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Update 'content/session/mutualaidfortheunemployed.md'

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Tomislav Medak 2020-03-19 09:04:45 +00:00
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# Precarity, layoffs and moneylessness
As public events are getting cancelled, educational, cultural and recreational institutions closed, measures of social distancing, home isolation and quarantine introduced, and the economy slows down, the outbreak creates conditions of unemployment, where workers suddenly face rent, subsistence and medical costs they are no longer able to cover. First affected are the precarious - temporary, zero-hour, on-demand and freelance - workers, and among them inordinately [women](https://www.actainrete.it/2020/03/03/limpatto-del-coronavirus-sui-freelance-i-risultati-di-un-sondaggio/) and migrants. They will be joined by parents with kids that can't go to nurseries, kindergartens and schools or carers attending to the elderly or disabled members of the family in isolation, who will have to give up their work to attend to those who need their care. As the pandemic spreads and persists, the employers will be shedding workers, adding many more to those who already are in a situation of insecurity. At the same time, many precarious workers who belong to at-risk groups and should stay at home will have to continue to work in overexposed conditions as cleaners and carers as they cannot afford not to work.
As public events are getting cancelled, educational, cultural and recreational institutions closed, measures of distancing, home isolation and quarantine introduced, and the economy slows down, the outbreak creates conditions of unemployment, where workers suddenly face rent, subsistence and medical costs they are no longer able to cover. First affected are the precarious - temporary, zero-hour, on-demand and freelance - workers, and among them inordinately [women](https://www.actainrete.it/2020/03/03/limpatto-del-coronavirus-sui-freelance-i-risultati-di-un-sondaggio/) and migrants. They will be joined by parents with kids that can't go to nurseries, kindergartens and schools or carers attending to the elderly or disabled members of the family in isolation, who will have to give up their work to attend to those who need their care. As the pandemic spreads and persists, the employers will be shedding workers, adding many more to those who already are in a situation of insecurity. At the same time, many precarious workers who belong to at-risk groups and should stay at home will have to continue to work in overexposed conditions as cleaners and carers as they cannot afford not to work.
This calls for a number of temporary measures, such as the expansion of sick leave to all workers, suspension of work requirements for workfare, quarantine allowances for carers, suspension of rent and mortgage payments and subsidy of living costs. Some governments have no choice but to roll-out such measures. But we need to acknowledge that the situation is largely the consequence of a long-term casualisation of labour, dismantling of social protections, privatisation of social care provision and systemic devaluation of care work. Thus, in the longer, post-pandemic horizon, this calls for more systemic demands such as the abolition of casualised labour conditions, the introduction of a job guarantee, the expansion of healthcare and social security to all, and (better) compensation for care work. Or even more radically, the introduction of a Universal Basic Income and Universal Basic Assets, or thorough rethinking of the purposes of the economic system and the division of labour in it.