At Hartford rally, workers share worries about future
HARTFORD — Among the workers who attended a rally outside Shiloh Baptist Church in Hartford on Tuesday, many have felt the acute sting of losing income, opportunities and their good health to the pandemic.
Their burden, the workers argued, has been too heavy because Connecticut’s ultra-wealthy residents haven’t shouldered their fair share.
Standing alongside elected officials, labor unions and community groups, about 200 front-line and laid-off workers called on the state to restructure taxes, increase funding for job training and public services, and commit to seeing them through a “peoples’ recovery.”
Here are the stories of some workers whose lives have been changed by COVID-19:
After friends succumb, PPE worries emerge
Clare Johnson raised up her poster board sign proclaiming “Billionaires must pay their share” as she chanted with the crowd.
“No more austerity!” she shouted. “No more cuts!”
Two of Johnson’s friends in the health care field died after contracting the virus, and a lot of others got sick “because there was no PPE, not enough of it,” the 53-year-old Hartford woman said.
“They need to keep the PPE flowing,” Johnson, 53, said.
Johnson, who works in a nursing home in Rocky Hill, is concerned that facilities like hers will once again face shortages of personal protective equipment in the months ahead, putting front-line workers at risk of becoming seriously ill or dying.
Johnson has thyroid disease, which research has not ruled out as a risk factor for more severe cases of COVID19. But Johnson is not only worried about her own health.
“I have a grandson at home,” she said. “I don’t like putting him at jeopardy.”
Laid off after 23 years at the Hilton
Timothy Braswell, 63, of Hartford was laid off in March from the Hilton hotel downtown, where he’d worked for 23 years as a banquet house attendant and bellhop.
Now Braswell is stretch his unemployment checks and frequenting grocery giveaways to feed himself and his youngest son.
“I have to give a little here and give a little there,” Braswell said of paying his rent and bills. “It’s just not enough.”
His son, born just a couple weeks after Braswell started working at the Hilton in 1997, was just about to come work at the hotel, too. He had a foot in the door until the coronavirus closed it.
“Alot of people with this pandemic, their hopes are being shattered,” Braswell said. “My son used to smile, and he don’t smile anymore.”
Still recovering and worried about another coronavirus surge
After spending three months fighting the coronavirus, 58-year-old Janet Sewell did not want to go back to work.
The certified nursing assistant had a severe case that landed her in the hospital for nearly a month. Her oxygen levels kept dropping and she developed pneumonia. And when Sewell was well enough to return home to Hamden, it was with a prescription for supplemental oxygen, which she still uses weekly.
She wonders if the lingering effects of the virus will stay with her the rest of her life.
But even more, she worries she’ll catch COVID-19 again. Sewell works at Arden House in Hamden, where scores of residents contracted the virus and 53 have died.
While Arden House hasn’t seen any new cases, other facilities have, and coronavirus cases statewide are increasing. Sewell is too young to retire, and can’t afford to be out of work, so she returned in September.
“I made it, I survived, but what would make me think I’d survive it a second time?” she said.
After the coronavirus, helping a daughter and a grandchild
Glenn Angus, a cook at Arden House, caught the virus, too, spending four days in the hospital and seven weeks out of work. Now, the 57-yearold Hamden man’s most immediate concern is keeping his job.
A number of employees have been laid off by parent company Genesis HealthCare, and Angus worries the next round will be the end of his 25-year career with the Arden House.
“Our ranks have been decimated. With one hand with they’re saying thank you, and with the other hand they’re holding the door open for you,” Angus said. “You go in every day, you don’t even know if you’re gonna have a job let alone whether you’re gonna get COVID.”
Angus’ finances are stretched thin, now, particularly after he followed his doctor’s recommendation to stay home one more week after worker’s compensation ran out.
He’s also helping out his daughter, who was laid off from a hotel in New Haven. Her unemployment insurance helps pay the rent but not much else, so Argus chips in to support her and his grandchild
“I don’t even know what to tell her,” Angus said. “Where can you get a job? I don’t know what to say.”