COVID'S IMPACT ON WORKERS

 

Tracking COVID's Impact on New Orleanian Workers

 

We are pushing for lasting change for Essential Workers, who are the engine that makes this city run, and the balm that heals it. This objective brings together and benefits all struggling and exploited workers in the city.

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Why now?

 

Throughout the tragedy of the pandemic, one reality that has especially hit home at The Workers’ Center is that black and brown workers have been hospitalized and died at strikingly disproportionate rates. 

 

The narrative is troubling. The government branded Black and Brown workers as being “health compromised” when, in reality, the problem was the “essential businesses” that forced low-wage workers, disproportionately people of color and women, to be exposed to COVID-19. Those workers were labeled essential but were expendable.

 

The City of New Orleans has already allocated more than three-fourths of the $387 million in American Rescue Plan Fund dollars without supporting essential workers (as of January 2023). There are $70 million in designated ARPA funds remaining, as well as $100+ million in General City Funds that could be used to support residents. We have a short window of time to answer one critical question: How, exactly, are those dollars, especially those designated as economic relief, going to be spent?

 

Why a survey?

 

Workers have the power to influence the city’s recovery plans. NOWCRJ has experience utilizing surveys to build evidence and consensus that inform policy demands. As part of our multi-phased research project about COVID’s impact on our region's workers, this survey is one way for essential workers to have a direct voice in naming what has happened throughout the pandemic and what we need for our recovery.   

 

Why us?

 

NOWCRJ has supported organizing members of our communities at the intersections of class, race, gender, and citizen/immigrant status. We have stopped ICE deportations, negotiated day laborers’ right to work, supported self-organized worker protection groups, and realized meaningful and substantial victories for municipal wages, local hire policies, and H-2B worker rights.

For questions or feedback about our Essential Worker and COVID-19 Impact Survey, please contact research@nowcrj.org.