Tens of thousands rally in Albany
Health care workers arrive en masse as industry advocates
ALBANY — Tens of thousands of advocates seeking to influence state lawmakers in the final days of budget negotiations poured into Albany on Tuesday in hopes their messages would resonate with Gov. Kathy Hochul and the Legislature.
Special interest groups that flood the Capitol each spring on “lobby days” are part of an annual rite of passage during the legislative session, and an effort that often leaves many of the groups competing for attention from reporters and lawmakers as they scramble to make their pitches in an unoccupied stairwell, lobby or patch of grass outside.
Health care rally
Thousands of health care workers affiliated with 1199SEIU, a large and influential labor union representing hospital workers and other medical providers, ramped up the most forceful presence as they arrived in a fleet of buses Tuesday morning and walked around the Capitol before descending on State Street and filing into the MVP Arena for a more formal rally.
The swarm of health care workers protested Medicaid cuts they said Hochul had promised would not affect their jobs, drawing an audience at their concert-like event that included Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-cousins and Assembly Speaker Carl E. Heastie.
The health care workers are still reeling from a pandemic exodus that saw many of their colleagues leaving jobs in nursing homes or hospitals as they endured burnout and low wages. Staffing levels in that sector have hit a crisis point and in the home care industry, for instance, workers have left in droves and are able to make more income in fast-food restaurants.
Stewart-cousins invoked her
own involvement with the health care system while growing up in New York City and later caring for her mother, saying she is cognizant of their struggles.
The Senate’s one-house budget released earlier this month rebuked Hochul’s proposed plan to raise Medicaid by 5 percent, saying that the amount was insufficient and that her plan would ultimately result in a net cost cut to medical providers. Their counter is to raise Medicaid rates by 10 percent.
“I know what you do, I know what you need,” Stewart-cousins told the workers. “We have your back.”
The health care workers want Hochul and the Legislature to inject an additional $2.5 billion to close the Medicaid coverage gap, which advocates say is one of the widest in the country. They say that the gap shortcircuits reimbursement rates, which in turn affects primarily safety-net medical providers in lower-income areas.
Climate activists
Blocks away from the arena, a contingent of climate activists walked to three banks in downtown Albany, calling on financial institutions to divest from the fossil fuel industry. The protest came a day after a United Nations climate report warned of irreversible damage by 2035 if the world does not significantly slash emissions — the sort of dire prediction that has been made before. “If it’s wrong to wreck the planet, it’s wrong to profit from that wreckage,” said Vanessa Arcara, co-founder of climate group Third Act. She urged financial institutions to hasten emissions-cutting measures
by investing in energyefficient companies and industries instead.
Arts & culture
Around noon, a group supporting arts and culture programs gathered outside the Senate gallery on the fourth floor of the Capitol to seek millions of dollars to buttress and increase funding for those organizations across the state.
As the rally unfolded, an allfemale quartet delivered a harmonious, a cappella version of “The Star Spangled Banner” as their supporters cheered. They are pushing to restore artseducation staffing positions at the state Education Department, $100 million for cultural capital projects and an increase in the baseline funding for the state Council on the Arts.
Faith leaders
As the quartet sang, faith leaders from across the state gathered on the other side of the Senate chamber near the Million Dollar Staircase for a news conference calling on the governor to fund efforts to help tenants and immigrants, including measures to battle homelessness and increase justice in housing courts.
The rally was led by the Rev. Peter Cook, executive director of the New York State Council of Churches, who addressed myriad issues he said need to be shored up by lawmakers.
“We commend the governor
for $1 billion in investment for asylum relief, most of that money is going toward New York City,” he said. “Unfortunately, it only goes toward temporary kinds of housing. There’s very little money for asylum relief upstate. We need to change that.”
Assemblywoman Jessica González-rojas, among several lawmakers attending the rally, rattled off a list of priorities including preventive health care and helping impoverished undocumented residents.
“But for me very personally, to fight for immigrant justice and immigrant health is central,” she said. “It is smart economics. It is smart health policy, and is the right thing to do for New York state.”
Retail theft penalties
One floor below the faith leaders, supermarket owners and employees called for increased penalties for retail theft, an issue that is often discussed in the backdrop of the 2019 changes to the state’s bail laws. They said their workers fear violence and stores are enduring a loss in profits. The issue, they said, is an epidemic of petit larcenies, many of those crimes being committed by the same individuals.
Assemblyman Manny De Los Santos, D-manhattan, said retail workers should have the same protections afforded transit workers and first responders, who can now expect those who
assault them to face stiffer penalties. “Retail workers should be put in the same category. They are no different,” De Los Santos said
Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz, D-bronx, has backed the state’s changes to its bail laws and accused tabloids of fear mongering on the issue. But on retail theft, he said changes need to be made to the state’s bail law. “Every single day we are hearing more stories about workers being assaulted, people being shot and, of course, thefts,” Dinowitz said. “This cannot go on.”
He proposes making assault against a retail worker a D-level felony. For those charged with stealing within two years of being convicted of petit larceny, the offense should be upgraded to grand larceny, a bail-eligible charge. The intent, according to his bill, is to “deter an increasingly common crime.” During that rally on the third floor of the Capitol, the progressive lobbying group, Center for Community Alternatives, released a memo opposing the proposed changes. The memo was backed by other left-leaning groups, public defenders and the New York Civil Liberties Union. “Everybody deserves to be safe, regardless of their profession,” reads the memo, which notes that those who have an open retail theft case and are charged again for retail theft are eligible to be held in jail pretrial following controversial revisions to the law passed last year.
But for me very personally, to fight for immigrant justice and immigrant health is central. It is smart economics. It is smart health policy, and is the right thing to do for New York state.”
— Assemblywoman Jessica González-rojas
Mental health
Earlier Tuesday, supporters pushing for cost-of-living wage adjustments for workers in the mental health and human services field filled “the well” of the Legislative Office Building. State Sen. Samra G. Brouk, D-rochester, chair of the Senate’s Mental Health Committee, called for the 8.5 percent pay raise for workers, which the Senate included in its budget proposal at a $500 million additional cost to the governor’s proposal. Brouk also advocated for “Daniel’s Law,” which would require a social worker to respond to someone in a mental health crisis, as opposed to just police handling the matter. While Brouk was discussing the proposal, a woman upset with the lawmaker yelled expletives at her, disrupting the rally. As the woman appeared to become more agitated, state troopers arrived and escorted her from the gathering and directed her to the Empire State Plaza concourse, where she walked away. Those in attendance applauded the police intervention and the rally continued.