Essential Workers

Do you really value essential workers?

There is nothing like a pandemic to really focus the mind.  We only miss things when they are taken from us unexpectedly, with no recourse and no way of fighting back with our existing tools.  We feel exposed.  Helpless.  Angry.  Frustrated.  

It reminds me of an earlier recession when the Masters of the Universe were lining up to buy Harley-Davidsons as the current status symbol, only Harley refused to run more than one production cycle a day.  They brilliantly kept demand high by refusing to increase the supply.  All these guys who were used to lighting their cigars with $100 bills had to put their name on a waiting list just like everyone else, and still pay 3 times the sticker price when their number came up.  

The term ‘essential workers’ has been around for a long time.  The meaning is clear - those who work in professions without which the rest of us will not survive very long.  Essential can mean those who literally make life and death decisions, like doctors and nurses.  Essential can mean the vast support networks allowing doctors and nurses can do their work - the cleaners, schedulers, techs, the people manufacturing PPE.  Essential can mean those who keep society running at the most basic level needed to keep moving forward - teachers, child care workers, grocery store workers, food production, postal workers, garbage collectors, and so many more.   

A pandemic hits, and all of a sudden the word ‘essential’ takes on new meaning.  

We react with emotion.  The streets are alive with the cheering for essential workers.  Signs, food deliveries, horns blowing, social media posts - all recognizing that essential workers are just that, essential to our continued well-being.  

And then….nothing.

Where is the action?  Where is the protection for those workers?  Where is the newfound and lasting appreciation? 

Where is the money?  

We pay for what we value.  It is one of the most basic economic facts.  It is the reason U.S. advertising is in excess of $150 billion each year.  We are heavily influenced about what we should value by effective marketing. 

Take cars.  The $18.7 million Bugatti La Voiture Noire is officially the most expensive new car ever.  The Nissan Versa Sedan will also get you from point A to B, for only $12,815, or 0.06% of the price of the Bugatti.  Granted, it will be a lot slower, but the utility is the same.  You disagree.  There are facts demonstrating superiority.  The engineering.  The design.  The innovation.  I get it.  I take my cars seriously.  A brief flirtation with a 1968 Mustang convertible when I was 5, but I fell in love once and forever at the age of 13 with the Porsche 911.  However, I understand that there is no logical argument which would justify paying 99.04% more for a car.  I know that my love of the 911 is based purely on emotion, emotions that are sometimes at odds with closely held values, like preserving the environment.  

It’s the marketing which seduces us and influences us.  Marketing taps into our deepest fears, our greatest hopes, our aspirations, our sense of self, our sense of belonging - logic be damned.  As the neuroscientist Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor said, “Although many of may think of ourselves as thinking creatures that feel, biologically we are feeling creatures that think.”  

Our emotions have us cheering for essential workers.  Our emotions have us pleading for those essential workers to please, save us, save our loved ones, even if it puts you in danger.  Teach our children.  Clean everything in sight so we can do our shopping.  Keep meat on our tables.  Harvest the vegetables.  And for heavens sake, keep the toilet paper rolling.

It’s not enough.  If you have realized that you actually value essential workers, recognize that none of whom are anywhere close to top of the the ‘most highly paid’ lists.  Our professed value does not match the assigned economic value.  

Stop and ask yourself how you feel about changing the system.  Watch how the fear creeps in, and the justifications.  If nurses are paid more, how can I afford health care which is already outrageous?  If teachers are paid more, my property taxes will go up again, and besides, they do get summers off and get to hang out with my adorable children all day..…  If I pay the nanny more, will I still be able to afford to work, and after all child care is pretty simple, right? It’s just playing, right?  If grocery store workers or meat processors or farm workers are paid more how can I afford the corresponding increase in food?  

Ask yourself how you feel about non-essential workers who have marketed their skills effectively to justify big salaries.  What emotions come up?  Happiness?  Fear?  Anger?  Envy?  Righteous agreement?  Do you agree with how they have marketed their value?   (so easy to take aim at the banking industry and the tech bro’s high salaries when the measure is ‘essential’)  

Now ask yourself what you’re going to do about the inequity, the difference between your professed values and your actions.  Will you attend school board meetings when you know teacher salaries are under fire and stand up for them?  Will you write a letter to your Congressional representatives about worker protection, minimum wages, and a fair tax system? When it’s your loved one who needs home health care, will you ask how much the caregivers are being paid?  Does the perceived value to you match the salary they receive?  Will you argue for a raise for yourself (value yourself) since you are now working from home so the overhead is less and the profits to your company are greater and then pass on some of that additional money to the essential workers who you pay?  If you are one of the highly paid, will you look at how much you pay those who clean your house, tend your garden, care for your children or your elderly or disabled family members and pay them more?

Words are nice.  Action is always better.  

What action will you take?