The Corona crisis shows how important migrant workers are for systemically important professions. In a video, they now demand respect instead of applause.
- The corona crisis * shows how many workers are " systemically important "
- Many migrant workers work especially in systemically relevant professions
- In a video, the women and men now make themselves heard
So it has finally happened, the thing you fear most. Something came from abroad, took your jobs and made the streets unsafe ”- this is the beginning of the video that went around the world from Great Britain on social networks in mid-April.
The sentences: an allusion to the racist resentments with which politicians fueled their Brexit campaign. But in the video there are no politicians speaking, only nurses, doctors, teachers and delivery drivers. All of them are considered “key workers” in the Corona crisis . And they are people who have too often been the target of the racist attacks themselves. They have dark skin, afro curls, Asian facial features or wear hijab.
Migrant women work in systemically relevant professions - they should remain visible even after the corona crisis
The external enemy - so the message - is not them. It's the corona virus , and all of those seen in the video are fighting it. "You Clap for Me Now", in German: "Now you clap for me" - that is the title of the video. It is an accusation against the double standards that many in the country apply when it comes to immigrants or British people with a history of immigration: on the Corona front , they receive brief applause, in everyday life they are seen by many as parasites, criminals, intruders.
Check out this post on Instagram
The talented @dandylion_illustration (Darren Smith) has just written a first-person piece for @ the.tls on #youclapformenow Have a read on the link in my bio ❤️ #shortfilm #immigrants #viralkindness #poetry #bame #keyworkers #wewillremember # uncovid19brief #staysafe @talenthouse @who @unitednations
A post shared by Sachini (@sachini_creates) on Apr 21, 2020 at 8:11 am PDT
Millions of people around the world have seen and shared the video. Obviously it hit a nerve. It is not only in Great Britain that it has been shown more clearly than ever how much the western industrialized nations depend on the labor force of migrants - and how often they neither recognize this work nor adequately reward it. This also applies to Germany.
Video: Migrants in systemically relevant professions accuse double standards in the corona crisis
Many areas that are now considered systemically important would be left without labor migration. In agriculture, transportation or parts of the food industry, 20 to 40 percent of the workforce does not have a German passport. And in 2018, according to statistics from the German Medical Association, every eighth doctor came from abroad, most of them from Romania and Syria. How many more of them are Germans with a history of migration can only be estimated.
And then there are those jobs that offer such exploitative working conditions and pay that practically no Germans are willing to do them. Zofia Jankowska (name changed) is one of these invisible system maintainers : The Polish woman has been working in home care in Germany since 2011 - an estimated 300,000 to 500,000 women and men from Eastern and Southeastern Europe. She is currently caring for a 62-year-old woman who needs care around the clock after a stroke. However: Jankowska cannot call herself "nurse". Officially, she is a domestic help - like everything about her job takes place in a gray area. According to the employment contract, Jankowska works 38.5 hours. In reality, it is rather 55, not counting the time in which she sleeps - on standby. Your net wage is 1200 euros. Even after eight years, Jankowska is furious with injustice: she knows colleagues who are treated like slaves, she says. "Would all of this be accepted by German workers?"
Systemically important workers want better treatment after the corona crisis
The feeling of lawlessness has intensified in the Corona crisis . When Germany closed the borders, Jankowska was in Poland. Her German employer informed her by email that her absence would be considered unpaid leave. At her own expense, she returned with a special permit as a commuter. The majority of her colleagues couldn't even do that - around 90 percent of the supervisors work illegally.
In an interview, Sachini Imbuldeniya, the producer of the “You Clap for Me Now” video, said she wished the British population would not return to old racist patterns after the crisis. Zofia Jankowska says she would be happy if German authorities monitored German labor law even when it came to foreign workers.
By Alicia Lindhoff
In the FR series “The World after Corona”, sociologists are demanding better pay for workers in systemically relevant professions.
All information about the Corona crisis in Germany in the current news ticker.
The federal government and the federal states decided to relax further in times of the corona crisis. The press conference with Angela Merkel on the corona virus in the live ticker.
* fr.de is part of the nationwide Ippen Digital Network.