Markeshia Ricks file photo
State Rep. Robyn Porter.
(Opinion) I recently had a conversation with Howard K. Hill, who operates funeral homes in New Haven, Hartford and Bloomfield, about what he is seeing in his business these days.
“Robyn, a lot of people are dying at home in our communities,” Howard said.
It has been over eight weeks since Governor Lamont declared a public health emergency in response to the spread of Covid-19. Since then, we have learned through daily briefing after daily briefing the human and economic toll the pandemic has taken on our state, and, in particular, the many disproportionate effects it has had on communities of color.
What my friend Howard told me was not just anecdotal. As of April 8, while Black residents make up 12 percent of the state’s population, they account for 18 percent of those who tested positive for Covid-19 and 15 percent of deaths. Latinx people make up 16.5 percent of our population, but accounted for nearly a quarter of those who tested positive.
To slow the spread, states across the U.S. imposed various kinds of shelter-in-place policies. Here in Connecticut, with over 400,000 residents seeking Unemployment Insurance as a result of Covid-19-related work closures, we know that the weight of these layoffs is far from equally distributed. For example, an early April Pew Research poll found that 49 percent of Latinx Americans reported that they or someone they live with has taken a pay cut or lost a job as a result of Covid-19, a far greater percentage than the 33 percent of all U.S. adults who answered similarly.
For those still employed, the shelter-in-place policies implemented by states like Connecticut have formalized two pandemic workplaces: essential and nonessential businesses. Nonessential work has meant the total transition to remote-based labor, leaving the 12 types of essential professionals, ranging from grocery store clerks to ER doctors, as the only potential people physically heading in and out of work this spring.
So who are these workers on the ground? We know those in frontline industries are predominantly female and more than one out of three are over the age of 50, have family care obligations and are low income. People of color also make up a disproportionate percentage of frontline jobs when compared to whites, and immigrant workers are overrepresented in work pertaining to building cleaning services. While the state has helped these individuals in certain ways, whether it be through child care services or food distribution, we must do more.
A great deal of immigrant labor, documented and undocumented, has been vital to keeping our state running through these weeks of social distancing and long before this pandemic. Connecticut’s undocumented labor force numbers at 100,000 and contributes $400 million in yearly state and local taxes, and yet is excluded from federal assistance. If Congress continues to leave undocumented workers out, we must create a relief fund to meet their needs in this time of crisis.
Essential workers are also first responders, nursing home staff and janitors, who day-in-day-out are walking into contaminated spaces with limited access to personal protective equipment. So, if we are not able to protect them on the front end with the proper and adequate protections, we need to take care of them on the back end by creating a workers’ compensation presumption. This would mean that if a person in any of these jobs contracts Covid-19, they would automatically receive the salary and health benefits of workers’ compensation without having to worry about cutting through the red tape. The decision these individuals make to go into work during these life-threatening times is nothing less than sheer bravery and we should only be so audacious as to honor them with the dignity and benefits they have earned and so deserve.
Essential service plaza workers, including those represented by SEIU 32BJ, are also engaged in this fight for safe work environments and fair compensation, including sick and hazard pay. It’s crucial to note that all of these campaigns for protections, while heightened under pandemic conditions, began long before the spring.
Broad support of essential workers is evident both on our social media news feeds and in the signs put up in front windows and yards across the state and nation. As elected officials, the best way for us to thank those who risk their lives to keep our state open is simple. Let’s provide them with the resources and the dignity they unequivocally deserve.
State Representative Robyn A. Porter serves communities in Hamden and New Haven. She is also Co-Chair of the Legislature’s Labor and Public Employees Committee.