I want to ask a question. What will happen to those who were called “essential workers” during the first round of Covid-19 as we gradually reopen the economic spigots again?
Together with our selfless and valiant frontline health care and mental health workers, these essential workers saved our lives during the first round of this pandemic. Without the cashiers, the child care workers, grocery store workers, homeless shelter and nursing home staff, servers, trash collectors, tourist workers, and so on and on, how would we have survived it?
Yet, before Covid, so many of these workers (myself included) were hardly considered “essential.” Most were on the margins, not deemed worthy enough for equitable health care, livable wages, paid family/sick leave, livable wages, vacation pay, a good retirement program that is not outright robbery like the 401(k), all enjoyed by the higher-ups.
Will we reward them for putting their lives on the line for us by returning them into the margins again?
So far it seems like it. Once again, treating these formerly “essential workers” as essential to our society seems like it will draw the usual cries from our business, cultural and political leaders that it will “harm the Vermont economy.”
After risking their lives to keep our society going, often with little or no protection against the virus provided by their employers, they deserve better than to once more have to fight for democracy and respect against neglect and forced austerity programs.
Walter Carpenter
Montpelier
