Over the last 6 months Essential workers are risking and suffering more than the rest of the country economy won’t completely shut down.

Congress passed three different coronavirus relief packages and spent trillions of dollars in an effort to buttress the struggling economy. Yet money hasn't been specifically allocated for hazard pay for essential workers on the frontlines who have been risking their lives so that the rest of the people can be safe. 

The House passed hazard pay for essential workers, but the Senate refuses to include it. What became immediately clear is that the two parties were miles apart on their priorities with many notable differences one being that the House included hazard pay for essential workers in its bill, and the Senate did not include hazard pay for essential workers in its proposal. 

Yet, now it seems like the Hazard pay is not a priority to Congress at. While the Republicans have so far refused to include hazard pay for essential workers in any additional stimulus package, Democrats have also failed to really fight for it in the first place. Democrats don’t appear to be fighting for it any longer as they compromise and make exchanges in order to get a deal on other priorities. Actually, hazard pay fell off the priority list as soon as negotiations between the two parties and the White House began. As of now, near silence is coming from Congress on the topic of hazard pay. Congressional leaders on both sides of the aisle appear willing to move forward without factoring in hazard pay for essential workers as a sticking point with negotiations.

Essential workers were unappreciated, undervalued and underpaid before coronavirus, but they are now being called heroes so it would stand to reason that hazard pay would remain a top priority for Congress. Today, essential workers are being celebrated, thanked and applauded. But they aren’t being properly compensated. As an we really essential workers we really don’t feel like heroes. We don’t feel appreciated. Instead, We feel expendable and exhausted.

An imagine being damn near ordered to show up to work while also being told that you won’t be paid anything extra for the seriously risk you've been asked to take. Imagine knowing that the stimulus checks and extra unemployment checks were more important enough for Congress to pass, but hazard pay for you, as an essential worker, wasn’t. Imagine being told you're being told to come to work even if you get sick or you'll get fired. Imagine being told to hold firm and man the frontlines while also being told you won’t be paid anything more for being there. Essential hazard pay for frontline workers that have been working from the start and throughout the pandemic, someone needs to fight for the little people the Essential Workers Frontlines (EWF)