While some office workers may be able to self-quarantine entirely, many workers — typically low-wage blue-collar workers — will be asked to continue to show up to work as usual. Still others will lose work and wages as events are canceled and operations halted because of the viral outbreak. And a few will be asked to carry the weight of the heightened safety measures enacted to protect the many.
“You think, ‘That’s great, airlines are increasing the number of cleanings,’” for example, said Seema Patel, clinical director of the East Bay Community Law Center and a lecturer at Berkeley Law. “But who is doing that work? And do those workers have the same protections as the executives of airlines?”