During the Pandemic, Workers Were Told They Were Heroes — and Given Little to Show for It
At the height of the coronavirus pandemic, the American working class faced a paradox: workers were told they were “essential” and touted as “heroes,” yet they were often treated as sacrificial lambs.
Middle school teacher Danielle Weigand stands in protest in front of the Hillsborough County Schools District Office on July 16, 2020 in Tampa, Florida. (Octavio Jones / Getty Images)
We don’t know — and likely never will — how many essential workers died after contracting COVID-19 at work. We do know that they were disproportionately exposed to the risks and hazards of pandemic life at rates far exceeding the rest of the American population.
Friedrich Engels, Marx’s lifelong collaborator, coined the term “social murder” to refer to a situation in which the ruling class places workers “in such a position that they inevitably meet an early and an unnatural death.” The pandemic was just such a case.
Uniquely positioned between a vulnerable public and a ruthless ruling class, essential workers were celebrated for their contributions to keeping the country running, even as they faced extraordinary workplace risks, hazards, and exploitation — a set of factors that transformed their understandings of themselves as a class of workers. Class consciousness is not a simple recognition of facts about workers’ position in the economy and society, but the outcome of a process that includes external factors that shake them from relative quiescence and spur them to realize their affinity with other workers — and the potential power they hold. Over time, this shared experience led essential workers to see themselves as a group.
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