Hello and welcome to Greenless Lockdown Coronavirus Cattle's Men's Solidarity. I'm Zeppity Parks and on this episode we're going to be looking at one of the many things the coronavirus crisis has revealed about society and that is who is an essential worker. And also, who isn't? This crisis has made it clear essential workers that are nurses, are factory workers, are early childcare workers, are people working in grocery stores, warehouse workers, cleaners, and delivery drivers. Jobs often considered low school to low value jobs in society. And we compare this to so-called higher school to high value jobs in society that pay significantly more and have significantly better conditions than can with a significantly higher social status in society, jobs such as corporate lawyers, mining executives and mining lobbyists, jobs such as insurance executives, jobs such as financial directors and investment bankers and people playing the stock market. For even politicians in Australia who have decided it's not essential for them to be sitting in parliament even virtually. And yet I'm sure that's still getting paid compared to many casual workers in the hospitality sector that have lost their jobs overnight with no pay. In fact, quite a few of these high valued jobs in society such as mining lobbyists would probably be much better off than they didn't exist at all. The coronavirus has revealed a clear class divide between essential but often low paying, precarious jobs and jobs that pay a lot more in society but are clearly not as essential to the runnings of society. Many people working essential jobs are women, migrants and younger generations. A study in Britain found that 70% of the people who are working on frontline jobs that were putting them at a high risk of contracting the coronavirus were women and pretty much every single person working a job that was in a high risk frontline position was paid below the national wage of society. In Australia the numbers would be very similar, especially if we look at areas such as nurses and early childcare workers that are paying significantly less than people of a similar school level or have had similar education and probably don't have the same stress of literally having people's lives in their hands. And we compare this to a group that has at the lowest risk of being exposed to the coronavirus and that is financial directors who have come to easily work from home and will probably head off to work from their second holiday home. Many of these essential jobs such as working in a Amazon warehouse or a grocery store are filled by people who are casuals and cannot afford to take sick leave. In many workplaces from hospitals to early childcare centres to retail stores, workers and not be provided with adequate personal protective equipment or the ability to physically distance. The spread of the coronavirus in the United States of the clear correlation of poorer working class areas where people are working in central jobs he cannot do from home. A Washington Post analysis found predominantly black counties had three times as many infections and six times as many deaths. In Australia, Amazon's major warehouse is located in Dandenong, one of the poorer suburbs in Australia. Amazon's response to this pandemic has been to ramp up production and hire more workers rather than make warehouses safe. Amazon's founder Jeff Bees-Ossers, wealth has gone up by 41 billion in the past several weeks. Meanwhile workers at Amazon warehouses across the US have begun to walk out of warehouses over unsafe conditions. Modern sales in Australia have gone up by 100% in the past couple of months. Workers' safety be damned in the face of making more corporate profits. All the working classes had to keep working precarious jobs, often in unsafe conditions that can't be done at home to pay the rent and pay the mortgage. What have the rich been doing? They've been jetting off from private jets to holiday homes by the beach. They've been wearing designer protective masks at a time when many nurses can't access personal protective equipment. When the upper classes have been quite happy to post photos and sells on Instagram, lounging outside luxury yachts and pools, while many people can only go outside for an hour, if that. In France, island populations doubled overnight in March when lockdowns have been introduced. Many of the local communities' airstruck would decode with the influx of people because they didn't have enough adequate resources and medical supplies. This contrasting response by opposing classes to a pandemic or a crisis is nothing new to something that has happened consistently for the last several hundred years. Daniel DeFoe writing on the Great Plague of London in 1665, nothing was to be seen but wagons and carts with goods, women's servants, children, coaches filled with people of the better sort, and horsemen attending them and all hurrying away. Or the poor had to stay in the city as their livelihoods depended on their jobs. This is just like what is happening in response to the coronavirus crisis or the latest climate change disaster. I mean just take a look at the bushfire crisis where millions of us were walking for the smog and toxic air quality. People of wealth could just get off to Hawaii for a private holiday in clean air. Unless we break with the current social order and power structures, nothing will change. Essential workers will be applauded today but they will not receive a pay rise or better conditions tomorrow. So what can we do about this and how can we use this as an opportunity for change? This pandemic has quite clearly revealed to society who essential workers are, that they are some of the most undervalued people in society, and no one is understanding this more than the workers in those industries themselves. It is an opportunity for some disaster unionism in the face of disaster capitalism. Already we are starting to see workers in the US walking out of Amazon warehouses over unsafe conditions with strike action on May 1st. In Australia, unions have been calling for staff to have adequate person protective equipment and hundreds of workers that JB Hi-Fi had been calling on the management with the help of the retail and fast food workers union to close the stores as they are unsafe workplaces. Right now we need to be campaigning for workers to have the power to shut down unsafe workplaces and have adequate person protective equipment and paid sick leave. Additionally we need to be campaigning for pay rises and better conditions and more secure conditions that reflect the value of the work that's been done. Right now it is clear that nurses, teachers, cleaners, warehouse workers and many others are playing a far more essential role in society than financial directors or mining lobbyists. Need to be seizing this as an opportunity to reshape how we value work and workers and who has the power in society. If you want to help us do this, consider becoming a Green Lift supporter today.