Protecting The Pandemic Essential Worker

Abstract

After states and cities tried to slow the spread of COVID-19 by issuing shelter-in-place and stay-at-home orders, the federal government and states declared that certain business sectors or industries deemed critical were required (or at least allowed) to remain open. Unfortunately, when businesses told the people we now call “essential workers” to keep working, no one told businesses what they needed to do to protect those workers.

Low wage face-to-face (F2F) workers, disproportionately non-white workers without college degrees, largely avoided losing their jobs in the COVID-19 recession. However, the economic benefits they received did not outweigh the significant health risks they faced when they were forced into close and often prolonged contact with potentially infected co-workers and customers.

To prepare for the next pandemic, this Article urges federal and state legislative bodies and regulatory agencies to develop pandemic essential worker (PEW) rules that give essential businesses incentives to keep their workers safe. To ensure essential F2F workers who perform jobs that become potentially lethal because of essentiality declarations are better protected during the next pandemic, I argue that essential businesses should either adopt default PEW rules or prepare individualized PEW protection plans after negotiating with workers or bargaining units.

Keywords: contracted workers, essential workers, occupational segregation, unions

JEL Classification: J31, J51, J71, J81, J83