The coronavirus crisis has hit workers hard: the numbers of those furloughed and those

newly claiming Universal Credit illustrates the scale. To date, however, we have had very
limited information about which types of people have been most affected. In this spotlight,
we begin to fill this gap with flash findings from the Resolution Foundation’s new
coronavirus survey.

Here is an interview with my neighbour Raju about impact of COVID-19 on workers.

Interviewer:What have you found to be the single toughest nut to crack in this situation?

Interviewee:The mental health cost of this crisis will play out in the months to come - so I
think just making sure people are connected and stay in touch is critical. And those human
interactions we take for granted on a daily basis - passing someone in the coffee corner,
having a quick briefing, whatever the daily rhythm might be - you don't realize how efficient
those interactions can be until you're trying to manage that remotely.

And for people with young children, this is an incredibly difficult time. Balancing work and
family is a whole new realm of challenges. So from a personal point of view and from an
economic point of view, this is nothing short of potentially disastrous for people's
livelihoods and indeed for stable economies.

Interviewer:What can workplaces do to better support parents during this time?

Interviewee:We have to think about how to provide a mix of work and parenting that
works, because children matter as well. Their mental health matters, and their need for
support and activity, scheduling and even just attention is very important for their own
health and development.

You have to be conscious that parents can’t be online and available to work 24/7. People
must feel able to say, I can't work for these hours but I'm available at these times.

Interviewer:What impact do you expect this crisis to have on the global jobs market?

Interviewee:The imbalance of the global economy is now being felt. First of all, we should
say thank you to those businesses who have kept their staff on, who have made sure that
they have income security and a sense of job security in the medium to longer term. But
there are many businesses who have simply taken an opportunity to lay off staff. In some
cases, they are taking government support and still laying off staff.

So there is a divide in the business community. There is one set of businesses who say, we
need to look after our workers, and we need to work with the unions to make sure that the
humane aspects of this crisis are dealt with as positively as possible. There have been joint
calls to the government to support people - first and foremost, workers on the frontlines.
Our health workers, transport workers, workers in supermarkets and related services, care
facilities, schools where they're still operating; there are high-risk safety issues for workers
in those situations, and we owe them a huge debt of gratitude.

But beyond that, where the factories and retail outlets and services are shutting down,
people often have far too little sick pay, if any at all. Wage and job guarantees are lacking.
The International Labor Organization (ILO) says we could lose up to 25 million jobs
worldwide – and depending on the timeframe, it could be worse than that.
So we have to do everything to minimize the fallout. First of all, only 50% of countries are
providing free public healthcare – that is a glaring gap. And if that's the case in the richer
world, then in developing economies where the virus is only just starting to spread, the
health fallout could be disastrous. So if it's a mix of public and private testing and care, it
has to be run on public health principles, it has to be available to everybody and it must be
a partnership.

And where businesses have been forced to close their doors, of course not everybody can
work from home. In fact, 50% of the world's population aren't connected to the internet.
Looking at the responses to-date, mostly from Europe, the US, Australia and a few other
countries, we have seen quite a lot of initiatives to support small businesses in particular.

But when you then consider that only 21% of countries in the richer world provide paid sick
leave for workers, then that's a disaster of humanitarian crisis levels. That is
unconscionable.

Beyond paid sick leave, people need income security. If you're not a direct employee, you’re
still going to need income, whether you're self-employed or working in the informal
economy. We certainly need to see income support. The guaranteed packages to date have
to be expanded.

Then, of course, in terms of job or employment protection, only around 15 of the G20
countries have given guarantees about supporting jobs. This has to be in the next wave of
measures under consideration by all governments. We've asked the G20 governments to
look at measures that support workers and small businesses in partnership, because you
can't just give money to businesses if it then doesn’t flow to their workers. There has got to
be some sort of criteria, some conditionality, and some direct investment in working
families themselves. That’s the best guarantee for the real economy. We need to look at
the economy as a whole, taking it from the perspective of working people and their
families, which wasn't done in the 2008/2009 process.

Interviewer:Are there any countries that you feel are really getting this right?

Interviewee:Yes - those countries who have looked at the key elements of paid sick leave
and income guarantees for all workers, and what the mix of that should be. The best of
those packages have been negotiated with unions in Europe and the UK. Outside of Europe,
places like New Zealand, Singapore and Argentina have done a very good job of making
critical economic decisions, and they have looked to be inclusive of all people. In some Latin
American countries we've also seen some measures to include the informal sector -
particularly those who work in farming communities. That's a very good thing.

Our message is very simple: you have to look at guaranteed paid sick leave. This is a health
crisis. It’s different to the crisis of 2008/9; this one started with a human dimension, in the
real economy, and is now spreading to the financial sector. In 2008/9 we saw the
speculative economy simply spiral out of control, and that caused a crisis in the real
economy. We took huge hits - there was high unemployment, and inequality escalated -
but our economies didn't shut down. This is a very different environment and we need to
think about the short-term timeframe.

What are the package deals? We know what they should involve; support workers with
income support and job protection. We can support small businesses and make sure that
we're able to pick up an economic base in the medium term. But then from the medium to
long term, we're going to be looking at post-reconstruction policy frameworks. We haven't
really had to deal with that since big shocks like the Great Depression or World War II,
which was followed by the Marshall Plan and debt swaps. Now, of course, we need to
design policies to align with investment in people and the environment.

But above all, the longer-term perspective is about rebalancing economies. What we don’t
want is an unbalanced economy where you can't get essentials like healthcare products
and food because they're produced in one group of countries and not in a balanced fashion
around the world. We have to look at how to build a better economy alongside the
convergent crisis of the environment – which is not going to go away.
COVID-19 intersects with the underlying inequality crisis that was already fragmenting our
societies and creating an age of anger along with the challenges posed by technology. In
some ways, this experience will tell us what we need to do to get it right – so that people
are connected and we're not abusing technology at the cost of both people’s physical and
mental health.

These are big challenges. But going forward from the medium to the longer term, we need
more social dialogue in order to design a better and more balanced economy.

Of course, right now we're all focused on the short term, because dealing with all the areas
of crisis that are converging is critical at the moment. Most importantly, we must keep the
central supply chains — for healthcare products and food, for example — open. Mindless
border closures, without thinking about the consequences, have made this more difficult
than it should have been.

The second area of challenge is the supply chains for non-essential items. With sectors
such as retail electronics, for example, closing down in the short term, we risk even greater
devastation than is caused by the current dehumanizing exploitation of supply chains. If
you're talking about a million people in Bangladesh in the textile sector alone, and multiply
that across all the Asian, African and Latin American supply chains in those sectors, then
you get a picture of the potential human cost. There is also a risk that much of that business
won't come back quickly. So it is a time for social dialogue, and for rapid response from
governments. The multilateral environment has been found wanting; we've all been saying
it's in crisis, but now it's hardly there at all. So the G20 meeting will tell us who's going to
act and who's not, and what we can do with businesses and workers’ organizations to
support those governments who want to act in the interests of their own countries, but also
vitally in partnership with the developing world, which will be devastated.

Interviewer:Has your organization heard stories of people who have no choice but to turn
up to work sick, and who then presumably spread the pandemic even further?

Interviewee:Oh, it's everywhere. If people work in the informal sector, if they're day
workers, if they're in factories that are still open and there's no paid sick leave, no income
guarantee, then they have no choice. You have to feed your family, so you're going to go to
work. And that is a recipe for extending the reach of the virus beyond the containment
period that we're all working towards right now.
Interviewer:What is your message to G20 leaders as they meet virtually to discuss the
crisis?

Interviewee:It’s very simple. The emergency plan should be to share our wealth and to re-
establish a social contract that includes paid sick leave and income guarantees. And that
means, of course, wages - but it also means those who are in self-employment, freelancers,
platform business workers and the informal sector. This is a time for social protection
generally and for investment in vital public services, beginning with health. The G20
countries are providing free public healthcare, and we have seen the stresses and strains
on countries like Italy and Spain and others. Imagine what it's like when people simply can't
afford to go to the doctor – even in countries like the US. So social protection, public
services, health, education, care - these are the issues of design for the future that we need
to get right.

If we're not to see this level of devastation with the continued inequality that we were
already facing and, of course, if we are to do something about the climate emergency,
which won't go away, then we have to marry the design of better economies with action on
both the climate and COVID-19, along with those vital areas of employment protection.
We need a new social contract. This crisis is showing the cracks in our world; if people are
vulnerable, then the economy is vulnerable.

Interviewer:Times of crisis have historically also been opportunities for change. Are you
optimistic that as we emerge from this, it could be a chance to create a better economy?

Interviewee:I can see how we could use this opportunity to design a better world, but we
need both national and multilateral institutions to make it work. I was at the table in 2008,
2009 and 2010, when the G20 governments - along with the International Monetary Fund
and other institutions - took decisions that were about people, about employment and
about maintaining jobs, as well as, of course, stabilizing the economy.

Now - we didn't get it right. We certainly didn't get the rules of the financial sector right.
We were worried about the too-big-to-touch banks, and we didn't solve that. Now we've
got the too-big-to-touch monopolies in the global tech sector, and we haven't begun to
solve that. And everything in between is also a replication, therefore, of the human cost
involved when governments have failed to regulate the labour market. So we have now
60% of the global workforce actively working informally. And that means, of course, those
working in platform businesses as well as those informal jobs with no rights, no minimum
wage and no social protection that are emerging in our supply chains. That has to change.
It can change if people can sit at the table. But going back to the financial crisis, many of the
key G20 leaders at that time - people like Gordon Brown, Barack Obama, Kevin Rudd and
Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva - these people have disappeared from our ranks, along with their
experience. They acted together. What we're seeing now is a kind of retreat, which might
be understandable emotionally, but it's not going to help us. Solidarity and sharing and
deciding on how you protect people – both within nations and globally - is absolutely
critical at the moment. We are trying desperately with some of the business community to
rebuild that social dialogue with labour organizations, businesses and governments. But
while it works tremendously well in some democratic countries, by and large it's not
working in the majority of the world's countries and it's not working globally. And we have
to come back from that.

Interviewer:People are aware of the extraordinary work going on in the healthcare sector
right now. But what about the forgotten heroes - people who might be exposing
themselves to risk to keep the wheels of our societies turning? Who are the vulnerable
workers, and what can be done to protect them?

Interviewee:Healthcare workers are very vulnerable, because the lack of personal

protective equipment has really caused much more infection amongst some of those
frontline workers than should have been the case. Hopefully that's turning around, but I
know from our unions in many countries that it's still at critical levels.

But then we also need transport and supermarket workers, for example, to keep the show
going. People should thank these workers because if you can't buy food, then you can't
keep your family sustained and healthy. There's an extraordinary set of challenges for
them. And of course, there are essential services, but there are also people running
homeless shelters, and shelters for victims of domestic violence, which, sadly, is on the
increase. We need more safe havens for women and children. There are people working in
aged care facilities looking after the most vulnerable group of people. And of course, there
are all of the services that surround each of those sectors, because you can't run these
operations without supplies and service support. These people are all heroes.

The terrible irony is often that those sectors, particularly on the frontlines of care, are
dominated by women who are among the lowest paid workers in our communities. So
when we come out of this there are questions to ask about who we value and who we are
prepared to pay decent wages for the dignity of decent work, too. It's been an unresolved
issue for a long time. It's about feminized industries and unequal pay and a lack of
recognition. But I think there's a chance in the medium to long-term to say we must stop
this, we must value those workers and we must pay them appropriately - with notable
exceptions.

Interviewer:There is still a lack of women sitting around the table at leadership meetings
like the G20. Do you think that is playing a role in some of the things that are just not being
spotted in the response to this crisis?

Interviewee: Oh, without question. I think there's a lack of tables right now. There's no
question that women's leadership is critical, because it will bring to the forefront the areas
where women hold together the fabric not just of our societies and our communities, but
also our economies.

There are, of course, the immediate packages [from governments] to give people security
by protecting their jobs and incomes. But there is also, as I have indicated, medium to
longer-term planning to undertake. The challenge there is to ask: how do we build better
economies? How do we learn to balance sustainability, inclusiveness and decent working
conditions, where people don't walk away from the human and labour rights of workers
and instead build a future where the world is more equal but also much more stable?

Interviewer: Let’s fast forward to an optimistic scenario. It's March 2022. The economy has
recovered. What do you hope will have changed to make it a better economy for workers?

Interviewee:I hope that we can get beyond the dominant politics of leaders not putting
people first. Of course, we want economic stability. We are working very closely with those
voices in business who are dignified and responsible, despite their own challenges, in their
concerns for their workers, and for government policies that are balanced and justified in
these times. But we want an end to the profit-at-all-costs mentality, because if we don't
build an economic future within a sustainable framework in which we are respectful of our
planetary boundaries and the need to change our energy and technology systems, then we
will not have a living planet for human beings.

And we must ensure that this design is inclusive of universal social protection. The world
could fund it right now - and yet 70% of the world's population has no social protection. It
must be respectful of public services rather than simply trying to profit from them. So
public support for people and of course, of the social dialog that makes it possible for us to
get the balance right, are crucial. If you've got workers, employers and civil society at the
table with governments at all levels, then you can design the kind of future that takes into
account the right priorities for people, for the planet and of course, for stable economies.