Lack of paid sick leave fails vulnerable workers
One in four COVID-19 cases identified through contact tracing were individuals who had gone to work with symptoms, the most recent Peel Health data shows. Sixty-six per cent of confirmed community outbreaks in Peel reported between September and December 2020 occurred in the workplace. This is not shocking given that more than half of workers are still denied access to paid sick days.
Peel region has had strict lockdown measures in place for months, yet has the highest persistent positivity rate in Ontario. Paid sick days are a basic necessity for mitigating workplace transmission and ensuring people can safely test and isolate. Unfortunately, some of the most vulnerable workers don’t have access to them.
Paid sick days legislation was tabled in December under Bill 239: Stay Home When You Are Sick Act, 2020. This would provide workers with seven permanent paid sick days and 14 additional days during infectious disease emergencies. It can be passed immediately with the recall of the legislature and all party support.
Immediately legislating paid sick days is an urgent matter of socioeconomic and racial justice. As long as growing calls for paid sick days from GTA mayors, top public health and medical officials are not acted upon, racialized and low-income people will continue to be left behind.
Data available reveals that 58 per cent of workers in Canada — and over 70 per cent of low wage workers making $25,000 or less — have no access to paid sick days. This means our country’s the lowest income workers are denied access to paid sick days.
In Toronto’s Nov. 2020 data, the rate of COVID-19 infection was more than double (808 cases per 100,000 people) for those considered lower-income than those in higher income households (355.9 cases per 1000,000 people.) Income is the most important social determinant of health. Without workplace protections such as paid sick days, workers are faced with the impossible decision of choosing between their financial livelihoods and public health.
In this time, the provincial government has been pointing to Ottawa’s Canada Recovery Sickness Benefit (CRSB) as an adequate response, but it only provides $450 a week after tax, which is less than minimum wage for a full-time worker.
Many workers who need to take a sick day are not eligible, and if they are, retroactive payments lead to interruptions in income. Anything less than seamlessly accessible and fully paid sick days not only punishes workers for protecting public health by losing their income, but also encourages them to go to work sick. The higher number of COVID-19 cases in low-wage workers is a clear testament to the impact of lack of paid sick days and low socioeconomic status on health.
The lack of paid sick days is also a matter of racial justice. The latest City of Toronto data shows that 79 per cent of all COVID-19 infections are among racialized individuals, and that 25 per cent of infections are among Black people. By comparison, only 50.7 per cent of Toronto’s population is racialized and 8.8 per cent is Black.
Toronto data also shows that 71 per cent of people hospitalized due to COVID-19 identified as coming from a racialized group and cases were disproportionately higher amongst the Black and South Asian populations. In hard-hit Peel Region, South Asians make up 31.6 per cent of the population but represent 58.7 per cent of the COVID-19 burden in the region.
Black, Indigenous, workers of colour, and immigrants are overrepresented in dangerous and hazardous work and employed on minimum wage. According to 2018 Statistics Canada data, 18 per cent of Canada’s roughly 181,000 drivers are South Asian immigrants and during the pandemic, they were driving to the COVID-19 hot spots. During the strictest lockdown periods, manufacturing, packaging and distribution — of even non-essential items such as luxury clothing — has continued in high risk regions such as Peel.
Also, Peel reported that 39 per cent of all workplace outbreaks are within the manufacturing sector where a significant proportion of the workforce is racialized and immigrant groups. Economic uncertainty has also led to an increased reliance on temp agencies where workers make poverty wages and have little job security and protections, including paid sick days.
Over the summer, outbreaks on farms led to thousands of cases among migrant farm workers, largely from the Caribbean and Latin America, who are denied paid sick days and whose temporary immigration status makes it almost impossible for them to assert their rights at work.
The long-term care crisis is another example of how racism and structural inequities at work harm racialized workers. COVID-19 case numbers in long-term care have far surpassed those in the first wave — a sector where workers are primarily racialized women earning low wages.
Concerningly, the link between systemic racism, health inequity and income is not new and not unique to COVID-19. It has been well documented that racialized people living on low incomes are at higher risk of acute and chronic illness and death.
Similar to other health conditions, we know that COVID-19 is not impacting us equally. Without the protection of provincially legislated-paid sick days and adequate income, low income and racialized workers will continue to struggle to follow public health advice, in fear of losing their jobs and financial livelihoods.
We are far behind in treating the symptoms of racism and income-based inequities, and we can see it play out in precarious work. Temporary solutions like the CRSB miss the mark entirely. We will continue to be ill prepared for future outbreaks and ongoing health disparities unless we focus on permanent, equity-driven solutions.
A crucial step forward is for the Ontario government to urgently recall the legislature and legislate paid sick days by passing Bill 239. Every day longer they wait, racialized and low-income workers are paying the price with their health — and too often with their lives.
Dr. Amanpreet (Preet) Brar is a general surgery resident in the department of surgery, UofT and is a member of Humans in Brampton. Follow her at @iPreetBrar and follow the campaign Humans in Brampton @bramptoncovid on twitter or @humansinbrampton on Instagram. Carolina Jimenez is a registered nurse at a women’s clinic in Toronto and the co-ordinator of the Decent Work and Health Network. Follow the network @DecentWorkHlth on Twitter and @decentworkandhealth on Instagram.