While the COVID-19 crisis continues to escalate across the United States, more and more workers are being backed into life or death situations. The crisis is not simply a result of the virus itself but the lack of material governmental response. Many workers, impacted by cuts in hours, job losses or mass school closings are now struck by deep financial precarity, unsure of where next month’s rent money will come from. The lowest paid and most oppressed workers have been hit the hardest.
For working-class women, the Coronavirus crisis has only exacerbated the already-existing fault lines of gender, race and class. Women workers face some of the greatest risks while also being on the frontlines of the crisis. The industries deeply affected by the virus like the service sector, domestic work, and childcare are disproportionately staffed by women. Seventy percent of restaurant servers, 92 percent of childcare workers and 93 percent of domestic workers are women.
Workers need guaranteed pay so they can be home with their kids and properly shelter in place if they aren’t in essential workplaces. The government has the resources to provide all of this. Stop funding the banks and corporations and start funding people’s needs!
Read the full article: https://www.liberationnews.org/women-on-the-frontlines-of-covid-19/