Pandemic puts the pressure on some of the walls lowest paid workers with more countries imposing lockdowns many people without sick leave all stable income say they cannot afford to stay at home so how should they be protected this is inside story. Hello welcome to the program im Maryanne Demasi the world is experiencing unprecedented events right now as the coronavirus pandemic affects the lives of millions of people governments are pushing cities into lockdown and they are urging everyone to avoid public spaces and to work from home if possible but many low paid workers around the world dont have that option as shops and restaurants are deserted people face weeks without pay the shutdown is affecting the socalled gig economy a growing sector in many countries and those who are couriers ride share drivers on the self employed say they cant afford to miss work because many of them dont get sick pay or medical insurance or some companies have started to take action but workers are already saying its not enough ride sharing firms and live say theyll compensate drivers affected by the crisis for up to 14 days u. K. Delivery business hermes says its setting up one point 2000000. 00 to compensate its 15000. 00 selfemployed koreas if they have to self isolate several Tech Companies announced contract workers would still receive full pay despite a potential decreased need for their services and then chains like starbucks and walmart have temporarily updated their sick leave policies and urging shift workers to stay at home if they show symptoms but there are fears Companies Whose revenues are affected could struggle to protect their workers. So lets bring in our panel joining us from nothing and here in the u. K. Greg howard he is a Delivery Driver for various apps like delivery route but is currently in self isolation in boston massachusetts shannon lease written an attorney whos represented many economy and then here with me in the studio vicky pryce chief Economic Advisor at the u. K. Based think tank the center for economics and business for such a very well welcome to you wall and shannon if i can start with you because we are now seeing the coronavirus pandemic really exposing existing social and economic divisions and is sort of 2 aspects of this isnt that the vulnerability of big economy economy workers and Service Industry workers could deepen the crisis well talk a bit more about that later but the crisis itself could increase vulnerability as well how important is it to have paid sick leave. Its extremely important and i think this crisis is highlighting the problem more than ever now were hearing Public Health experts urging everyone to engage in social distancing and also the most important rule is that if youre feeling sick you need to stay home but the problem is that gig economy workers only get paid when they work if they dont if they dont show up to work theyre not going to put food on their own table and pay their own rent so we need to get paid sick leave for them so that they can stay home these workers are on the front lines of this crisis right now we have to room with drivers who are heard driving people to places they need to go because they dont want to take Public Transportation particularly right now we have food Delivery Drivers bringing post made story and you will not know you speak about food Delivery Drivers they dont want to eat out i want to go to greg in that case because you are actually that the dilemma that shannon was describing for say you are confronting that head on right now youve worked for delivery and. Now youre in self isolation tell us about why youve decided not to work. So the reasons outside not to work senseis on the risk to those that i did have a tell you so we are at the front line in providing that those are in southwest asia and those are important to not just in the u. K. But across the world with basic supplies Food Health Food deliveries was going to say soon if they if the elderly in this country in the u. K. As i say sit closer to corn team we may be doing more and more to the press that he was also absent last exit based on the goodness of ice for to 7 days as i was displaying symptoms from my saliva site and sent to the public psych as well as when did you start to fail when did you start to feel poorly. Status come and now youre at home. Her marry us. And thats here in the u. K. Thats been the governments advice doesnt it if you start to get any symptoms even if theyre cold like that you immediately self isolate and so vicki were just hearing there from gregorys self employed workers are not eligible for statutory sick pay and actually there are tens of thousands of workers like this koreas and drivers who are not going to get paid to do what greg is doing that is true of course there are some firms that have taken the view that perhaps they can give them something even though theyre selfemployed and work for them or contract basis so its not everywhere that is the case but of course what the government in the u. K. Has said is that if you or part of that big group of selfemployed or a part of the gig cami you can actually access benefits from the welfare state now those are going to bore absolutely takes a lot of time but lets not also over exaggerate the importance of sick pay because 33. 00 sick pay in the u. K. Is 1. 00 of the lowest as a percentage of average earnings than practically any other country in the u. C. You get 20 percent of the average can you imagine if anyone is earning more than that and they just get 90 or so we will miss on this is what the worst its one of the worst i think its only one of the country for remember correctly this was i cant remember which one i have to say i doubt it but actually it is pretty poor and something is to give really the no way in which we can treat a whole part of our working population that way and the estimates are that possibly one in 10 workers in the u. K. Has worked on some sort of platform using digital and so on so they can be described as part of the gonna be even though the overall estimates may be that maybe we have 3000000 people who are part of that about asteroids are great gonna me because were seeing really the growth of these companies more and more people using their services that could increase actually with some of the social distancing measures again thats something i want to get well get into that a bit shannon. Were taking a look at the existing system before this coronavirus pandemic isnt it because across the United States lowest paid workers are excluded from paid sick leave in livable wages Many Americans also dont have Health Insurance so people cant afford to stay at home. Yeah thats right and one country thats doing worse in the u. K. Is the United States we dont have any National Paid sick leave and thats a travesty and i think this crisis is once again bringing that issue to the front and center. We have been fighting for years to get employment recognition for me workers and i believe that its now becoming front and center that we that we need to have these employment protections for workers and the fact that. They cant they cant afford to stay home they cant they cant work from home when theyre out there if theyre feeling sick theyre not only a danger to themselves but theyre creating a danger to you and shannon so just to get a sense of the industries that we because were going to get cold i mean work writing us even further yes which weve got to get because what industries specifically what kind of business is what is this is this restaurant child dr. Well when people talk about gig economy workers theyre thinking mostly of the drivers out there the right here drivers the delivery the food Delivery Drivers amazon drivers amazon drivers are out there right now delivering packages to people who are stockpiling supply is in food in their homes and. Theyre crucial to what were doing right now but if they feel sick they need to be able to stay home but they frequently cant they usually they need to go to work in order to get paid so this is only going to be fueling the crisis further if you dont have paid sick leave so greg let me come to you then because you youve been very diligent about following the governments advice you are in self isolation but can you afford to be. Absolutely not so i could apply for a promiscuous allowance through that for the benefit system but that would only pay me central pounds thats right pay. To sigma slave. As im not employed im a geek worker. And so is it is going to leave me very very tight and i factor so i asked for longer than the 7 days should my symptoms worse and then im not quite sure what to do the company i went down to have to that they have announced that they will be supporting dr us through whats called a right to support fund but i know as to access that you need to get medical proof and i was the woman one services not on the issue existed because you cant get one from the doctor theres no proof so i can access and what would you have done before if you if you had the flu or you got a cold or some sort of bug you wouldnt be i mean you wouldnt stay at home in this is your following government advice right now but usually if if there was something wrong he would just keep working with you but i would probably what do you have as im right Korea Germany very unhealthy its very rather i actually come down with anything anyway but if it was a case that this was just a cold or a slow down a probably would still get to. Nothing dangerous to the ponderable now today after i was in the doctors and staff and vickie just the thing to greg i mean whether youre talking about the us or the u. K. Or indeed emerging economies as well in strictly economic terms is a low wage or a good economy were always going to be a source of economic vulnerability well it will be i think increasingly what because of this crisis were going to start focusing on that and seeing what needs to be done for those workers but of course were not just talking about the gig khana me which is made up of people who by definition the way that its developed they depend on some digital platform to be able to do their work actually theres so many selfemployed people around and its not just low paid people its also people who do a little bit better. But we have absolutely no access to any benefits if they themselves are ill and of course right now with the way in which the coronavirus is affecting so many firms the 1st people who will be let go are going to be all those subcontractors selfemployed people while the firms try and still keep the ones who are permanently employed somehow on their payroll possibly with government help it will be really everybody else who has got quite used to working in a certain way but making up for the fact of the dont have some of those benefits because of greater flexibility because acquire like the work that they do because theyre able to add some of that good quantum is stuff to Everything Else theyre doing part time delivery. Bicycle drivers and this isnt i mean does it just apply to western economies because i think in china you go around or 50000000 possibly in a population of 100 of 1400000000 that are well off 7 these are people that can basically afford to have a crisis they can afford higher prices they can just absorb higher prices for food and medical supplies and maintain their lifestyles so even in a country like china people going to be left impoverished after whats happened oh you see that everywhere but if of course by a lot of other people will lose their jobs as well so people who are in Permanent Employment so theres no guarantee that we can to keep their jobs i think is one interesting thing about the types of crisis that weve seen in the last decade when we had the financial crisis but also wars and actually this one is going to be live belike that which is that it is a bit of a leveller because yes of course the good economy works i can suffer but its going to be so much already theres been so much wealth which has been wiped out what you find in those times is that in fact inequality gets reduced but unfortunately in real terms in terms of poverty that increases as well and i think thats what we need to be watching that a lot of the whole economy. Is that is that globally about us the board the interesting thing is not going to go up in relation to average wage incomes which is the way the poverty is calculated. Present because everyone will be shrinking so thats ok you may actually find a reduction in poverty but in real terms what youre going to be end up with is loads of people in improper poverty when they cant afford the basic essentials the need. Shannon is there a sort of social economic culture of just kind of working when youre when youre sick i mean paid sick leave helps but then it also has to be enough because you know i guess a couple of days off minimum wage just doesnt cut it. Well i mean it makes it makes a big difference studies show that where workers have access to paid sick leave that they can actually make use of it it makes a difference it keeps workplaces healthier it helps. Improve worker productivity and it is now vital of course to keeping us all safe so in the u. S. Right now the congress is considering a bill that would provide national sickleave i mean this is this is a historic opportunity really because this is been something that workers have been pushing for for years and years and now it may be on the brink of happening but it excludes millions of people doesnt it most notably because it applies to employees corroborative it applies to employees and of course the entire gig economy these workers are not knowledge to be employees by these xan and i dont want to ask you about i want to ask you about that house of representatives the action is being taken i want to get into that with you but just in light of what weve been talking about the dilemma now facing a lot of workers who if they continue working vulnerable so they want to can obviously continue working because they need to survive but also if they do so they risk spreading the virus greg i have you thought i mean i dont like to ask you this question but have you thought about what would happen if you did contract the virus i would certainly very quickly. Conquer our congress with our out what im good at right now because a competent state most to get us to be based in talks so. That it control of our us is a longer my so my family would not destitute after its not a newborn baby my heart was on stuffed tree maternity which. I really dont know what would. Suppose the thing was social distancing and a lot of the staying. Is that you know we need people like greg to go out and actually do stuff for us so will a lot of companies and selfemployed workers whether its you know cab drivers grocery delivery that sort of thing even perhaps plumbers i dont know will they see an increased demand for their services. In theory this should but what is happening of course in the u. K. Right now is that if youre trying to have a delivery to your home you find that its impossible to even get through the system sort of crashes and actually you were advised not to go into it to told you just cant do it because theres been such demand that its been russian very very heavily and there are also people saying actually its a bit of an inefficient process you or do you have someone else who packs of things and then brings them in uses petrol and and the time it takes for that to happen so i think temporarily we might see that in fact people are encouraged to god do these things directly so it may not lead to this increase that we think we may be getting just for that but of course once you get yourself isolated thats when we need this people not if they fall ill thats the real problem right so shannon what about there in the u. S. Because it could be a good thing for gay economy curry is it will be cool to deliver food and other essentials in itself isolating households when the virus reaches its peak as vicki was saying so they could make lots of money from this spot its also worrying if those people start to get sick themselves yes thats right and also the studies show that restaurant workers goes to work even when theyre sick because if they dont have access to paid leave they have to do it in order to survive and of course that creates a tremendous risk for the publican and thats going to be only exacerbated now if good economy workers arent protected and some of the measures that we have seen that are being announced require for instance the house bill would require the workers to be diagnosed with chronic virus in order to be eligible and of course that is not going to be a real solution here because testing is so skips the recommendation of Public Health recommendation now is that if youre feeling sick at all if youre feeling the onset of any symptoms you should stay home but unfortunately for so many workers thats really just not an option. Vickies to some action. Being taken by the house of representatives in the u. S. And then also here in the u. K. There was a recent announcement from Boris Johnson about payments for workers for people from the 1st day off rather than the 4th if youre affected by coronavirus but thats useless for people like greg isnt it is substitution and the other help has been given is sedentary sick days generally paid for by the firms themselves and of course lots of small firms just cant afford that especially if they going to be losing most of people so the government has taken on the job of paying that sounded very sick bay themselves for 14 days 14 days may not be enough and once that is over and one loses ones job which is the most likely thing to happen then i think all the people who find themselves in the give economy right now can find themselves sort of added to by where they are by all these people who lose their jobs anyway simply because they cant be. Still be employed by all these firms that great now we have 11000000 greg tell me what i mean you i guess people like you are not getting anything from the u. K. Governments recent pledge on statutory sick pay how how disappointed and worried are you about this. Is disappointing i think there are conversations that need to happen and i think they should have been happening many years ago its 30 children taken this crisis so those conversations stop today but theres still no assurance from the government as to how were going to be able to afford to survive through this we dont know how long this will Shannon Shannon i mean i guess that the the bottom line is that with companies themselves are always going to be hesitant about offering Worker Protections or even these kind of additional provisions during the current Virus Outbreak because of of ongoing legal battles in which they argue that workers are not employees that essentially is going to dictate the response isnt it. Well so much i mean for years again weve been pushing to get these employment protections for these workers and these companies are have been trying to push this message that theyve created a new world of work in the 21st century we dont need all of these Old Fashioned 20th century employment protections but i think a crisis like this shows that we need those protections now more than ever is that realistic vickie because we sort of with the growth of the gig economy live in a world where actually a lot of Companies Want to distance themselves and make it appear as though they are very disconnected from their employees for legal reasons or the truth is that you can now work very differently than you did before including work from home to prove productive so theres been a bit of a change in that area but i think what has been happening is that aig has been a bit of an outcry in terms of the way in which people in the good economy if you want to call that being have been used and possibly exploited some theyve been some changes so some of the firms now have to accept that the people who work for them particularly to just work for them are permanently employed or somewhere in between permanent and get economists so they can have some of those rights but the resulting in of the issue which is which is reported which is that there is regulation which is now developing to think about whether those companies are a transport company or or a retail firm or Something Else and they have to then fall into the what is expected of them in terms of behavior how they employ the people and so on i think thats the way in which it needs to move to just make them change the way in which people lose lets just i want a final word from all of you on. Well the prospects for a formica spose if theres one good thing to emerge from this is that it is costing a spotlight on vulnerable workers and the precarious situation they are now in. Shannon i mean just picking up on what vicki was saying there is the outcry a good thing could it ultimately lead to less exploitation. Well i hope that this crisis does lay bare the the the menace inequity that were seeing and. That could be a Silver Lining if in fact we get some kind of federal paid sick leave on our books here and also in the courts weve been battling for years today im filing motions in order to get a lift to be required to recognize their drivers as employees in a couple of states here in the United States where we have strong employment protections and strict rules about misclassifying workers as independent contractors and im hopeful that we we will succeed and that more of this country will recognize the importance of extending those protections to is vulnerable workers who who need these protections found more than ever greg what about you do you have some hope that any good could come out of this. I do i do this is this is this crisis i lost a problem and were in a bit of a social social crisis with what is that are just completely incorrectly categorized so completes we are we all workers that we should go to basic benefits from day one. So contractual sick. Vicky briefly is this the way up call that weve been waiting for this is really hope so i think if were beginning to see loads of people sort of getting into that position socially just is going to be quite unacceptable and they have already been some changes in the u. K. And one hopes that perhaps one of the things one of the very good things few good things that may come out of the Current Crisis would be that all right well thanks very much really appreciate it greg howard for joining us from nottingham shannon lists ridden and of course here with me in the studio vicky pryce and thank you for watching as well you can see the program again at any time by visiting our website aljazeera dot com and for further discussion go to our Facebook Page at facebook dot com forward slash a. J. Inside story and also join the conversation on twitter handle is a. J. Inside story from 8 Maryam Namazie and the teams here in london and in doha by for now. 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