Mica Hastings
As Covid-19 has spread, mutual aid networks have sprung up across the country. Mutual aid advocates are looking for ways to help and get help when employers fall short. Money and awareness are being raised for various groups for which Covid-19 can be particularly devastating, including indigenous communities living in food deserts, pretrial inmates who cannot afford to post bail, and more. In their article, Collective Cyber-coin Exchanges: Mutual Aid in the face of COVID19, Laith spells out a helpful introduction to mutual aid organizations during COVID19. I’m going to dive into how Bard College’s Environmental Service (ES) department acts in line with the values of mutual aid initiatives. However, the nature of wage-labor capitalism renders attempts at inter-department aid unable to fully meet the needs of the workers.
Bard Environmental Service employees, considered essential workers by New York State, have continued to do much of the same work as they did pre-pandemic. There have been, of course, changes and additions to the way they work: every worker wears gloves; they each have two washable cloth masks; clock-in times are staggered in order to ensure social distancing at the time clock; and non-essential buildings have been closed. These adjustments, some of which were designed and implemented by management and some made possible by workers, are helpful precautions, but more is needed to ensure the safety of some ES workers.
As the situation has progressed, ES workers have been brainstorming ways to help one another through this time. These strategies for mutual aid were described to me by an ES worker I’ll call Molly. She explained how the department came to have their masks:
We do have masks now. Rosalia in our department, works the 7am shift- sweet lady- made masks for everybody, different patterns and stuff like that, really cool. And also a couple of people- I don’t remember their names- but at the PAC, at the Fisher performing arts center, there was a couple of people that work in there... who are making masks. So we have two, everybody in ES has two- one from Rosalia and the PAC was making them for as many people as who wanted them so we have masks.
As Molly suggests, the mutual aid efforts of community members help these essential workers feel adequately protected in the workplace.
Molly has also thought about protecting her colleagues by putting her healthy body in more risky situations by COVID standards.
So we still had a good couple hundred students on campus in various dorms and... the people, the ES workers who were going into the dorms daily like y'know cleaning the bathrooms, cleaning the kitchen um I think... it was concerning for them because some of them are kind of on the cusp of... maybe they're smokers and they're in their- they're close to 60 years old but their health is sort of okay- y'know their health is okay but still when you hear about this and you hear how it affects the lungs that's very concerning. So we had people who were coming to work who were in the dorms and that was, that was concerning to me. I would almost rather, y'know, switch with somebody because I'm not a smoker and I'd be willing to y'know switch.
Like those in mutual aid organizations who run errands for vulnerable community members who need to stay at home, Molly is willing to put her body on the line in place of her at-risk colleagues.
While the community actions and measures put in place by ES management help to protect ES workers on the job, these actions only apply to those still able to come into work. The majority of the staff is able to continue to do their job and ensure that those left on campus are safe, but there are some people for whom coming into work is no longer a possibility. The reasons for this include old age, underlying health problems, and/or childcare needs among others. While it seems as though staff and management are in agreement that workers in situations like these should stay home, it is unclear at this time if workers will continue to get paid.
Management has given all workers an extra week of paid sick-leave but it is evident that for some workers one week will not suffice.
The couple people we have out who will definitely be out for an extended period of time... none of us want them- especially none of us in the union and our department- they should not be punished for the fact that they have these underlying issues right? And they might have used up- one person in particular didn't have any sick time and people had offered to donate some sick time- so in her situation I think depending on how long she's out for... I would hope- and we'll just have to- it's something that we might have to revisit because even if she did have a lot of sick time and it gets used up what do you do down the road when this person- if she needs to use sick ti- it's something we're still working on I guess you could say. Because we don't want people- people were using their time or… Like I happen to have a lot of sick time so I'm in a position where I could donate some. However, people really need more like this person in particular she would really need more than I could give her and I know Bard's probably thinking well "Molly..” like they don't want a person who's donating to them to become in jeopardy either so it's kind of a catch 22.
Molly explains that ES workers including herself would be willing to donate some of their sick time to the more vulnerable staff members but that strategy falls short in two ways. The first is that it leaves workers who have donated without the protection that sick days are intended to give. The second is that the donation of sick time still doesn’t add up to enough time for workers who need to be out for 5+ weeks.
Another idea posed by one ES worker creates the same dilemma:
Sarah had the idea of even though July [the beginning of the ES fiscal year] isn't here yet, give some of these people some of their vacation time that they can use if they need to be out for childcare issues or for y'know health related issues. And the last we heard from the college- I think it was late last week they were open to discussing- which means to me- they're willing to do that but they only wanted to advance like half of their vacation time because they're afraid- I'm sure they're afraid that people will use everything up and then okay what happens in the fall if something happens and somebody needs time and they get sick or this or that- not even COVID but just anything so... it would be nice if Bard could just have people- if they're off they can get paid (laughs) from Bard or somewhere.
Extended paid leave from work is, to Molly, an unrealistic proposition and she is not wrong to scoff at the idea. What we see in the case of Bard Environmental Service workers is an urge towards mutual aid within the confines of a non-profit institution operating under capitalism. Even though ES management is considered to be very sensitive and caring towards the ES workers and the profit motive is absent, there are still obstacles on the road to complete care. Budget considerations, discrepancies of pay within the institution, financial aid, as well as other factors all influence how much the college is willing to provide extended sick leave to their workers.
The response of some mutual aid organizations is to take seriously Molly’s musing suggestion that Bard continue to pay their workers who need to stay home for any reason for the duration of the pandemic. What this would actually mean for the institution, however, I don’t know. Are there ways the institution can do more? I imagine funds could be more evenly distributed to all employees of the college for one. But for now, ES workers are brainstorming how to care for one another.