Covid-19 has opened a new chapter for America's workforce

THE stories we used to tell about work went something like this: The protagonist, a white man wearing a hard hat, has a stable job in manufacturing or construction that allows him to buy a home and work towards a comfortable retirement.

But when we look to the future of work, we are fixated on robots replacing humans - in either a dystopian serfdom or a utopia where we have so much leisure time, we can finally learn the violin.

But neither story is rooted in reality.

The workforce that powers our economy today - in times of stability and in crisis - is a low-wage service workforce that is disproportionately made up of black women and other women of colour, and largely unprotected by our safety net. These workers take care of us in different ways, and it took a pandemic for the nation to recognise they are the critical engine of our economy.

But we do not take care of them. At all.

Homecare workers took their children to work when they could not afford childcare after schools shut down. Janitors lacked the protective equipment they needed to sanitise spaces without putting themselves at risk. These workers did not have the option to work from home, and they also lacked paid leave to allow them to isolate themselves if they were exposed to an infected person.

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These workers are essential not only in the present. They are essential in the future. The Bureau of Labour Statistics reports the job projected to have the largest percentage increase in employment from 2018 to 2028 is the home health aide followed by the personal care aide, a reflection of the growing older population in America.

Despite the increasing need for these workers, home health aides and personal care aides typically earn less than US$12 per hour. And they are overwhelmingly women of colour, and disproportionately black women: 87 per cent of paid adult care workers are women, compared with 46 per cent of non-domestic workers, and about 25 per cent of homecare aides are black, compared with 12 per cent of nondomestic workers.

The workers we need the most are not wearing boots and hard hats; they are wearing sneakers or scrubs.

We are at a critical juncture. The future of work will be decided by how we respond to this moment.

NOW IS THE TIME

This is our moment to choose a future where we invest in the work that we now know is essential. Where care jobs become living-wage jobs with benefits, protected by a strong federal safety net. Where essential workers can support their own families through their work, even as they support ours.

Or we can continue down the path we are on. As companies consider how they will use the economic recession as a moment to reset, they will be making choices that determine the future of millions of jobs. More jobs could be outsourced, subcontracted and offshored, deconstructed into tasks or automated. Many jobs that were lost may never return. Increasing numbers of the jobs that do return could become gigs that are farmed out to disaggregated workforces managed by algorithms. Too many of us could end up working along a Walmart or Amazon supply chain, while not earning enough to shop there. And more jobs might become inputs into an equation, without recognition, value or access to a safety net. Most economic choices we have made in recent decades make that possibility likely.

We must let go of the old paradigm of work and build the future we deserve, one that invests in these workers - especially in jobs we know are here to stay. It is not rocket science. In fact Senator Elizabeth Warren and Representative Ro Khanna developed the blueprint - the Essential Workers Bill of Rights - which includes provisions like health and safety protections, a livable wage, paid sick and family leave, support for family care and access to health care.

It took an epic public health crisis and economic recession to wake us up, but as the economy re-opens, we must not forget what we have seen. We must shore up every last job, especially those that have been invisible, and every worker who has taken care of us, until every job is a good job, and dignity is restored to work in America. NYTIMES