online outreach to engage with New Yorkers about the census.
Organizers also pitched in with aid programs to help New Yorkers get through the crisis, and assisted aid recipients with filling out the census. This included supporting food and PPE distribution to NYCHA residents with GOLES and Council Member Carlina Rivera on the Lower East Side, helping food pantries run by Catholic Charities and St. Jerome Hands in the Bronx, and rallying with Black Veterans for Social Justice in Bedford-Stuyvesant.
CWE outreach workers also fanned out into communities to hang posters in storefronts and engage New Yorkers on the street.
For some CWE organizers, it was the impact in their immigrant communities that made the campaign worthwhile.
"Honestly, it was the best thing I could possibly do as an immigrant,” says Diego Castillo, a CWE Census Team Member. “To be out there telling the truth about the census and to help Spanish speakers to understand the importance of their participation, and to have them trust me and help them fill out the Census, was the most amazing experience I could have. Time and time again, it made me feel useful.”
This month, canvassers hired by the U.S. Census Bureau began knocking on the doors of families who had yet to fill out the census. President Trump’s recent decision to halt the count four weeks early, on September 30, means that every conversation is even more important.
“Between the pandemic and interference from the federal government, it has been an uphill climb,” says Darly Corniel, Education Director at CWE and head of the census program. “But our city’s effort to fill out the census and get counted has been tremendous.”