As I see it | Essential workers risk their lives to keep our societies running. Don’t just thank them, pay them more

The coronavirus pandemic has shown how much we need those who care for our sick, deliver our food, bring us our packages and take our rubbish away

But acknowledging the difficulty of their work and applauding their efforts is not enough – it’s high time we actually valued them too, says Hari Raj

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A worker disinfects the floor of a supermarket as a preventive measure against the spread of coronavirus. So much of the infrastructure of our civilisation is maintained by low-paid workers. Photo: AFP

Published: 9:00am, 15 Jan 2021Updated: 9:00am, 15 Jan 2021

In between the lockdowns and quarantines, the days and months when time dilated into infinity, and the dawning hope of vaccines, there has been one constant: essential workers.

The term is wide-ranging, encompassing frontline health care workers alongside the people employed in supermarkets and petrol stations, sanitation workers, and those who deliver food and the flood of packages we’ve all ordered online. The inclusion of these previously disparate jobs under a pandemic-induced banner of dire necessity has brought to light a singular truth: so much of the infrastructure of our civilisation is maintained by those paid so very little.

Most hourly pay estimates for delivery workers in Malaysia are in the region of US$4, for example, while supermarket employees in South Korea get around US$9 an hour. With Covid-19 cases still surging and a global roll-out of vaccines expected to be years away, the gap between the importance of these roles and their relatively poor remuneration is both telling and potentially deadly.

A medical worker takes a nasal swab from a woman at a Covid-19 testing centre in Shah Alam, Malaysia, earlier this month. Photo: SOPA Images via ZUMA Wire/DPA

Why don’t people pay more for these services? It’s mostly because there are low barriers to entry, which brings with them lower wages, a greater supply of workers, and a corresponding lack of job security. In Asia, many of these essential workers are migrants, eking out a living to send money to families they may not have seen for years. Most are not paid if they miss a shift, disincentivising the sick from staying at home and adding stress to already precarious working conditions. In South Korea, at least 15 delivery workers died last year, with their families saying extreme overwork had harmed their health.

There’s something profoundly ironic about the space between “essential” and “valued” – it’s the difference between being able to take a day off and losing your job. Or, to many, the difference between life and death.