COVID Chronicles

March 2020 marked the beginning of an uncertain and unprecedented time as the Coronavirus spread to North America. Governments closed international borders and issued a provincial lockdown which began on March 14, 2020. Many workers whose jobs required them to be on the frontlines of the pandemic faced extraordinary circumstances as the virus spread. Others lost their jobs and livelihoods as shops closed and hours were cut.

The pandemic has been particularly hard on some of the most vulnerable: migrant workers working in close quarters with little access to legal protections, adequate healthcare, or sick leave, elderly people and workers living/working in long term care, students just beginning to enter the workforce, members of our communities living with chronic illnesses and disabilities, and those experiencing houselessness and poverty. Indigenous, Black and racialized communities have also been disproportionately impacted by the virus, many of them working in precarious and gig-economy work and bearing the brunt of carrying out essential services such as retail, courier work, cleaning and care work.

Read their stories here.