New York, NY – The state is reportedly about to buy billionaire gas & oil oligarch Terry Pegula a brand new sports stadium in Buffalo — conveniently located right next door to storied Rich Stadium — the 71,000-plus capacity facility most recently recast last year as “Highmark Stadium.”
The roughly $1 billion in public monies Governor Kathy Holchul allegedly wants to fork over to Pegula to prevent him from potentially bugging out of the state, will be the largest sum of money any U.S. municipality has ever spent on a sports stadium.
None of this is sitting well with “those who survive in the shadows” and “carried the state on their backs through the pandemic” — tens of thousands of delivery people, construction workers, day laborers, agricultural workers, restaurant workers and others deemed ineligible for unemployment benefits due to their immigration status or otherwise quickly shut out of the rapidly depleted Excluded Workers Fund created last year.
That $2.1 billion fund, established only after excluded workers and their allies went on hunger strikes and rallied together in collective action, ran out of money in roughly two months time and remains dry to this day.
According to the Excluded Workers Fund Coalition, “130,000 people across New York State have had their lives transformed after receiving funding from the Excluded Workers Fund,” but 175,000 more could still be helped.
Neither Governor Kathy Hochul or her Democratic Party colleagues controlling the New York State Legislature, however, have included the necessary funding for essential but excluded workers in their respective budgets.
“Raise your fist if you were able to get back on your feet because of the fund” Angeles Solis, lead organizer at Make the Road, told well over 100 excluded workers rallying outside the governor’s Third Avenue offices on Tuesday, March 15. “Raise your fist if you know someone who is better off because of the fund. Despite New York having more money than it’s had in years, despite there being a surplus in this budget, we are being cut out once again. There is more than enough money to cover the needs of every excluded worker.”
The Excluded Workers Fund Coalition is currently staging a series of worker actions and demonstrations throughout the state in an effort to push Democratic Party legislators into replenishing the fund, as well as establishing what would be a first-of-its-kind program providing excluded workers with permanent unemployment support — all this before an April 1 budgetary deadline.
“We’re proud to offer our support for the Excluded No More legislation,” Laborers’ Local 79 Business Manager Mike Prohaska said in a statement. “Our message to Governor Hochul and the state legislature is: let’s get it done. This commonsense bill will not only empower immigrant workers who make up the lion’s share of the nonunion construction workforce in New York. It will also close the gap between union and nonunion contractors, enabling undocumented workers to file for unemployment benefits, organize more freely on the job, and contribute more to our state’s economy and recovery after COVID.”
Had Excluded No More legislation already been on the books, Prohaska says fired demolicionistas performing work for anti-union Alba Carting & Demolition at the Terminal Warehouse in West Chelsea would have the ability to start a labor dispute regarding wage theft, misclassification, retaliation or “other violations of their rights as workers.”
“Too often, in the construction industry, we encounter low-road contractors like Alba who exploit the immigration status of nonunion workers to pay lower wages off the books, avoid paying into unemployment insurance, and fire workers for trying to organize,” he said. “When these immigrant workers are fired, they have no access to a safety net. That’s exactly what happened recently with the demolition workers – los demolicionistas – at Terminal Warehouse in Manhattan.”
Both A9037 and S8165 remain in committee, but are aimed at helping three sets of workers currently left especially vulnerable to joblessness — the undocumented, documented workers paid off the books and self-employed workers making a limited income. The estimated cost of the unemployment program is $800 million — well under the cost of Pegula’s new football stadium.
“The time for clapping for essential workers is over,” New York City Council Member Carmen de la Rosa [D-10th District] said in a statement. “If leaders in Albany really want to show their respect [for essential workers], they will back the $3 billion in funding that excluded workers have called for again and again—along with a permanent lifeline workers can lean on when times get tough. New York’s economy is roaring back and we have more than enough to make sure the recovery doesn’t leave anybody behind. It’s time for state lawmakers to step up and lead for excluded workers.”
Said, Solis, “[Governor] Hochul reserved billions in her rainy day fund — but for the people around me the rainy day is now.”
Governor’s Hochul’s office did not respond to requests for comment before going to press.
