Essential Work

The COVID pandemic has both intensified and further exposed the inequalities that shape the Canadian labour force. What we have witnessed has been predominantly low-income, racialized and immigrant workers working in precarious conditions on the front-lines of the pandemic; often leaving themselves and their communities at a greater risk of infection, pandemic related job loss, and the associated consequences that come with a lack of access social supports such as affordable child care, health benefits and paid sick leave.

This podcast series, co-hosted by Kiké Roach, the Unifor Chair in Social Justice and Democracy at X University, and Salmaan Khan, will profile the experiences of racialized front-line workers in order to highlight the ongoing historical and structural forces that have contributed to the adverse impacts of the pandemic on their lives. Each episode is framed around a topical issue facing front-line workers during the pandemic such as inequality in vaccine rollouts, health and safety at work, exploitation of temporary and migrant labour, wages and benefits, and the significance of race-based data in shaping and effecting policy. Each episode will center the voices of workers themselves, in addition to partnering with labour and community organizers.