Nation by nation, state by state, officials are urging us all to stay home. After watching the coronavirus crisis unfold in China, Italy and Spain, shelter-in-place ordinances are being issued from New York to California to Washington state, in Quebec and Ontario, as well as across all of Britain and India. Often only the most essential services and movements are allowed.
This includes not just medical services but also jobs often considered low-skilled or low-status: grocery store clerks, trash and recycling collectors, domestic workers, child care providers, delivery services, warehouse and distribution center workers, and postal employees.
The pandemic is laying bare just how vital these workers are to keeping our everyday lives running smoothly ― and they’re among the country’s lowest paid, often with few benefits. Food workers, who make up 14% of the U.S. workforce, typically make under $12 an hour, less than half the average hourly wage of more than $28 across all industries. The annual income for someone working in elder home care is about $16,000.
“For us caregivers, it’s a mortal sin to get sick,” Lee Blaza, a California home care worker, said on a press call Wednesday arranged by the National Domestic Workers Alliance. Blaza works 12-hour shifts caring for a 98-year-old woman, and back home she has an 85-year-old mother and children to support. “If I get sick, I don’t know how to pay my bills. But you have to remain strong.”
In recent days, there’s been a steady drumbeat of long-overdue recognition of the often-thankless tasks performed by these workers.
“They were never ‘unskilled workers,’” tweeted Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) on Sunday. “They were always essential.”
Food workers.
Grocery clerks.
Cashiers.
Delivery drivers.
Warehouse stockers.They were never “unskilled workers.”
They were always essential.And it’s WAY past time they got the respect they deserve w/ a living wage, paid sick leave, guaranteed healthcare, hazard pay, & more.
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) March 22, 2020
The Daily Gazette in Schenectady, which covers the capital region of New York, published an editorial urging people to be kind and thank essential workers, saying that “we need these individuals more than ever.”
“I’ve been promoted from hummus stocker to frontline aid worker,” grocery store employee Karleigh Frisbie Brogan wrote for HuffPost. “I’m being thanked for my service, my bravery even.”
The sentiment is stirring, and the country could use more of it as we descend deeper into this new normal. But it belies a system that fails to adequately compensate or protect the people we rely on so heavily.
If I were to get sick, it would be like giving my family a death sentence.
Ezzie Dominquez, a house cleaner in Denver
Right now, many essential workers are seeing unprecedented demand for their jobs. While restaurants, cafes, airlines and car manufacturers are laying off employees, places like Amazon and Walmart are hiring 100,000 and 150,000 more workers, respectively.
But day after day, these workers find themselves on the frontline of a public health emergency, often with no health protections and just a handful of inadequate safety precautions in place.
“When everything [first] broke out I was cleaning houses left and right, everyone panicked, everyone was scared,” Ezzie Dominquez, a house cleaner in Denver, said on the press call. “But they were not saying we’re going to pay you more …. I actually felt like we were being exploited.”
She’s in remission from cancer and very worried about getting sick, but Dominguez feels she has no choice but to keep working. “Rent, bills, payments, they’re still waiting when I get home,” she says. Dominguez is the only breadwinner in her home since her husband was laid off, and she’s the only one with health insurance coverage for her children. “If I were to get sick, it would be like giving my family a death sentence.”
According to