Redesign Work for Remote and Essential Workers and Focus on Equity

Across the nation, essential workers are putting their and their families’ health at risk to keep medical and childcare centers open and provide groceries and supplies to others during the pandemic, often with little to no workplace protections, sparse benefits, and low wages. Women, and disproportionately women of color, make up the majority of workers deemed essential during the global pandemic. These workers are at higher risk of contracting COVID-19. Too often made invisible and treated as low-skill, these workers are truly essential and have kept the economy and those living in lockdown afloat at great cost to themselves and their families. Now is the time to recognize and value essential workers with decent and dignified work, liveable wages, and benefits to ensure that they and their families are economically secure, healthy and able to thrive.

Historically, U.S. policy has marginalized and excluded communities of color from policy support and opportunity because of a long history of structural racism and blatantly racist notions of who deserves support. As a result, women of color in our country experience additional burdens and inequities: white family wealth is seven times greater than Black family wealth and five times more than Hispanic family wealth. Black families face more health disparities, and experience interpersonal and systemic racism that affect all aspects of life. Centering the least advantaged communities in policy making ensures that everyone benefits from the policy, and intersectional policies help address barriers to a fairer and more equitable economy.

Immediate Pandemic Response: Improve access to public and workplace supports, such as paycheck protection, hazard pay, and paid sick leave, particularly for women of color in the workforce

Jocelyn Frye, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, pointed out the need for hazard pay to fairly compensate essential workers, especially women of color, directly exposed to the virus through their work on the frontlines. “Black women and women of color [are] disproportionately in fields like health care. They’re emergency workers. They're nursing assistants. But they’re also the folks who are grocery store workers. They’re the people who essentially provide for the care and feeding of our nation…While they are bearing this economic burden they are also being treated unfairly in terms of how they get paid and in addition to the fact that they are disproportionately in low wage work that lack benefits like paid leave, paid sick days–the very things that people need right now.” (Crisis Conversations: “Calling for a New Bailout — for Women of Color”)

Dominique Derbigny, deputy director at Closing the Women’s Wealth Gap, strengthened the case for extending this benefit to provide a financial safety net to women of color who lack wealth necessary for weathering the economic recession. “Income helps people pay bills and get by, but wealth is really what helps families to get ahead and what helps them to weather economic hardships, such as this recession that we're currently in. [With] $200 of median wealth, there's really very few resources for women of color to draw on if they face a job loss due to this pandemic.” Single Black women have a median wealth of $200, and single Hispanic women’s median wealth is $100, which amounts to less than a penny for every dollar of wealth held by single white men. (Crisis Conversations: “Calling for a New Bailout — for Women of Color”)

Jamie Gloshay, project manager at Roanhorse Consulting and co-founder of Native Women Lead, discussed the challenges facing Native American women during the pandemic. “Two-thirds of [Native American women] are the breadwinners and the breadmakers; we’re the economic stabilizers. A lot of us work in the creative economy. Our businesses may not legally be structured and [may] not know how access the unemployment benefits or the PPP that's available…We did a survey and it showed that 80 percent to 100 percent of [Native American] women-owned businesses in our community and our network said that COVID would completely disrupt their operations and their livelihoods.” (Crisis Conversations: “Calling for a New Bailout — for Women of Color”)

Long-term Policy Solutions: Pay workers fairly. Build diverse, anti-racist cultures at work—with managers and leaders who create cultures where all workers can thrive

Sarah Todd is a senior reporter for Quartz and Quartz at Work and is the author of What an Anti-Racist Workplace Looks Like. Pointing to research findings, she explained, “One of the most effective ways to incentivize people to hire, mentor, or promote diverse staff is to really make [these metrics] something that [we] track and measure….For a manager, that might mean saying, 'Okay, I'm building into your performance review…whether or not you've hired and promoted people of color.” (Crisis Conversations: “Woke at Work?”)

Laura Morgan Roberts, professor of practice at the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business and author of Race, Work, and Leadership: New Perspectives on the Black Experience, emphasized the need for moral frameworks around conversations pertaining to workplace equity. Roberts noted that we aren't investing in diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives more heavily “because the status quo continues to benefit those who are already in power, and they don't have the instrumental motivation to do something different in changing that structure and that system.” Roberts continued, “It's only the moral argument that brings out the questions around compassion, equity, and grace that would motivate people to transform a system that is, in fact, working to keep them and their children and their kid's best friends kids in power.” (Crisis Conversations: “Women and Leadership”)

Twenty million people across the United States are receiving unemployment benefits and millions more fear losing their jobs and income. One crucial form of federal relief, the temporary $600 weekly Pandemic Unemployment Compensation supplement, expired July 31. Additional unemployment assistance programs—Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA), the Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation (PEUC), and Extended Benefits (EB)—will expire on December 26, 2020. The loss of PUA would prove particularly devastating for gig workers, those ineligible for regular unemployment benefits, and caregivers. As the pandemic continues into the new year and workers brace themselves for the unknown, the urgent need for emergency unemployment assistance continues to mount.

Immediate Pandemic Response: Extend emergency unemployment benefits immediately

Latrice Wilson, a payroll supervisor who was furloughed from her job and contends with an auto-immune disorder, relied on the financial relief to help pay for her health insurance and medication. “The $600 was essential to my everyday life…[and] state unemployment benefits do not cover my bills…If they don’t extend the $600, I won’t be able to pay for health insurance…I have always been a saver [and] have an emergency fund…I can take money from there, but that won’t last beyond a few months.” (Crisis Conversations: “Calling for a New Bailout — for Women of Color”)

Caleb Holmes graduated from college in 2019 with a BA in political science. He wanted a job as a paralegal, since his goal was to attend law school. In the meantime, he found part-time work at the mall, where he made $9 per hour. He later added a full-time job at a shoe store in the same mall. On March 16 he heard a rumor that the mall was shutting down. The next day, he was told his stores were closing till the end of the month. After applying for unemployment insurance Holmes noted, “The weekly benefit amount [for me] is only $51 when, according to the website it can go up to $247 per week… I'm kind of caught in a gray zone because like I said, the wages that they've seen have been mainly from that part time job that I got a year ago while I was still full time in college. I graduated, and this is a little unfair as [I'm] someone who goes to work every day, who does what they’re supposed to do. You know, it’s kind of like, where’s my bailout versus bailing out big companies?” (Crisis Conversations: “Living with Layoffs of Pandemic Proportions”)

Long-term Policy Solution: Update platforms and technology to improve access to public policies

Violet Moya is a retail worker in the beauty industry, who despite her search for full-time employment with benefits has only found part-time work with no health insurance. After a mass firing, her experience applying for her state’s unemployment insurance was nothing short of a nightmare. Exasperated, Moya described the process as being “It’s mentally exhausting.” She said, “There’s no way to get through to anyone. In the past two weeks, I called maybe 800 times.” (Crisis Conversations: “Living with Layoffs of Pandemic Proportions”)

Workers in low-paying jobs have limited rights on the job to keep themselves safe and risk negative repercussions when they request better safety equipment, policies, and accommodations for their health. For example, without legislative protections and policies that allow them to take leave without discrimination, many pregnant health care workers are forced to continue working although they are immunocompromised. In the event that they lose their jobs, so many workers find themselves abandoned and fall through the cracks of a weak social social support system.

Immediate Pandemic Response: Update Occupational Safety and Health Administration regulations to include every worker in higher-risk work environments due to COVID-19

Dennis Kosuth works as an ER and school registered nurse based in Chicago, and was exposed to patients who tested positive for COVID-19 through his ER work. He commented on how nurses enter the field to care for and help people with their health, yet they face work environments that put their own health at risk, often without many protections: “In the schools, so many of the families that I work with as a nurse, they will have five people in a basement that has one bedroom, and they have a job that doesn't have the sick time. They can't call in sick. They [have to] send their kids to school when they're sick. I think about those things as the reasons why this condition has spread so far so fast in this countries is because we just don't have basic things that most countries have.” (Crisis Conversations: "A new and dangerous enemy — healthcare workers battle coronavirus at work and at home")

Long-term Policy Solution: Expand Labor Protections for Pregnant Workers with fairness legislation during the pandemic and after

Dina Bakst, co-founder and co-president of A Better Balance, stressed, “Pregnancy discrimination is alive and well in this country and it takes many forms…At the current moment, we're hearing from pregnant workers who are scared to death, frankly, to return to work, especially those in essential jobs…in many instances [they] know that they're returning to an unsafe workplace, but they feel like they have no other choice to continue working.” (Crisis Conversations: “Working Pregnant in the Time of COVID”)

Gabrielle Caverl-McNeal relayed the fears of the young, pregnant women she works with as director of workforce development at New Moms in Chicago, Ill., sharing, “There is this fear: 'If I go into the workplace and they see that I’m pregnant, [will] that put me at a disadvantage for getting this job?' This [fear] that, 'I won't be looked at or considered [for] my skills or my abilities or what I actually bring to the table…[because]…I might have maternity leave or I may have family responsibilities.'”(Crisis Conversations: “Working Pregnant in the Time of COVID”)

The research shows that workers are not the only ones to benefit from more flexibility and control over time, manner, and place of work; their families, as well as businesses, benefit from having healthier and more productive workers who can balance work and care as needed. Front-line and essential workers in particular who cannot work remotely would benefit from policies that allow them more predictable control of their work schedule during and beyond the pandemic.

Create policies to allow workers more flexibility and schedule control

One of the lucky few essential workers whose employer provided adequate and flexible workplace accommodations, Ashley Deutsch, an emergency room doctor at Baystate Medical Center in Springfield, Mass., recalled, “For me, the emergency department was wonderful in terms of allowing me to take on telehealth for patients who don’t have a primary care physician…I could do that from home…calling back test results…[and] work administratively to help with the policies and procedures…to keep our staff safe.” Deutsch continued, “Both the department and Baystate Medical Center could have pushed back against these accommodations…[and] I would have been forced to go back.” (Crisis Conversations: “Working Pregnant in the Time of COVID”)

Expanded access to telemedicine during the pandemic may be critical to helping women, addressing racial health disparities and creating a more equitable health system in the future, explains Amanda Williams, a physician, OB/GYN, and maternity director for Kaiser Permanente Oakland.

The digital divide, characterized by a broad lack of access to high speed internet, smartphones and other devices, is a real threat to delivering equitable telemedicine. Still Dr. Williams noted that “on the flip side, there can be huge benefits [to telemedicine]. People don’t have to take time off of work and they don’t have to come in and commute and park. They don’t have to find childcare for their children…Trying to work, take care of your children, and see your doctor at the same time is tough…we don’t know which way this is going to go.” Williams continued, “We have to be really conscious every step of the way as we’re designing our care delivery in the telehealth space—what is the impact going to be on marginalized patients and across the race and ethnic divide?” (Crisis Conversations: “The (Virtual?) Future of Medicine?”)

Katie Murray Kleeman, a high school chemistry and Advancement Via Individual Determination (AVID) teacher in Colorado, was surprised to find that while the transition to remote teaching brought new challenges, it also forced her to learn new skills, be creative and connect with students in a fresh way. “One of the things I learned is how to make short little videos, showing clips to students of how to make organic compounds, for example…so [that] if I do have a student who’s absent or sick or for some reason, not at school, I have those that I’ve uploaded to YouTube [that] I can use as a reference…I've thought it's been really beneficial.” In addition, the new flexibility with Kleeman’s school has allowed her to balance work and care responsibilities during the pandemic. “My mom is living with us…There was a science department meeting that was earlier this morning, but that's the time that I get my mom up and help her to bathe and get dressed and get ready for the day… [so] I was not able to make that meeting. Simply communicating with my coordinator was so great, because then we met separately after that when there was a time. I think people have been much more flexible.” (Crisis Conversations: “The Transformation of Work”)