S1E22 / A False Choice: The Economy versus Public Health / Rashad Robinson, Alicia Garza, Marshall Ganz

“Every night... we are literally cheering and clapping and beeping our horns for people that in many ways we're unwilling to fight for so that they could have $15 an hour. We call people essential workers now who we treated for so long, like anything but essential.” -Rashad Robinson

In this episode, our co-host, Dr. Celine Gounder speaks to Rashad Robinson, Alicia Garza, and Marshall Ganz about essential workers such as caregivers, domestic workers, and agricultural workers. They discuss how these low-paying jobs are often staffed by immigrants and people of color, and how due to systemic racism these jobs have historically been excluded from laws and unions that protect workers. Essential workers are now being given the false choice between going to work and risking their health, or staying home and not being able to feed their families.

Alicia Garza is the principal at Black Futures Lab, the co-creator of the Black Lives Matter Global Network, and the strategy and partnerships director for the National Domestic Workers Alliance. Rashad Robinson is the President of Color of Change, a racial justice organization, and Marshall Ganz is a labor organizer and senior lecturer at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

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