CWE Partners Prepare NYC for the New Normal of Work

Independent Drivers Guild distributed PPE and organized out-of-work drivers to deliver food to hungry New Yorkers during the pandemic (image source: IDG)

There are reasons to be optimistic for 2021. As more New Yorkers are vaccinated every day and relief legislation moves in Washington, we can begin to see a light at the end of the COVID tunnel. But we are also coming to understand how the pandemic has changed work forever. Over the last year, CWE partners have led the way in supporting workers as they adapt to this new normal.

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.

When the pandemic hit, the CWE network of unions and community organizations from the Jobs to Build On and Worker Service Center programs mobilized to provide food, PPE, counseling, and other support to help their members weather the storm. Simultaneously, many also retooled their workforce development programs, setting them up to be delivered online and to respond to the way that jobs are changing.

CWE partners have been training New Yorkers for “essential” jobs for years -- long before the term became the buzz word of 2020 -- which left them well-positioned to reemphasize and adjust those programs to prepare workers for these increasingly in-demand jobs.

Brooklyn Workforce Initiatives has used Zoom and Google Classrooms to create new training cycles for its Commercial Driver’s License program, to prepare workers for essential jobs like bus driving. Other BWI graduates are getting union jobs as NYCHA maintenance workers.

St. Nicks Alliance, based in North Brooklyn, moved quickly at the onset of the pandemic shutdown to connect workers to jobs in essential industries and continue outreach for its essential job training programs.

The Center for Employment Opportunities (CEO), which works with people who have recently returned home from incarceration, trained dozens of workers and placed them into essential employment in cleaning and sanitation at NYCHA.

CAMBA put job seekers in Central Brooklyn to work in essential industries like health care, security at homeless shelters, and wholesale grocery distribution.

Other CWE partners launched new programs to support workers adjusting to changes in their industries.

Restaurant Opportunity Center (ROC) New York developed a new management training program with two tracks -- one for workers displaced from other industries who wish to enter food service and the other for experienced restaurant workers seeking to climb the career ladder. Every element of the training course was developed with the pandemic in mind. Workers go deep on safe hygiene practices, including what equipment to wear, how to sanitize front and back of the house facilities, and how to maintain social distancing in the restaurant. The classes also stress compassionate customer service and help workers build emotional intelligence to meet the moment.

“Restaurant workers are serving people who are afraid of catching the virus, or who are recovering from illness or loss of a family member during the pandemic,” Rev. Prabhu Sigamani, director of ROC-NY, said in a recent CWE newsletter. “We teach how to provide professional service in these circumstances.”

The pandemic recession has hit taxi and black car drivers especially hard. The Independent Drivers Guild created “Labor Delivers,” a program in which unemployed drivers deliver food to people who might otherwise go hungry. Within a month, 11,000 drivers were employed to deliver over 6 million meals to New York City residents.

In response to the heightened need for sanitary services in light of COVID-19, the Center for Family Life worked this year with cooperative workers it has long supported to develop a new line of business to perform deep disinfection cleaning in commercial buildings.

SEIU 1199 launched new online training programs to train members for positions in infection control, nursing homes, and sterile supply processing.

While the pandemic leaves much of the future uncertain, New Yorkers can remain confident that the CWE network of unions and community organizations will be there to support them no matter what the future of work brings.