Low Wage Workers Like Justin Poulain Prove Their True Value In A Crisis
HALIFAX – Justin Poulain’s not a doctor or nurse. He’s not patrolling the streets or keeping public transit running. He’s not taking care of the sick and elderly.
But he still deals with the reality of COVID-19 every time he goes to work.
Poulin is a delivery driver. He spends his workday crisscrossing the city bringing hot meals to the masses stuck in their homes. And every shift he heads out with hand sanitizer in his pocket and gloves on his hands.
He’s happy to have a job. But says he has no illusions about why he’s there.
“It’s not a noble act, me going to work. I’m trying to make some money so I don’t starve,” he says. “The people in the hospitals and everything, they are truly essential, they are great people, they are heroes.”
Heroic or not, Poulain spends every shift interacting with staff at the restaurants he works for and the people he delivers to. He says COVID-19 is constantly on his mind as he does.
It makes him “nervous going out,” and he says he spends a lot of time “trying not to lose my head.”
“But I can’t afford to not work, so it’s kind of scary,” he says.
So he scours gas stations and convenience stores for masks, gloves, and bottles of hand sanitizers that haven’t been snatched up yet, and tries as hard as he can to maintain social distancing as he’s forced to interact with people.
He says it’s a situation many other workers like him are in right now. In many industries deemed essential, low-wage workers are put on the front lines and asked to deal with the public all day.
Even with social distancing rules in place they often don’t feel safe. And Poulain says many people still take them for granted.
“There are a lot of people out there right now who are just terrified of going to work. And they don’t really have another option,” Poulain says. “And the people who used to say that if you want to make $15 an hour get a better job are now the same people out there relying on those people to get them groceries, get them food, drive them around.”
“I think it just kind of goes to show how valuable people who work in these low-wage jobs actually are.”
Poulain doesn’t compare himself or his colleagues in low-wage jobs to doctors, nurses, and other healthcare professionals. But he believes there are times he’s providing an important service to people that is, in some small way, helping them through a difficult time.
“I think a lot of these restaurants and food places, they do provide a service for society that’s more than just a luxury that a lot of people take it as,” he says.
Not long ago he delivered a meal to a couple in isolation. Two weeks before they had made a beeline up the coast from Florida to escape a budding COVID-19 crisis. The night he delivered to them they were celebrating the last day of their 14-day quarantine with a fancy diner.
Poulain says he’ll never forget how happy they were when he dropped off their meal.
“The man thanked me for my service in a way that you might a veteran,” Poulain says. “It’s weird the level of respect for a delivery driver that I’d never experienced before. That was a really big one for me. It just felt really nice.”
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