This article first appeared in Forum, The Edge Malaysia Weekly on December 13, 2021 - December 19, 2021
Grab recently went public in the US as part of the largest SPAC, or Special Purpose Acquisition Company, deal in history. Beyond the fanfare of having a Southeast Asian company represented on the global stage like this, it is worth remembering that Grab is powered by 700,000 drivers across the region.
The reliance on superapps like Grab — and therefore the number of drivers needed for the platform to operate — rose over the course of the pandemic. This is despite the fact that almost all countries resorted to “stay-at-home” orders to halt their
Covid-19 outbreaks, with the goal of cutting off transmission in communities and avoiding overburdening healthcare systems.
Though the extent of the controls differed between countries and cities, ranging from the strict controls seen in China and New Zealand to the looser controls seen in parts of the US or Europe, the intention was the same: close workplaces and schools, limit all public gatherings and stay indoors as much as possible.
But not everyone got to stay at home — just ask those Grab drivers. The pandemic introduced the term “essential worker” to our lexicon: a broad scope of employment that not only included healthcare workers and indispensable public services, but also delivery people, janitors and grocery store workers who were told to brave unsafe conditions to keep the rest of us safe.
One can see the inequality that grows out of this. A public health emergency was considered dire enough that almost everybody was told to stay at home as much as possible for their own and others’ safety. Yet, to sustain all these people living at home, certain workers would have to venture outside into this dangerous environment.
And at least we can see the cashier or the janitor doing their jobs. Other workers deemed essential — such as the farm labourer or the factory worker packaging food — are “out of sight, out of mind”. The pandemic has hit migrant and minority communities the hardest, and one need look no further than the impacts from the first waves of the virus: Singapore thought it had the virus under control until it was revealed that it was running rampant through its migrant worker dormitories, which led to an outbreak that triggered Singapore’s lockdown a few days later. In Malaysia, during the onset of the pandemic, “essential workers” were shown to be the greatest contributor to the country’s Covid-19 cases. To be more specific, 1,511 of the 2,188 positive cases registered nationally on Nov 25, 2020, were labourers employed by Top Glove. Additionally, a 2021 ISEAS report identified that migrant workers across Southeast Asia were scapegoated for this very reason — being held to blame for Covid-19 spreading in their countries.
The term “essential worker” also became a politically contested term. Companies had an incentive to declare themselves as doing essential work so they could remain open and functioning during the lockdown, often against the wishes of their employees. The more politically connected could also declare their preferred services to be “essential”.
This is not to say that organisations should not have labelled themselves as essential: given their situation, it may have been the best option available to them. But something can be essential while still being deeply unfair: an inequality that is only compounded if nothing is done to alleviate it.
Before the pandemic, it was becoming clear that urban middle-class comfort around the world — Asean included — was increasingly reliant on underpaid and underemployed labour. The things that make urban life comfortable — retail, food and beverage, e-commerce, gyms and entertainment, and so on — rely on a floating body of low-skilled and underpaid labour. Malaysia is the perfect example: according to the World Bank, at least 20% of the workforce are migrants, many of whom are underpaid.
These workers have unfortunately been seen as disposable and replaceable. A housekeeper or a manufacturing worker might be considered functionally equivalent to another: low pay, harsh working conditions and job instability mark this particular group of workers. In an economic crisis, these jobs are often the first to go, with little or no protection. This also explains why there have been attempts to replace these “disposable” people with robot tellers and other electronic tools, dehumanising us all in the process.
This is a result of the liberal application of the free market in labour: these jobs, in theory, do not require a lot of skill. Labour that can be easily replaced is labour without the leverage to demand better pay or working conditions. Their low pay does not reflect the actual social value these jobs provide, especially in a crisis and thus they are viewed as disposable — this is what it means to be underemployed, rather than unemployed
However, the pandemic has made the social worth of these jobs obvious. Modern society would be unable to function if there was no one available to help sell food or dispose of the medical waste from hospitals at the time of a pandemic. Yet the grocery store cashier and delivery driver are not compensated nor protected as if they were truly essential.
Much like how Asean governments need to rethink the goods that are strategically essential to an economy in a crisis, they also need to rethink what labour is truly essential. Asean governments need to ensure, using new legislation, that those working in these positions are well-compensated — and protected — so they can help sustain the rest of us. For example, essential workers could be given greater access to general and
Covid-19-related healthcare, such as prioritising vaccine doses and booster shots for them rather than those that have the luxury to work from home. They need to be well-compensated for their efforts, from government coffers if possible, but ultimately paid for by the public they serve and especially the middle-class and elites. This can include direct compensation, but also subsidised healthcare and even access to improved living conditions — these regulations are in a society’s favour, given that infection rates are closely linked to socioeconomic deprivation.
Essential workers also need to have the power to demand better protections and working conditions from their employers if they are being asked to risk their safety to ensure the functioning of society (which will also ensure that businesses do not try to pretend they are doing essential work to remain open). Currently, essential workers’ contracts across Asean are plagued with issues such as limited job security with no bargaining power, wage fluctuations and no unions; poor job quality, with little upskilling and no career path; social security is minimal, with lower credit access, no pension and little legal security.
Finally, Asean governments need to develop programmes to educate and structure national labour forces to ensure self-sufficiency for the future; so that their nations have adequate stocks of labour they can call upon when a surge in labour is needed. This is a departure from the current norm of high intra-Asean migration, but the pandemic has demonstrated that countries may require a rapid increase in medical capacity: not just in terms of doctors and nurses, but technicians, cleaners, contact tracers and public health information officers. Those with these skills can go about their lives day-to-day but can be activated in times of crisis.
While Asean is outwardly focused on upskilling its human capital to meet its development priorities, governments should learn from the pandemic and recognise the value of essential workers to set appropriate regulation in their favour — they keep our countries running, yet they have been not only the worst victims of the pandemic, but also its earliest victims.
Chandran Nair is the founder and CEO of the Global Institute for Tomorrow. This article is part of a series on key areas in which Asean, as part of a regional and global system, needs to consider transforming itself if it is to learn from the pandemic, identify future opportunities and achieve social change for the better.
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