So-called essential but treated as disposable: Northern California farmworkers working under COVID-19

The workplace emerged as a primary site of infectious disease during the COVID-19 pandemic, especially in occupations having little to no social distancing or potential for remote work. The pandemic had a huge impact on the physical and mental health of farmworkers, and it exposed the labor-market inequities in the United States, exacerbated by the lack of preventive measures to protect these vulnerable workers. In this paper, we use a social constructionist perspective to explore the meaning of “essential worker” by interviewing thirty farmworkers who during the pandemic came to work in a labor market shaped by exploitation and oppression and related unsafe working conditions. We argue that these workers, who are considered “essential” but treated as disposable, work under structural racist capitalism, and our findings contribute to a better understanding of how these Northern California farmworkers perceive being essential under these working conditions.