Part-time workers take on full weight of COVID-19 fears, advocates say By: Carol Sanders Posted: 7:30 PM CDT Tuesday, Aug. 18, 2020 Last Modified: 11:44 PM CDT Tuesday, Aug. 18, 2020 Updates

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The struggle of part-time workers who go from job to job to eke out a living may also become a problem for everyone as COVID-19 cases surge.

The situation was recently highlighted in Brandon, where a cluster of cases that included some workers at the Maple Leaf Foods Inc. plant made national headlines. While case counts in the west Manitoba city are slowing, Brandon has a higher per capita rate of COVID-19 than hotspots in Alberta, and nearly 20 times as many cases per 100,000 people as Winnipeg.

It likely has something to do with a number of part-time employees who need to work at more than one place to make a living, says one Brandon resident who knows their struggles.

“A lot of people are worried. They have no choice but to go out to work, and they’re worried they’re going to catch it,” said Wadood Myireh, who works full-time in the service sector.

Several public health advisories were issued this month about possible COVID-19 exposure in Brandon at such places as 7-Eleven, Sobeys, and Tim Hortons.

“I know people who work at several places, so they may get exposed at more places, and they have a chance of (interacting with) more people,” Myireh said Tuesday.

Such workers are often immigrants and people of colour, said the man who immigrated to Canada from Pakistan and has lived in Brandon for seven years. “They’re mostly from overseas — they’re the ones doing multiple jobs.”

During the pandemic, they’re also dealing with both a maze of shifts and rules at different workplaces.

“They get mixed messages from different companies — every company has a different protocol,” when it comes to COVID-19, Myireh said.

Some employers tell workers to go for COVID-19 testing and come back with proof of a negative result. But when they attempt to, they’re turned away at testing sites because they have no symptoms and don’t meet the criteria for testing, he said.

On Monday, Manitoba’s chief provincial public health officer told employers to stop doing that.

“Because of our high test numbers, we want to reserve (testing) for symptomatic people for the most part, so don’t insist on asymptomatic employees providing test results,” Dr. Brent Roussin said. Employers are asked to only send employees for testing if they have symptoms or if testing has been recommended by public health.

Meanwhile, not being able to maintain a two-metre distance from each other and from customers, is stressful and nerve-racking for workers, Myireh said. “That’s why people are worried.”

“I know people who work at several places, so they may get exposed at more places, and they have a chance of (interacting with) more people.”
– Wadood Myireh

They also fear unknowingly spreading the virus if they’re infected but have no symptoms, Myireh said.

It is something Manitobans should all be concerned about, anti-poverty and public health advocates say.

Many low-paid part-time workers are driven by necessity to hold multiple jobs, putting themselves, their families, and workplaces at risk of COVID-19, said Molly McCracken, Manitoba director of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.

“COVID is laying bare class inequities in the economy,” McCracken said.

“These workers are more likely to be women, and racialized,” she said. “This could very well result in higher rates of the virus and more deaths in low- and moderate-income communities.”

Even with full-time hours, Manitoba’s minimum wage is far below a living wage, McCracken said. The province should immediately require paid sick days for all workers, raise the minimum wage to a living wage, and improve working conditions for precarious workers, she said.

Liberal MLA, and former practising physician, Jon Gerrard said the perils of people having to work at multiple job sites during a pandemic were evident in deadly outbreaks of COVID-19 at personal care homes in other provinces.

“It was recognized that we needed to get away from part-time people and having more full-time people,” Gerrard said.

If more people could work at one place full-time, everyone would benefit, agreed Myireh. “That would be the dream. That would create a healthy community.”

However, looking for a full-time job, upgrading education or advocating for a better system is beyond the reach of most. “The people are working part-time in more than one job — they struggle and are exhausted and have weird hours. With that crazy schedule, you’re not allowed free time,” said Myireh.

“COVID is laying bare class inequities in the economy.”
– Molly McCracken

Also, when newcomers get stuck in part-time service-industry jobs, the unintended consequence is divisions are being created along racial lines, he said. “We should not be segregated.”

Meanwhile, Brandon Mayor Rick Chrest said the city is getting a grip on the recent surge of COVID-19 cases.

“We had fabulous case numbers prior to this uptick: 70 days in a row without a single new case in Prairie Mountain,” he said Tuesday. That ended after someone returned to Brandon from Eastern Canada and did not “perfectly” self-isolate, Chrest said.

“We’re hoping it’s starting to get locked down… We had only one new case (Tuesday).”

carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca

Carol Sanders
Legislature reporter

After 20 years of reporting on the growing diversity of people calling Manitoba home, Carol moved to the legislature bureau in early 2020.

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