Millions of immigrant workers are toiling in frontline low-wage industries. But the CARES Act excludes many from its welfare provisions.

Belabored is a labor podcast hosted by Sarah Jaffe and Michelle Chen. Belabored Stories, a new feature, will present short accounts of what workers are facing during the coronavirus pandemic. Send us your stories at belabored@dissentmagazine.org



The federal coronavirus relief package promised hundreds of billions of dollars of aid for people who have been economically devastated by the pandemic, including expanded unemployment assistance and direct cash payments. But the new legislation excludes undocumented workers and other immigrants from many of the welfare provisions. Yet millions of undocumented workers, and immigrants in general, are toiling in frontline low-wage industries, such as agricultural labor, domestic work, custodial services, and construction. And many others are now jobless, with virtually no safety net (undocumented workers are generally ineligible for unemployment benefits, and both undocumented immigrants and, to a lesser degree, legal permanent residents are often ineligible for many federal benefit programs).

Immigrant construction workers and other day laborers—many of them living hand-to-mouth in the informal building sector—are facing both mass unemployment, as well as massive hazards every time they work on a construction site. As labor advocates have pointed out, the usual safety precautions, such as social distancing and handwashing, are difficult or impossible on a bustling worksite. Informal immigrant construction workers are even more vulnerable, because they often lack the personal protective equipment, such as masks, that other construction workers receive from their employers.

Fredy Moreno, a construction worker in the Twin Cities area, said the pandemic-induced economic freeze has left him out of work and in a deep financial hole.

“It’s affected me a lot,” Moreno said through a Spanish interpreter. “Right now, I don’t currently have work, and other workers who also currently don’t have work have been calling me, asking for work.” The loss of wages is compounded by wage theft. A subcontractor had only paid him and his work crew a fraction of what they were owed, Moreno said, cheating them out of more than $13,700 altogether.

He hopes to pursue a wage theft claim to get his money, but the onslaught of the pandemic last month has destabilized everything.

“I don’t have rent,” he said. “I don’t have money to buy food for my family . . . I have a small child, I don’t have money to go out and buy diapers, if there are diapers to go buy. It’s been pretty difficult.”

He added his fellow workers “are also going through rough times right now . . . They don’t have rent money . . . and they’re trying their best, their hardest, to find any type of work so that they can feed themselves.”

Moreno hopes that business picks back up again soon so that the subcontractor he usually works with will have jobs for him. Although he knows he might be exposing himself to the virus, he said, “If there was work, I would go work. Because I have to support my family.”

On the federal relief legislation, Moreno said, “I think that we should be included, because we also work, and we also pay taxes. And a lot of money goes into taxes [to help] stimulate the government. And I think our families also matter.”

In Birmingham, Alabama, Francisca Godinez and Margaro Vargas, a couple who do day labor and construction work, have been trying to balance their health concerns with their economic needs, as jobs in their area dry up.

Speaking in late March, Vargas said he was continuing to work, and his employer was taking some safety precautions, like advising them on regular hand washing, and letting them wear gloves while working. But he was working fewer hours, presumably because of the shutdown of the local economy.

He acknowledged that continuing to work meant exposing himself to health risks. “I’m worried about that,” he said, “because you can go to work, and you can get sick, and then you go back home, you can spread the virus [among] your family.” But he needed his job, he added: “We have to pay the bills.”

Godinez, who had decided to temporarily stop working and stay home with their child, said, “It’s been really hard. Because everybody’s afraid to get sick, and it’s really hard for us, because we don’t have medical insurance.”

She also had a message for other workers like her: “It’s important to—if it’s possible—to stay at home, and wash our hands, and it’s important to stay at home and take care of ourselves, because we are the worker class of this beautiful and great country.”