Dawnn Leary
By Dawnn Leary, Senior Community Investment Officer
COVID-19 has disrupted how we work, play, and connect with one another. It has challenged both our view of work and how we value and support the individuals who make up our workforce, especially our frontline essential workers. The pandemic has worsened community members’ ability to find sustainable work, whether at former jobs or in new jobs, pushing more people into the informal and “gig” economy which will have implications for our region’s health and prosperity.
In seven short months, our region’s unemployment rate has more than doubled, growing from 3.5% in February 2020, to today’s 8.5%. This has not been experienced evenly, however, as COVID-19 has alsoelevated long-standing, structural racial inequities for our black and brown neighbors. As stated in Policy Link and Burning Glass Technologies’ report Race, Risk and Workforce Equity in the Coronavirus Economy:
“While the pain (of the pandemic) has been widespread, it has not been equally shared: workers of color and immigrant workers, especially women, are being hardest hit by the loss of jobs and income and are disproportionately employed in the lowest-wage, essential jobs that place them at risk of contracting the virus.”
The challenges in the world of work are many and require multifaceted solutions, handled with patience, persistence, and intention. We need the leadership of residents with lived experiences working in partnership with nonprofit organizations, government agencies, grantmaking institutions, philanthropists and business owners to develop, test, and implement solutions.
Investing in the Future of Work
In 2008, the Greater Washington Workforce Development Collaborative was born as a philanthropic response to the Great Recession. For more than a decade, The Collaborative has pooled resources from individuals and institutions to support both innovative job training approaches, such as career pathways and sector partnerships, and critical advocacy and organizing efforts for quality legislation, centering on policies such as paid family leave. There was an early recognition that philanthropy needed to invest in more than just job training. We needed to invest in systems change—efforts that address the root causes, components and structures, which prevent our neighbors from realizing economic security and mobility.
Now, in the face of the current economic crisis brought on by COVID-19, the Collaborative is exploring how we, as investors in systems change, engage in the fight for an equitable and comprehensive recovery and reconstruction in the world of work, in partnership with our black and brown workers. This moment is calling us to adapt again—to listen to new voices, learn about different approaches, cultivate new partnerships, and then invest in those new approaches and efforts.
An Equitable Road Ahead
The Collaborative seeks to expand its investments this year and support efforts that center those with lived experience and engages them as leaders in both discussing our current challenges and creating and implementing the solutions.
“These voices (those with lived experience) are a critical missing piece of the puzzle, and listening to their perspectives should be a key part of unlocking solutions for the present and future of work.” -New America’s report Worker Voices: A Guide to Solutions
As a starting point, with a group of our partners, (DC Jobs with Justice, Many Languages One Voice, One DC, Restaurant Opportunities Center-DC and Movement Matters) the Collaborative is supporting a community participatory research action project that seeks to engage community about their work-related experiences since the beginning of COVID-19. Workers themselves will be engaged in developing the research questions, paid a living wage as researchers, and will help analyze the results of that research to develop solutions.
In Fairfax County, the Collaborative has developed a new partnership with the Fairfax County government’s One Fairfax Office. We’re working with them to develop approaches, alongside residents, to help residents living in the route one corridor build assets that enable them to support their basic needs, invest in themselves and their families and contribute to a strong and growing economy.
Reconstruction will not be easy nor quick. It requires us to listen to new voices, learn about different approaches, cultivate new partnerships and invest in new efforts. The future of work depends on it. We hope you will join us in this fight.