Not too long ago, a car passed me by with an “Essential Worker” sign affixed to its rear window. As the car sped past, I reflexively mouthed, “Thank you for your service”. Afterwards I wondered, exactly, whom I was thanking. Were the occupants of the car teachers or childcare providers? Perhaps they were grocery store employees speeding off to restock shelves or building cleaners and janitors.

Whomever the occupants, I imagined the car in the passing lane suddenly transformed into a stretch limo to accommodate all of the workers we have come to rely upon in two years of the COVID-19 pandemic.

If nothing else, the pandemic has given us all cause to pause and reexamine whose work we deem ‘essential’.

When the Essential Services Act was introduced back in 2013, essential workers were defined as “an employee that performs work involving the safety of human life or the protection of property.”

Workers in fields such as law enforcement and public safety or health care were rightfully singled out. All highly visible and estimable professions, to be sure, which we could not live without, pandemic or no pandemic.

But what COVID-19 has taught us is that there is another strata of much less visible jobs upon which we are equally dependent. Sara Mojtehedzadeh, a labor reporter for The Toronto Star, underscored this point when she delivered a TEDx talk on the subject entitled, “The Truth About Essential Work” (December, 2020).

Arguably an essential worker herself, Sara literally put her life on the [production] line by going undercover to work as a “temp” for an industrial bakery. She concluded, “We don’t see the people picking our crops or the people processing and packing that food. Jobs in which workers often feel silenced or invisible are actually crucial to how our society functions. So many of these jobs have long been undervalued.”

As a former career counselor, I have often wondered why, in our society, we tend to elevate some highly visible professions while paying scant attention to others.

What characteristics, besides financial remuneration and recognition, confer prestige and visibility?

The question is not new; in fact it was discussed almost fifty years ago in Studs Terkel’s classic book Working. Then, as now, the steelworker spoke for many laborers when he declared:

“If a carpenter built a cabin for poets, I think the least the poets owe the carpenter is just three or four one-liners on the wall. A little plaque: ‘Though we labor with our minds, this place we can relax in was built by someone who can work with his hands. And his work is as noble as ours’. I think the poet owes something to the guy who builds the cabin for him.”

When the pandemic is finally behind us, we would do well to remember how well served we have been and continue to be by any number of people whose work we now deem ‘essential’. Instead of just mouthing platitudes to express our appreciation as they pass us by, we should join them in advocating for both increased recognition and remuneration.

Skip Sturman is director emeritus of Dartmouth Career Services. He lives in Thetford.