In April 2020, Manuela Sepulveda, a home health aide in Chicago, informed her employer that she had tested positive for COVID-19 and needed to quarantine for two weeks to ensure her health and protect her clients.
Although Sepulveda didn’t experience severe symptoms or health complications, she paid a heavy price. She lost her job, which delivered a devastating blow to her finances and mental health.
The nonprofit health agency refused to accept a note from Sepulveda’s physician stating that it was safe for her to return to work and demanded that she produce documentation of a negative test result. The stringent deadline was a major hurdle; tests were in short supply. Most test sites refused to retest those who had safely quarantined. But Sepulveda persevered, obtaining an appointment one day after the arbitrary deadline.
When Sepulveda informed her employer of the date, she was fired.
“After risking my life to go to work, to not be valued at all, that was what hurt the most,” Sepulveda told researchers from the National Employment Law Project (NELP), a New York City–based nonprofit that studies and recommends workplace policies. She said employers like hers “don’t value us as humans and don’t think about how an unjust firing impacts not just the worker but an entire family, both economically and emotionally.”
Like most low-wage workers, Sepulveda lived paycheck to paycheck. Unable to pay her bills, she sank into a deep depression. Today, she has a new job that enables...
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