Are ‘Essential Workers’ The New Slaves?

Have you noticed? The more essential workers are, the worse they are treated. Like in the meatpacking plants where workers have been dropping like flies from COVID-19. An analysis by the Guardian found that almost half of the corona virus hotspots in the US “originated in meat factories where employees work side by side in cramped conditions.”

Some of those factories were temporarily closed because too many workers were sick, but President Trump ordered them reopened because they are ‘essential.’ Their owners have received bailouts from governments, but their workers have not, and these bailouts often don’t require owners to ensure their workers are receiving virus protections. According to The Intelligencer, some workers wear diapers because they aren’t given time for bathroom breaks. They are crowded together and exhausted, a perfect environment for COVID-19, and no government or employer has lifted a finger to help them.

In the North Carolina legislature, according to the Raleigh News & Observer, “a Buncombe County Democrat proposed an amendment that called for two weeks’ sick pay for infected workers as a requirement for relief funds.” The amendment was shot down by legislators’ “saying that small plants couldn’t afford to meet all the safety criteria.”

The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) advocates for school food service workers, who are “working tirelessly on the frontlines of the COVID-19 pandemic, bagging and distributing thousands of meals every day, without personal protective equipment.” Some sites have closed because workers are getting sick with COVID. CSPI demands “federal government must make it clear that school food service programs are eligible for masks and gloves at a minimum.”

That’s how it goes when you’re essential. You can get sick, but you can’t get time off from work. You can’t get decent working conditions or decent pay. Essential is the new word for ‘slave.’

If we’re essential, pay us!

Who are the essential workers? Caregivers, housekeepers, store clerks, food workers are good examples. Transit operators, garbage haulers, you know, the people who do things we actually need. Essential is not glamorous; it’s not well-paid, and it’s usually not safe. Many essential workers, like the meatpackers, don’t even have paid sick leave or health insurance.

Why are essential workers treated so poorly? How can one be deemed ‘essential’ and ‘disposable’ at the same time? Good question, but really, isn’t that the whole theory of capitalism? The system depends on treating workers as disposable, even while pretending to value them as ‘associates’ as Walmart calls their near-minimum-wage employees. Since owners’ business success depends almost entirely on exploiting workers, extracting more work for less pay, treating them well becomes a bad business decision.

Essential workers face additional mistreatment given to immigrants and people of color in the US. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wrote, “Undocumented workers have been at the forefront of the crisis and pay a greater share of their income in state and local taxes than many big corporations and billionaires. But no undocumented person was eligible to receive the cash stimulus payment. And many are uninsured, meaning COVID-19 treatment could bring financial ruin.” There are GoFundMe campaigns to raise money for these throwaway essential people, which is nice I guess, but why isn’t Congress helping them?

From a negotiating point of view, doesn’t “essential” sound like a strong bargaining position? ‘You apparently can’t make it without me, so you have to treat me better.’ But that is not happening in the USA today. Essential workers are risking COVID-19 and going to their demanding, low-paid jobs, not striking or protesting for better conditions. Because their jobs actually help people, it might seem irresponsible to stop doing them, but workers have no other power in this system.

One woman who works as a cashier at 7–11 — what could be more essential than that? — posted on Facebook that she did not want the expanded unemployment benefits in the CARES Act continued, because the unemployed were making more than she is making in her job. She’s right that this situation is unfair, but why aren’t we demanding better pay for everyone? Why not better working conditions, universal health care, breaks every hour so people can take masks off for a while?

As it has exposed everything else about America capitalism, the COVID crisis is laying bare how wrong the treatment of work and workers is. Workers can be essential and still be treated like dirt. But I wonder, does that sound sustainable to you? Let’s use this crisis as an opportunity to build something better.

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