Far Too Close? You may be at high risk as work reopens
Far Too Close? You may be at high risk as work reopens
By Ysh Cabana
The Philippine Reporter
TORONTO—Some occupations such as those involving cutting hair, cleaning teeth, serving food, and working with children would be at a greater risk of contracting coronavirus as provinces prepare to loosen restrictions and reopen economies, says a new report.
The report was released on May 15 by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA).
There are about 1.7 million such vulnerable workers were protected as workplaces are closed until Friday, with 1.2 million among them being women. Such risks are increased as coronavirus restrictions are eased, while businesses reopen, David Macdonald, senior economist with the CCPA, said.
“For women and low-wage workers in particular, their layoff or lost working hours will have protected them from COVID-19 exposure at work, but this re-opening phase could well put them between a rock and a hard place: having to choose between desperately needed income and their own health,” Macdonald said.
Oil sands and meatpacking workers have been heavily exposed to novel coronavirus as they stayed open in the first phase of the COVID-19 pandemic, while child care workers, construction laborers, servers, cashiers, and bus drivers similarly face high risk as industrial butchers, said the report.
Physical proximity score
This report analyzes such jobs in Canada where social distancing is very difficult to maintain based on an American scale, O*Net index of physical proximity that measures the close distance that workers get to other people, in doing their jobs. The scale runs from 1 to 100. Hundred indicates the necessary regular contact with others.
Choreographers, Dental Hygienists, Physical Therapists and Sports Medicine Physicians are rated 100. While flight attendants, hairstylists, and teachers follow them. These professionals have either lost their jobs or their workplaces “were operating with much smaller staff during the first phase of COVID-19,” said the report.
The author points to two major considerations that may keep these workers safe from coronavirus: (1) Effective implementation of social distancing, physical barriers including cleaning regimens on workplaces, and (2) Workers feeling confident to refuse unsafe work.
Poor and precarious
A huge number of low-wage workers lost their jobs or work hours in the past two months. “The burden of choosing between health and income will fall most heavily on low-wage workers,” the report said. Around 50 percent of those making $16 per hour or less have lost jobs or work hours since February and are in the high-risk category.
While those who would want to refuse unsafe jobs may also face difficulty in their decisions as it wavers between salary and feeling safe while quitting jobs would mean to sacrifice coronavirus’ government benefits.
The Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) coverage allowed many of these workers to stay home and limit their exposure to COVID-19 because it helped cover expenses.
“The CERB, with its present rules, could be weaponized by unscrupulous employers wanting to pressure workers to return but not wanting to pay for the needed COVID-19 protections,” Macdonald says. “This leaves employers with the opportunity to threaten workers with the loss of CERB if they resist returning to unsafe jobs.”
However, the rich ones making more than $48 per hour are not at all in high-risk occupations. Only 1% of them lost jobs or most of hours. The report recommends that protections against COVID-19 in the workplace be expanded and workers be permitted to refuse to return to high-risk, unsafe workplaces but still receive the benefit.
“Without this needed worker protection, talk of incentivizing workers becomes a nice way of talking about forcing low-wage workers back into unsafe workplaces because they’ll otherwise run out of money for things like food and rent,” Macdonald concludes.
“That’s a dilemma that we should be working hard to avoid, and quickly.”
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