Two years ago this month, the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global pandemic. Since then, the virus has killed over 960,000 people as well as infected nearly 80 million and counting in the U.S., prompting a public health crisis that has mobilized workers to organize for safer conditions, higher pay, and better benefits amid the increased risks.
Worker-activists are making waves on union campaigns, organizing sickouts and walkouts, or quitting en masse in a de facto declaration to employers they need better pay and benefits both during the pandemic and into the future. But although workers have advocated for federal laws that would buttress their demands by mandating things like a $15 federal minimum wage, more paid time off options, virus protections through better air filtration, and—perhaps the most adamant demand across the board—a seat at the negotiating table in order to create national standards for employers, so far federal worker-protective legislation hasn’t become part of the new normal. And workers, in their day-to-day grind, are still the ones dealing with the gaps.
“Nothing really has changed, to be honest,” said Courtenay Brown, an Amazon Fresh fulfillment center worker in New Jersey. Amazon has “gotten better at hiding and sneaking around and avoiding things.”
Her hourly wages have risen to just under $21 an hour after she started at $13.85 five years ago. Despite those increases, paid leave policies remain...
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