Working From Home: The Silver Lining of the COVID-19 Pandemic

[Image Credit: Alessandro Massimiliano/ Getty Images]

By Cherise Charleswell

During this unprecedented global coronavirus pandemic there has been a great deal of uncertainty, hardships, frustration, and unfortunately – loss of loved ones, so it makes it exceptionally difficult to recognize any positivity during these trying times. As our existence becomes more and more precarious, and it feels like we are failing miserably on this team assignment to combat this virus and slow the spread of infection, I want to point out a sliver of hope, and the silver lining that has come out of this pandemic.

To truly understand what I’m going to share please consider one of the main reasons why the COVID-19 pandemic is unprecedented. This has to do with the fact that we, our global community, all homo sapiens are more connected than we have been during any other time in human history. In a sense, globalization has been completed. We can board a plane and get to the most remote parts of the world within hours, use high speed rail (outside of the United States, of course, because our infrastructure is poorly lacking) and crisscross a country within hours, and there are many far flung Diasporas where certain groups, whether identified by nationality, race, or ethnicity, can be found in parts of the world that is a great distance from their country/region of origin.

And there is no doubt that we’ve benefited from this connectedness.  We’ve benefited in terms of learning about different cultures, tasting and falling in love with various cuisines, establishing meaningful friendships, and we could only hope, that we’ve learned more about tolerance, respect for others, and the importance of upholding human rights across the world.

Unfortunately, at this time, we are losing the Microbial Arms Race, which is a war that began with our early human ancestors and involves a competition between humans and microbes; where microbes are constantly adapting (mutating) to overcome barriers to their ability to infect our bodies. These barriers have include the complexity and evolutionary adaptability of our own immune systems, improved sanitation practices, as well as the use of vaccines and drugs/therapeutics. One of the most well-known “superbugs” is methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), an especially difficult-to-treat variety of the disease-causing bacteria staph. MRSA and other antibiotic-resistant bacteria stand proof that bacteria have learned to outsmart us much faster than we can invent new treatments.

Our current connectedness and exploitation of the planet, uncovering unknown microbes for which we do not have any immunity, only exacerbates the situation, and has helped to fuel this pandemic. And it truly seems like the microbes are winning, as borders are closing – forcing  us to disconnect, and we have to cope with the reality that we are without immunity or any natural defense against COVID-19.

So, where is the silver lining?

It’s faint, but it’s there. And one place to find it, is when we look at the way that “working from home”  or “remotely” has helped to not only transform the lives of workers, and the dynamics of communities, but how this transition has positively impacted the planet.While we spend so much time focused on the microscopic organism and its threat, we must not forget the fact that we all call Earth home, and as Astronomer, cosmologist, astrophysicist, astrobiologist, author, and lecturer Carl Sagan stated, this “Pale Blue Dot” is home to all of us, all life forms, and it is the only place in the known universe that we can inhabit. Unfortunately and despite, knowing that we have no other planet or place to go, we’ve continued to harm and destroy this planet.

Prior to the COVID19 pandemic scientists had estimated that we had only 11 years left (as in until 2030) before we will have to cope with the devastating effects of global warming and climate degradation. Swedish teen activist Greta Thunberg who has been afforded the most attention by the international press, and other young activists, such as Isra Hirsi, Autumn Peltier, Bruno Rodriguez, Helena Gualinga, Mary Copeny, Delaney Reynolds, Kisha Erah Muana, Alexandria Villasenor, Vic Barrett, Katie Eder, have also been beating the drum, demanding climate action, and fighting for their, and our right to have a future. Seriously, as a Millennial, I would like to be able to live into my “Golden Years”!

For the young activists and other people from the Global south, island nations, and other nations at or below sea level, the situation is even more dire. Their lives, and my own family’s lives, will be impacted more greatly; and this includes the complete loss of homeland. Countries such as Kirbati in the South Pacific have actually already begun the process of vacating their island-nation, and re-settling it’s citizens. The worse and most ironic part about all of this is that those living in the Global South and marginalized people all around the world, hold the least responsibility for climate change and environmental degradation.  What is taking place is the result of the actions of people living in the “West”, more affluent nations, and their multinational corporations. These nations have built their wealth off of raping and exploitation of peoples and the very planet that we live on. All for manufactured wealth and profit. Not realizing that our greatest form of wealth has been this planet.

In short, capitalism and hyper-consumerism are leading us to the apocalypse.

So, let’s focus on some of the positive that COVID-19 and the resultant millions of people who no longer commute daily, no longer piling onto congested highways, and instead are working from home has done for the planet:

Internationally, the levels of air pollution has declined since early March when lockdown directives really began to go into effect. This is being tracked and confirmed by the number of nitrogen dioxide (NO2) emissions in the air; with NO2 being a marker of pollution.

The earth has gone quiet! Seismologist and other researchers have reported that there has been a noted drop in seismic noise, which could be the result of transport networks and other human activities being shut down.

More about the environmental benefits here, here, and here.

When you consider all of this it would seem like Mother Earth is healing, and we must really take some time to appreciate the fact, that we are witnessing the reversal of centuries of destruction, in merely a few  months’ time. That this small pause in destructive human activity, is all the earth needed to begin healing again.We must remember this, and realize that we have been presented with a great opportunity, and cannot go back to what we’ve been doing before.

It is no longer about surviving a virus, but surviving as a species, period.

The increase in the number of people working from home globally, has created this silver-lining.

I would like to present Six Shades of Silver to consider. These are the environmental and social benefits of having more people work from home:

1. Environmental Protection: Less traffic, less utilization of gasoline, and a sharp reduction in all forms of commuting has without a doubt provided a benefit to the planet. Also, the fact that the “Outdoors” seem to be the only thing currently accessible “Outside” means that there are more people interested in exploring and preserving national parks, hiking trails, and other natural environments that they may have not visited before.

2. No Bedroom Communities - When one really thinks about it, it didn’t really make any sense to force the majority of workers to pile into their cars, generally head in the same direction, and across overburdened  roads and highways, to join a slow procession of cars; in order to trade their labor for pay/wages. We can immediately do away with the phrase “rush hour” by increasing the number of remote workers.

   With remote work, more workers could opt to move away from over crowded urban centers and this may offer the benefit of not only improving quality of life, but may help to reduce homelessness, particularly in urban areas, where many find themselves residing in because of the proximity to jobs. Leaving housing in these areas, such as San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, Boston, Washington D. C. limited and thus unaffordable.

   Let’s talk more about the lives of people who would no longer have to live in “bedroom communities” and who would instead be able to live in affordable, less congested, greener, and thriving communities that are located at a distance from urban centers. Rather than awaking at some ridiculous time in the morning in order to sit for an hour or more in traffic, and essentially abandon their communities until nightfall. These workers will have an opportunity to be active members of their communities and these communities won’t be deserted towns for most of the day.

   Non-commuting workers would have more time to spend with their children and families, to get out-and-about in their neighborhood, take a walk along a trail (a physical and mental health benefit that can increase longevity), prepare nutritious meals for breakfast and lunch rather than relying on eating snacks, junk food, and fast-food in a hurry at their desk or in their car during their commute. And working in the community that one lives means that there is a greater  opportunity to build bonds with neighbors and patronize local businesses. Retaining the workers who are often gone for 10-12 hours a day, 5 days a week, means that these communities will truly be able to “come to life”.

3. Less Office Space/More Affordable Housing: Homelessness is a manufactured phenomenon. One that is brought about by accepted socioeconomic & political systems, such as capitalism, policies, and social norms. There is truly enough “room” or space to effectively provide shelter to all people on this planet. We simply do not do so, because we place more value on land and land use than we do on lives. This is why it is not uncommon to find buildings, houses, and other housing units sitting unoccupied in cities that have extreme problems with homelessness.

   Homelessness and poverty are inextricably linked. Poor people are frequently unable to pay for housing, food, childcare, utilities (heating & electricity) health care, and education. Leaving them with difficult choices to make when limited resources cover only some of these necessities. Often it is housing, which absorbs a high proportion of income that must be dropped. If you are poor, you are essentially an illness, an accident, a paycheck, and now a pandemic away from living on the streets.

   With the mass loss of jobs and the resultant unemployment and underemployment of workers, the COVID-19 pandemic is providing an opportunity to re-think, or finally admit that there is a problem in believing that some people are more deserving of housing than others. As we talk about stopping evictions of workers and business owners, we should also consider those who were not only evicted, but forced out of their homes due to increasing economic inequity and poverty and the lack of affordable housing prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. The current alarming rates of homelessness that we see with 2019 estimates being that 567,715 Americans experience homelessness on a single  night, have been growing over the past 40 years, and has been tied to the erosion of the  middle class, the massive transfer of wealth from workers to the 1%,  economic inequity - with 20% of families making more than half of all U.S. income, stagnant wages, and the exponential  growth in the cost of housing. Reagan’s trickle down economy was a trick, and no one knows  this more than those of us born during and after the Reagan era. We are the first generation in  American history to have a quality of life that is far worse off than the previous generation.

   With an increase in the number of workers working from  home, we can begin considering converting office spaces to residential use, and/or halting the  development of even more office buildings, and focus on building more affordable housing.  Further, “affordable” housing shouldn’t be something that is made available to workers living  well below the poverty line. We need to think of affordable housing in terms of something that  is accessible to the average worker. So, it is not about creating a program, checking eligibility,  and having social workers visit families placed in affordable units, its more about having enough  available units and homes that can be afforded by (meaning not costing more than 30-40% of  their salary) people making the median salary/wage in a city or county. “Affordable housing” truly needs to signify being able to afford to pay the rent or mortgage on a home based on one’s current wages.

4. Families and Childcare: While most women are active members of the global workforce. Out of the world’s 197 countries, the United States and Papua New Guinea are the only countries that have no federally mandated policy to provide new mothers with paid time off. Policies, provision, and management of maternity leave is left up to states and individual employers. And the time off provided to expectant and new mothers in the United States pales in comparison to maternity leave in other countries. For example, in the “progressive” state of California, mothers can typically take up 12 weeks to bond with their child; and are expected to return back to work while their child is still an infant. In the United States paternity leave is nonexistent and quality childcare is extremely expensive.

   Remote work can decrease or eliminate these financial and logistical burdens for families, and allow time for more critical bonding between parent and child(ren). This is especially true when you consider getting back all of the time loss to commuting, which often leaves parents and their children with very limited time to actually interact before bedtime and preparation for the next day. Flexible work from home schedules means that parents can begin working earlier in the day, resume work later in the evening, or even take off a Wednesday, and catch up on work on a Sunday. The silver-lining is that working parents do not have to choose between being professionals, breadwinners, and having a presence in their child(ren)’s lives.

5. Less Commuting, Coworkers Coughing, & the Potential To Contract Communicable Diseases: We all have our “war stories” where we arm ourselves with lysol, sanitizer, tissue boxes, etc. and enter our places of work, knowing that there would be many sick and infectious people passing by and working in close proximity. We avoid shaking hands, ask people not to use the phones on our desks, and begin to bob-and-weave the minute that we hear someone coughing. And we did all of this long before COVID-19. We did this because we knew that entering our crowded workplaces, particularly office buildings & warehouses where windows don’t open, and doors remain close for the most of the day, meant that it was likely for us to contract a disease, whether it be the common cold, flu; or more serious diseases such as meningitis or tuberculosis; which can readily spread in a workplace setting.Therefore, there can only be a benefit of decrease interactions with coworkers, collaborators, clients, and others; particularly during Flu season.

6. Improved Work-Life Balance: Working from home not only allows a worker to save money, due to less of a need for gasoline or eating out for lunch, it further improves the work-life balance by providing workers more time for their families, for themselves, for rest (sleeping in rather than having to rush to catch a bus, train, or battle traffic), to workout, do yoga, meditate, and cook healthy meals. It allows them to actively implement self care into their daily routine rather than make it something that has to be planned for and scheduled by appointment. Far more can be accomplished when preparing for work, going to work, and actually working doesn’t take up 40-50% of the day or a 24 hours period.

The Need To Transform The Workplace

The COVID-19 pandemic has made, or should’ve made it clear to many employers that their businesses and/or organizations can continue to operate with their workers or most of their workers working remotely. This is why the job advertisements that state “temporary remote” really are nonsensical. If that position can be carried out by a remote worker for the unforeseeable future, as we wait for this pandemic to wane, why should the worker in that position return to working onsite?

Employers have to get out of the outdated view of employees as children who need to be micromanaged by babysitters (managers and supervisors) who glare at them through their office windows or as they sit in crammed cubicles. This need to supervise not only the output of workers, but also their movement, truly harkens back to the practice of blocking exits that was once utilized in the workplace prior to the infamous Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire that took place in Manhattan’s Greenwich Village in 1911. On that day 150 garment workers who were mostly women and immigrants were trapped and killed when the building caught fire, and all exits remained blocked. A number of the women were photographed as they attempted to flee the building by jumping through the windows, and falling to their death. This horrific incident was witnessed by Frances Perkins, a sociologist, workers-rights advocate and the first women to be appointed to the U.S. Cabinet; where she served as the Secretary of Labor from 1933 to 1945, under President Theodore Roosevelt. Frances championed the cause of The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938. The FLSA required that employers pay overtime to all employees who worked more than 44 hours a week, and by 1940 the 40-hour work week became U.S. law.

Henry Ford and his Ford Motor Company actually began popularizing the 40-hour work week prior to this landmark legislation, in 1914, after research confirmed his belief that working more yielded only a small increase in productivity that lasted a short period of time; hence too many hours of work were bad for worker’s productivity and a company’s profitability. 

When it comes to this continued need or desire to “babysit” that some employers have, one has to ask - Why go through the process of searching for the best educated, experienced, and professional job candidates, if you are going to treat them like children who are unable to set priorities and manage their own schedules?

We are long overdue for a Labor revolution, and the COVID-19 pandemic has only helped to illuminate this fact. It has forced us to rethink where, how, and when we work; as well as what & how much we are willing to sacrifice when we trade our time for wages. We should take the opportunity presented by the pandemic to make changes that match the current needs, lifestyle, and realities of the 21st century worker. The re-establishment and/or support of labor unions will be needed to usher in this change.

Transitioning workers whose jobs are performed in an office setting, using a computer, etc. to remote workers, should be a part of this Labor revolution. Remote work provides the opportunity to shift the focus of work from the amount of time dedicated to work, to confirming whether tasks and assignments are completed. With task-based work, workers are provided with far more flexibility and freedoms; especially since there is less emphasis on the time of day, or days that they work. And this is something that employers really need to consider, because forcing people to sit at a desk for 8 consecutive hours does not guarantee that they are going to spend all of that time working. Instead, they are likely to attempt to get other things accomplished during that time, whether it is taking an extending lunch in order to make a medical appointment, checking personal emails, responding to texts from family and friends, surfing social media, paying their bills online, getting caught up on gossip near a water cooler, or taking multiple informal breaks to grab coffee or tea, walk, stretch, and think; because it is truly difficult for human beings to sit still and stare at a screen for long periods.

Our bodies didn’t evolve to sustain this sedentary lifestyle. All of this again, makes the focus on how worker’s spend their time futile, and far from a true measure of productivity.

A 2014 report from AtTask shared the following response from 268 workers about how they typically spent their 8-hour work days:

• 45% of the time was spent on primary job duties

• 40% of the time was spent on meetings, administrative tasks, and “interruptions”

• 14% of the time was spent responding to emails

Remote Work Also Offers Benefits To Employers

Here is a short list of benefits of remote work that employers should take the time to contemplate:

1. Research has shown that engaged remote workers are more productive. And this productivity could also be contributed to having a healthier workforce where worker’s had more time for physical activity and where there were no concerns about spread of infectious agents, resulting in many workers having to take sick days.

2. There are obvious cost-saving benefits to having employees work from home, and this includes less overheard expenses in form of office space leases, furniture, security, as well as utility costs. Outside of payroll and fringe benefits the other major expenses would only be providing employees with technology (computers, printers, web conference logins, etc.) and supplies to utilize at home to perform their jobs.

3. Meetings would be fewer, shorter, and more meaningful. In person meetings tend to involve lots of casual banter, and may be used by people to lodge complaints and personal grievances that only involve few people in the meeting. When it comes to remote meetings, there is more of a desire and incentive to use the allocated time more wisely, which means stay on task and get through the agenda. There are already jokes about being “Zoomed out”, and this has led to more focused meanings and less frequent meetings. And remote work doesn’t have to mean the end of in person meetings, in a post-covid world, these types of meetings could always be arranged at local restaurants, cafes, coffee shops, or even in rental office and co-working  spaces; book through sites such as peerspace.com, easyoffice.com, or liquidspace.com.

4. Employers will be able to use the cost savings to reinvest in the company, expand the organization and increase capacity, maximize profits, or increase employee salaries in order to retain the most productive and effective workers, but also attract additional talent.

5. With remote work, employers can literally cast their nets wider and further, and tap into a larger pool of talented, educated, and experienced job candidates, rather than being limited by geographic location. More about how remote work attracts and retains top talent here.

The Reality

Our professions are greatly varied, so the reality is that not all workers will be able to transition to remote work, and this includes those deemed to be essential workers - who work in health care, agriculture, food service (especially supermarkets), law enforcement, fire, and first responders, construction workers, entertainers and athletes, and those working in human services; as well as workers in the service industries - cosmetologists, barbers, masseuses, and so on.

However, the COVID-19 pandemic has proven that many jobs can transition to a remote model quickly and efficiently , and these are the positions that we should focus on, because there are great benefits to the planet, to individual workers, to families, to communities, and even the companies when these workers stay home.

Finally, the best way to be prepared for and combat the next pandemic, or ensure that our planet remains habitable to human life, is by embarking on this radical change to the “workplace”. Like that of the early 20th Century, The 21st Century Labor Revolution is a matter of life and death.

Let’s stay home.

Cherise Charleswell is an unapologetic Black feminist, author/writer, poet, public health researcher/practitioner, radio personality, social critic, political commentator, independent scholar, activist, entrepreneur, and model who doesn’t believe in thinking or staying in one box. She is also a Founding member of The Hampton Institute and remains in an Advisory position. Her work has been published in various magazines, textbooks and  anthologies, websites, and academic journals; including The Hampton Institute: A Working Class Think Tank, New Politics, For Harriet, Black Women Unchecked, Zocalo The Public Square, Truth Out, Rewind & Come Again, Natural Woman Magazine, Kamoy Magazine, New Republic, Blue Stocking Magazine, Broad A Feminist & Social Justice Magazine, Obsidian Magazine, AWID Young Feminist Wire, Afro City Magazine, Role Reboot, Code Red for Gender Justice, Kalyani Magazine, Interviewing The Caribbean, TruthOut, Our Legacy Magazine, and Rival Magazine Los Angeles.

Cherise is of West Indian descent, with heritage from various Caribbean islands, & is an avid world traveler, visiting over 30 countries and counting. She can’t wait for Da’ Rona to go away so she can get back to traveling.

Social Distance with a Vengeance

(Kevin Frayer/Getty Images)

By Werner Lange

Long before the practice of social distancing became the new normal, there was the concept of social distance. Named after its founder, the Bogardus Social Distance Scale was developed within the Chicago School of Sociology during the turbulent 1920s to empirically measure the degree of affinity (or lack thereof) Americans felt for members of various racial and ethnic groups in our highly diverse society. Seven categories of “social distance” were established ranging from willingness to marry a member of specified groups to outright exclusion of all such group members from the USA;  the higher the number on a scale of 1 to 7, the lower the affinity and greater the felt social distance. Not surprising for a white-supremacist society, European-Americans consistently ranked as having the lowest social distance standing in several nationwide surveys over a 40 year period, while Americans of color had the highest.

Particularly instructive for our troubling times is the comparatively high social distance score consistently expressed toward the Chinese, an ethnic group that has  never fully escaped the racist stigmatization of the “Yellow Peril”. In fact, precisely that virulent castigation gained new life with repeated recent presidential denunciations of the coronavirus as the “Chinese virus”. Not satisfied with raising the specter of a new deadly Yellow Peril, Trump used his press conference of March 19 to even evoke the ugly spirit of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 by congratulating himself for having “called for a ban for people coming in from China”. Such Sinophobia is viciously echoed at increasingly alarming rates in the streets of America and in the halls of Congress, where a US Senator recently blamed the “culture where people eat bats and snakes and dogs” for the coronavirus pandemic.

These utterly racist mindsets are not far from genocidal ones, patterns of barbaric thought and behavior hardly alien to the American experience as evidenced by the smallpox infestation of blankets given to Mandan Native Americans in 1837. In the midst of this pandemic, depraved visions of genocide once again rear their ugly heads. What else could have motivated the Trump regime to attempt, by a billion dollar bribe, to acquire exclusive rights and use of a developing coronavirus vaccine from German scientists? The prospect of witnessing others succumb by the millions to the pandemic while chosen Americans are safely vaccinated evidently fits the racist, even genocidal, game plan of this criminal regime.

That barbaric game plan is all too evident in regard to Iran. As of mid-March, Iran has suffered over 1,280 fatalities and 17,300 confirmed cases of coronavirus infections, the third highest of any nation in the world. Especially vulnerable are some hundred thousand Iranians who have survived the chemical weapons attacks by Hussein during the Iran-Iraq war but suffer from various lung ailments from that brutal conflict. Rather than lift the onerous sanctions imposed on Iran which deprive the beleaguered Iranian people of urgently needed medications and supplies, the Trump regime resorted to a new round of draconian sanctions on March 17 to intensify its “maximum pressure campaign” illegally implemented in 2018. The sanctions, a clear form of collective punishment, have already imposed enormous suffering upon countless Iranians. With the advent of the coronavirus pandemic, these immoral sanctions are guaranteed to dramatically increase the Iranian body count, something that only a genocidal mindset could wish and seek. Yet with remarkably few exceptions, a roaring silence emanates from our national leaders regarding the calamity caused by these criminal sanctions. And the criminals themselves, ones responsible for the recent assassination of a beloved Iranian leader, likely greet the growing calamity in Iran with glee. There is no room for such barbarism in the greater moral universe to emerge from this crisis.

The social distance scale did not envision genocide as an option, and social distancing in our times is designed to keep people six feet apart to help prevent putting them six feet under. Hopefully we, as a more enlightened human family, will come out of this pandemic with an operative mindset much different than before.  Once this crisis is over we need to practice just the opposite of social distancing physically and massively implement social proximity mentally by finally overcoming the racist legacy manifested and measured by the social distance scale, let alone forever cleanse the world of genocidal thoughts and practices. We must recognize, like never before, that we are one human family united by a common origin and common destiny. Whether that destiny is to be peaceful co-existence or no existence largely depends of the extent to which, we, as one wounded but healed global family, make a paradigm shift from hate to love.