Despite City Council Member Brad Lander bringing in progressive heavy hitter, U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) to champion his Essential Workers Bill of Rights legislative package, there is increasing pushback that the timing is not right to further regulate businesses when many are closed and facing an existential crisis.
The proposed Worker’s Bill of Rights would guarantee essential workers in businesses with 100 employers or more extra pay, protective equipment, paid sick leave, and protection against wrongful termination, among other things.
“Banging pots and pans is not enough when the delivery worker bringing the meal to your house can’t even take a paid sick day, when workers don’t have enough PPE but then are fired or threatened for speaking up about it, or when people are working right now for less than they would be getting if they were on unemployment. So we owe them more than cheering,” Lander said at a virtual town hall on the legislation in which Warren sat in.
In the meeting, Lander, along with City Councilwoman Laurie Cumbo (D-Fort Greene, Clinton Hill, Prospect Heights, Crown Heights, Downtown Brooklyn) brought together essential workers from the food industry to the hospital industry to share their stories about the struggles and lack of support that they face.
Amara Sanogo, an Uber driver, mentioned that gig workers such as himself are particularly hardly hit. Not only do workers have to pay for protective equipment, such as plastic dividers between passengers and the driver, but they are unable to receive unemployment benefits, as the company considers them independent contractors, not employees.
“When the coronavirus came, nobody is making money anymore. So I was forced to stay home. Since I stay home, I filed for unemployment, but I haven’t received any money yet. Even my stimulus check, I haven’t received it yet,” says Sanogo.
Cumbo says when someone signed up to do a job doing deliveries, to do a job taking care of the elderly, they never saw themselves as a frontline soldier in germ warfare.
“And so this is a critical situation, and it’s something that people need to be compensated for, for allowing us to stay at home and be on these calls and having them be in the front lines for our community.”
But Lisa Griffith, counsel for the Save New York City Home Care Coalition, said in her testimony at the city council hearing on the measures this week that the new laws would be the financial ruin for the home care industry.
“Even prior to the pandemic, City home care agencies operated on razor-thin margins since the Medicaid reimbursements are only a few dollars above the direct costs,” Griffith said. “The legislation as drafted proposes the payments from the employer, and home care agencies serving this constituency simply do not have the funding or state and federal budgets to make these premium payments.”
The just cause termination bill would also saddle companies with unnecessary litigation costs when laws already protect employee rights, she said. She urged the city councilmembers to vote “no” on the package or to exempt home care employers from the legislation.
Cumbo said the legislation is still being reworked and is not meant to hurt smaller organizations and businesses.
“It’s really critical that we have the opportunity and experience to speak up for those who don’t have the voice and the ability to do so at this time,” she said.
