Voices from the ‘Margins’ of a Pandemic: Impact of a Lack of Employee Voice on Health and Safety for Community Support Workers During COVID-19

Abstract

In the context of a community-based participatory project, we interviewed 84 community support workers to explore their experiences through the Covid-19 pandemic, Participants highlighted significant WHS concerns that either arose during, or were heightened due to, the pandemic working conditions.  Participants detailed their efforts to activate employee voice mechanisms across the ‘staircase of voice’ (Wilkinson, 2010).  However, despite significant efforts to employ these mechanisms, participants’ messages were not received.  This reinforces the importance of both workplace and societal conditions that support both the delivery and receiving of employee voice messages (Romney, 2021).  Within the context of significant gendered regimes and poor societal perceptions of carework, the effectiveness of voice mechanisms was diminished, leading to significant erosion of WHS conditions.