[D66] The COVID-19 Crisis and the End of the “Low-skilled” Worker

[R.O.]

https://spectrejournal.com/the-covid-19-crisis-and-the-end-of-the-low-skilled-worker/

The COVID-19 Crisis and the End of the “Low-skilled” Worker
In a Pandemic, "Essential" Laborers Are Working, but the Labor Market Isn't

Mark Bergfeld and Sara Farris

May 10, 2020

     “One day our society will come to respect the sanitation worker if 
it is to survive, for the person who picks up our garbage, in the final 
analysis, is as significant as the physician, for if he doesn’t do his 
job, diseases are rampant. All labor has dignity.” —Martin Luther King

The COVID-19 crisis is causing working class people lots of pain and 
suffering. Beyond the deaths of loved ones, unemployment and income 
insecurity are creating an uncertain future. But the crisis is also 
leading to some quite contradictory (and potentially interesting) 
outcomes in the world of work. Right in front of our eyes, the COVID-19 
crisis is dissolving the foundations upon which the traditional division 
of labor between intellectual and manual labor was based. In particular, 
this crisis is interrogating the legitimacy of that skills-hierarchy 
that places at the bottom all those skills and jobs that are necessary 
for the reproduction of life and society. Suddenly, workers in the food 
chain, from agricultural laborers, to workers in food factories, to 
warehouse and logistics workers, supermarket employees, waste 
collectors, and cleaners, as well as healthcare and care workers, are 
called “key,” or “essential” workers, or are given other specific legal 
entitlements that are reminiscent of wartime economies and would have 
been unimaginable earlier this year.

At first sight, this might not seem that radical. But it is. After all, 
the distinction between low-skilled and high-skilled jobs has allowed 
capital to legitimize wage inequalities, to stigmatize and devalue 
social reproduction, and to mobilize international migratory movements 
from poor countries to richer ones. Thus, the current crisis, and the 
dissolution of the traditional division (and hierarchy) of labor it has 
(momentarily) brought about, are forcing us to interrogate the 
underpinnings of so-called low-skilled work, to see clearer than ever 
the racialized and gendered nature of much so-called “unskilled” labor, 
and to put onto center stage the role of ‘life-making activities’ in the 
class struggles to come.

The labor market isn’t working.

To understand the current paradigmatic shift, it is necessary to 
acknowledge how the figure of the “low-skilled worker” has been socially 
constructed. The OECD defines low-skilled workers on the basis of their 
educational attainment rather than in relation to the job they perform. 
Organizations such as the OECD, the European Union’s Eurostat, or the 
Office for National Statistics (ONS) in Britain, use these definitions 
to calculate the so-called “skills mismatches,” which they consider as 
market inefficiencies. For an individual worker, these inefficiencies 
mean that they work in a job below their skills-level and thus receive 
lower wages. For capital, these types of skills-mismatches can result in 
labor shortages (if skilled workers refuse to accept lower-skilled 
jobs), which can place pressure on labor costs and increase workers’ 
bargaining power. According to the OECD, 80 million workers in Europe 
are mismatched by qualifications—a sign that our labor markets are 
completely dysfunctional.

[...]

COVID-19, Europe, Labor, Social Reproduction, Unions, Work
Mark Bergfeld and Sara Farris

Mark Bergfeld is the Director of Property Services & UNICARE at UNI 
Global Union – Europa. Sara Farris is a Senior Lecturer in Sociology at 
Goldsmiths University of London and a member of the editorial board of 
Historical Materialism and international book review editor for Critical 
Sociology.