Band of “Excluded Workers” Stops for Lunch in Irvington

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Excluded workers after a free lunch at Irvington's Church of St. Barnabas

March 19, 2022

By Barrett Seaman—

A diverse group of some 20 people, said to represent 175,000 largely undocumented workers, are en route on foot from New York City to Albany, where they plan to call on Governor Hochul and the state legislature to replenish the so-called Excluded Workers Fund that was enacted by the state last year to provide pandemic aid to workers who were not otherwise covered by federal aid plans.

On a rainy Thursday, the group stopped at Irvington’s Episcopal Church of St. Barnabas, where they were provided lunch courtesy of the church.

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The marchers’ supporting “Justice Bus” parked outside St. Barnabas

“For two years, New York’s leaders have clapped for essential workers. We have held parades in their honor. We have put up statues,” said Jirandy Martinez, Executive Director of the Community Resource Center based in Westchester. “Yet hundreds of thousands of essential workers who lost work during the pandemic have been left to fend for themselves without a single penny of assistance from the state. They are excluded workers: domestic workers, street vendors, farm workers, day laborers, restaurant workers. The people who keep New York running day after day. And if another crisis strikes, the same workers will be left stranded once again, because of holes in our safety net.”

What prompted the march was the exhaustion of a $2.1 million “Excluded Workers Fund” created during the pandemic, just as some 75,000 applications from otherwise uncovered workers are pending in Albany. What has now accelerated the timetable to get to Albany is the passage this week of preliminary state budgets by both the Assembly and the Senate that set aside no new funds for excluded workers. The marchers now plan to get to Albany by the 23^rd in hopes of persuading the state to make the fund permanent or at least to use some of the Governor’s $5 billion “rainy day fund” to provide aid to these workers.

To get there in time, the marchers may have to become riders in their accompanying “Justice Bus” seen above.

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