How You Can Help Unsung Workers During The Covid-19 Crisis
One thing that has been brought home to many people in the era of coronavirus is the fact that the adjustment has been different for different groups.
For many of us, it is simply a matter of switching from working in an office to doing the same job at home.
For others, who already worked from home, the change has been even simpler – albeit that this has all come against a strange and uncertain backdrop.
For other people, the existence of a highly virulent, potentially lethal condition has been all the more concerning because it has given them a very stark choice.
They can go into quarantine like the rest of us but be left unable to do their job and make a living.
Or they can continue to seek to earn a crust, but risk falling ill with the possibility of unimaginably unpleasant consequences.
For those of us who don’t have this concern, it’s worth asking what we can do.
Donating to pandemic support funds
Amid the uncertainty of the present time, there is a need for charity to fill a gap that has arisen quicker than most of us could have imagined.
Many vulnerable workers have found themselves without an income, but still with the need to pay bills and rent and to put food on the table.
With a huge number of people in the same boat, applications for government support can take time to process – which is where support funds come in.
These vital services can ensure that vulnerable workers have a roof over their heads and can feed their families while they wait for some equilibrium to return.
Pay domestic workers to stay home
Many of us who are employed find that our time is used more efficiently if we focus on the work that pays and outsource cleaning, gardening, and other essential domestic tasks.
In normal times, it’s a process that works for us and for those services. Amid a pandemic, every trip a domestic worker makes increases their potential exposure – and yours if they’re coming to your home.
For those of us who are working from home, we no longer have a commute taking time from our day, so have more time to clean our own home or to work with a sod supplier to deal with our own lawn – while still paying a gardener or cleaner and letting them stay home. Don’t see it as “something for nothing” – everyone who does this is doing their bit to prevent community spread of a serious illness.
Help unsung workers: have a process for deliveries to your home
Hopefully, before too long, we’ll all be in a position to return to the ways with which we are familiar.
At present, however, it has to be conceded that avoidable contact with others is the clearest potential transmission path for the virus, and so, for our sake and for others, it should be minimized.
This includes receiving deliveries; with so many of us doing much more shopping online, delivery drivers are both pressed for time and vulnerable.
Agree on a safe deposit spot with the couriers and companies from which you order, and allow packages to be left there.
This is more convenient for the drivers and less risky for all concerned.
Many of the people who keep our world moving – in normal times and in extremis – are the often unseen and unheralded workers.
Give them a boost by making a few simple changes in this crisis.
