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it Ever north.com/wonder. Welcome

1:31

to the New Books Network! Hello

1:35

everyone and welcome to the new books

1:37

by Cares! I did your tower holes

1:40

and will be talking with. At

1:42

least. And day or. Am.

1:44

I pronounce your name correctly. Yes,

1:47

That's right, And she's

1:49

the author of. Pregnant. At

1:51

work. Low. Wage Workers

1:54

Power. And. To Emperor

1:56

Injustice are you doing today?

1:58

I'm. wonderful think so for having me

2:00

here. Thank you for being

2:03

on the podcast. Could

2:05

you tell the audience a few words

2:07

about yourself and how you got started

2:09

on this project? Sure. So

2:11

I'm a cultural anthropologist, which means

2:13

I study human culture and society.

2:16

And my specific interests are in

2:18

gender and health care. And

2:20

more specifically, how different

2:24

societies organize access to reproductive health,

2:26

how people get to prenatal care,

2:28

who's eligible. So

2:31

my previous work examined access to

2:33

prenatal care in Cuba. And

2:35

that resulted in a book called Conceiving Cuba,

2:37

which came out in 2014. And

2:41

once I completed that book, I was

2:43

asked to work on a project where

2:45

I interviewed low-income women in a small

2:47

city in New York State about why

2:50

they weren't accessing free reproductive screening like

2:52

mammograms and pap smears. And

2:54

one of the biggest obstacles I reported was

2:56

work schedules. Most of the work did low

2:58

wage work. And they said that

3:01

the inability to take time off health appointments

3:03

was like the biggest issue for them. And

3:06

that started me thinking, especially given

3:08

my research background and studying access

3:10

to prenatal care, if work

3:12

was such an issue for people trying

3:14

to get annual screenings, what were the

3:17

implications of working in

3:19

these low-wage jobs for women who are pregnant and

3:21

therefore had to be seeing the doctor much more

3:23

often. And so that's where this idea

3:25

of, for this project really got started.

3:29

Now you begin the book by

3:32

describing low-wage workers and

3:34

the issues they face while being

3:36

pregnant. Can you describe the

3:39

beginning of the book and

3:41

more about the woman you interviewed? Yeah,

3:44

sure. So in the beginning of the book,

3:46

I tell the story of a woman I

3:48

call Mary Ann Joseph. And she's pregnant and

3:50

she's working at a large department store about

3:52

an hour and a half subway ride from

3:55

her home. And in her

3:57

work, the policy as in many places was

3:59

to post-it. work schedules the Sunday

4:01

before the work week. So meaning

4:03

that some Sunday afternoons, she discovers

4:05

that she has to work early

4:07

the next morning, so less than

4:09

24 hours a month. So

4:12

there's a lot of issues here. Her husband also

4:14

works early shifts, so suddenly she has to engage

4:16

in all these phone calls, try and find someone

4:18

to take her two out of kids to school.

4:21

So all of this is really stressful in itself.

4:23

But this last minute notification about her

4:26

work also means that she might suddenly

4:28

discover that she's been scheduled to

4:30

work at a time when she already has

4:32

a prenatal appointment. So once

4:35

she discovers this conflict, she has two

4:37

choices. She could choose to attend prenatal

4:39

care or she can choose to go to

4:41

work. If she chooses

4:43

to attend prenatal care, she has to find

4:46

someone else to cover her shift. If

4:48

she can't find someone to cover

4:50

her shift, she gets a demerit

4:52

on her work. And either way,

4:54

whether she finds someone to cover her

4:56

shift or not, she loses income for

4:59

that shift. Maybe income that she's depending

5:01

on, she might only have full shifts

5:03

that week. So there's a financial penalty

5:06

for her for attending prenatal care. Ultimately,

5:09

she can decide she's going to work

5:11

her shift and try and reschedule her

5:13

appointment. But at the safety

5:15

net hospitals where I did my research,

5:18

which had large rosters of patients, it's

5:20

often really difficult to get an appointment

5:22

the same week that you call. So

5:24

then you might not get an appointment to the following

5:26

week or even the week off.

5:28

But then she runs into the same

5:31

problem. She doesn't know when she's going

5:33

to work that week. So maybe she

5:35

reschedules her appointment. And when work schedules

5:37

are posted, she finds out again that

5:39

there's a conflict. So this

5:41

poses a real problem because prenatal

5:43

care is time dependent. Pregnancy is

5:45

time limited. A lot

5:48

of prenatal care requires tests

5:51

that have to occur during a

5:53

particular time period. So you can't

5:55

keep pushing off care to next

5:57

week or next month. or

6:00

you become like a

6:02

bad patient or a bad mom,

6:04

someone who apparently doesn't care enough

6:06

about their pregnancy to attend prenatal

6:09

care. So there's a real ongoing

6:11

conflict here. You mentioned

6:13

in the book, precarious work. Please

6:16

explain this term and the meaning

6:18

for pregnant women. Sure,

6:20

so precarious work is

6:23

a term defined by sociologist

6:25

Ernie Calabard. And he says,

6:27

defines it as work that's

6:29

uncertain, unstable and

6:31

insecure, and where employees

6:34

receive limited benefits or

6:36

protections from either employees

6:38

or the government. Oh, I'm sorry,

6:40

either employers or the government. So,

6:43

no wage service work is a perfect

6:45

example of this precarious work because workers

6:47

often get their schedules 48 hours,

6:50

sometimes even less before they have to

6:53

work. They have often very little flexibility

6:55

about when they start, when they end.

6:57

They might have widely varying schedules from

6:59

week to week, from work eight hours

7:02

one week and 38 hours

7:04

the next week. And

7:06

these jobs usually are ones where

7:08

there are no employer benefits, like

7:10

paid family leave after you have

7:12

your baby or paid time to

7:14

go to, if

7:17

you're sick or you need to go to prenatal care. And

7:20

this is also within the context of

7:22

the lack of treatment and protection. So

7:24

as we know, there's no federal law

7:27

about paid sick leave. And

7:29

the US is one of the few countries

7:31

and the only industrialized country that doesn't have

7:33

any paid maternity leave as well. So

7:37

for pregnant worker, pregnant

7:39

precarious work really brings different kinds of

7:41

precarity or instability. So there's been a

7:43

lot of research on economic precarity. So

7:45

the fact that you are in an

7:47

unstable job, like a job where you

7:49

might work eight hours or 40 hours

7:52

each week, makes it really difficult to

7:54

know how much money you're going to

7:56

make from week to week and to

7:58

build a household budget. plans for

8:00

the future. So there's

8:02

a lot of work on that. But

8:04

in the last decade or so, researchers

8:07

have been paying increasing attention to what

8:09

they call temporal precarity, or the fact

8:11

that these jobs also make it really

8:13

difficult to predict or plan your time,

8:15

because you don't know when you're going to be

8:17

scheduled or how many hours you're going to be scheduled.

8:20

And a lot of the

8:22

work shows that temporal precarity

8:24

is actually more associated with

8:26

employee stress and unhappiness than

8:28

economic precarity. So that's really

8:31

interesting. So in terms

8:33

of its effects on pregnant women, in

8:35

addition to things like the lack of

8:37

pay sick leave, lack of maternity leave,

8:39

temporal precarity makes it really difficult

8:41

to plan how and when you're going to go

8:43

to prenatal care. And that's kind of a point of

8:45

this book. And

8:47

we also know that low income women of

8:49

color are the ones who are most likely

8:51

to be working in these jobs. And

8:54

that these are also the women, particularly black

8:56

women, who are the most likely

8:59

to have negative reproductive outcomes like

9:01

preterm birth, fetal death, low

9:04

weight birth. So this suggests that we really

9:06

should be paying a lot more attention to

9:08

the problems of temporal precarity and the

9:10

way that work schedules shape

9:13

people's ability to get to

9:15

prenatal care. Now,

9:18

we're always looking at

9:20

who's paying for the medical care.

9:23

You talk about the affordable peer

9:25

ache and Medicaid covering many

9:27

of the benefits. What about a

9:30

woman who's undocumented? Does she get

9:32

coverage? Yeah, so

9:34

this is so dependent on

9:36

the state. In terms

9:40

of federal law, undocumented people

9:42

are generally ineligible for health

9:45

insurance. But in some

9:47

states, so like New York State

9:49

is one, undocumented pregnant

9:51

people are eligible for

9:53

Medicaid when coverage when they're pregnant.

9:55

So they have a special carve

9:57

out period when they're pregnant. from

10:00

the time that they get them a positive pregnancy

10:02

test up until 12 months

10:04

after that pregnancy ends, whether it ends

10:06

in a miscarriage or a live

10:09

birth, they get 12 months from that

10:11

period. And they can use this time

10:14

to access prenatal care, postpartum care, take

10:16

care of other issues, et cetera. And

10:19

this time was just extended actually in

10:21

2023 in New York State. When

10:23

I was doing my research, undocumented

10:26

people were only eligible up to

10:28

60 days after

10:30

the end of that pregnancy. But

10:33

there was mounting evidence that the New

10:35

York State Department of Health was looking

10:37

at that 60 days just really wasn't

10:40

enough. People were not getting the proper

10:42

postpartum care in 60 days, especially if

10:44

you have a live birth, it's very

10:47

exhausting. They weren't getting in to get

10:49

their contraception, contraceptive appointments,

10:51

that kind of thing. And

10:53

so there was a given

10:55

higher rate of maternal issues,

10:58

morbidity for

11:00

low income people, the decision was made

11:02

to extend this period of eligibility. And

11:05

so from my perspective, this is

11:07

a really important benefit, but unfortunately

11:09

it is very state dependent. So

11:11

people would have to look up

11:13

in their own particular state about

11:15

whether they're eligible. Now let's bag

11:17

back. Tell us about your

11:20

net those cells while doing this research

11:22

and how were you able to gain

11:24

trust among the women? Yeah,

11:27

so as an anthropologist, we place

11:29

a lot of emphasis in immersive

11:31

work. So what we, the

11:34

idea of being present in the place

11:36

that we're doing the research to be

11:39

able to establish relationships with people and

11:41

to see things that people might not

11:43

actually think to talk about. So some

11:46

disciplines might just do phone interviews,

11:48

for example, what pregnant service workers

11:50

put out flyers, get

11:53

phone numbers and just hold up. For anthropologists and

11:55

what I did, I

11:57

spent a year in a 16 at hospital. that

12:00

I called Belmont, and I observed

12:02

how long people were waiting for

12:04

prenatal care, their relationships with their

12:06

health providers, and I interviewed women

12:09

as they waited for their appointment.

12:11

And so this was really important because

12:13

when I started the research, I thought

12:15

that I was just going to focus

12:17

on how work schedules were a problem

12:19

for pregnant women. But

12:22

as I spent time in this

12:24

hospital, you know, both observing and

12:26

also recruiting women to participate in

12:28

interviews, I really came to

12:30

understand that women were caught between two

12:32

different stretches of time. So

12:34

one was low wage work, which required

12:37

them to be constantly flexible and available.

12:40

And the other was the slow pace

12:42

of safety net hospital care where appointments

12:44

took hours and there was

12:47

no way of knowing when you might finish

12:49

the appointment or whether you might be late

12:51

to work. And women

12:53

were really caught between these two forms of

12:55

time. And that's something I

12:58

wouldn't have known if I hadn't been kind

13:00

of on site in the hospital tracking how

13:02

long people were waiting there, listening to a

13:04

woman complain in the waiting room. And

13:07

this immersive method, which we call

13:09

anthropologists called field work, I

13:12

think was also really important to establishing trust

13:14

because many of the women that I talked

13:16

to came to recognize me because they

13:18

saw me month after month or sometimes

13:20

weekly when they came to their appointments.

13:24

And I also tried to establish myself as someone

13:26

who was on their side, so I

13:28

would provide information about policies

13:30

like the Pregnant Work Now

13:47

you've had a diverse group of people

13:50

that you studied. Tell us about

13:52

the racial identification of the

13:54

women. Yeah, so I spoke

13:56

with 55 women in

13:58

total and almost all of

14:00

those, 52 of those, 55 identified

14:03

as Black. The other

14:05

three identified as Latino

14:07

or Hispanic. And so

14:10

this really reflected the demographics

14:12

of the neighborhood around the

14:14

Safety Net Hospital, which is

14:16

a highly, you know, African-Caribbean

14:19

area. But as you point out, within

14:21

that kind of racial category, there was

14:23

a lot of variation. So only 19

14:26

of the women I spoke to were born

14:28

in the United States. The others were immigrants,

14:31

and most of them were from the

14:33

Caribbean, especially Jamaica

14:35

and Haiti, which

14:37

again, both reflect the neighborhood

14:40

surrounding the hospital. But it also reflects the

14:43

fact that in New York City, at least,

14:45

the people who do the low wage service work,

14:47

so the people I was interested in talking with,

14:51

are predominantly low-income women of

14:53

color, and many of those are

14:55

immigrants. Now,

14:58

give us a description of the income

15:00

of the women that you studied. Yeah,

15:03

so one of the things I

15:05

was interested in was people working

15:08

in low-wage service work. So I

15:10

was recruiting women who

15:13

were making $15 or

15:15

less, and at the time, the

15:19

minimum wage in New York City was about $9.

15:22

So there was kind of a little

15:24

bit of flexibility. And all

15:27

of these women were making either

15:29

minimum wage or near minimum wage,

15:31

so maybe $10,

15:34

$11, $12. This means some big

15:36

jumps in pace since then.

15:38

So home health aides,

15:40

for example, that were making $10

15:42

an hour when

15:44

I was doing my research, they

15:46

now make at least $17 an hour. And

15:50

part of that is because there's just

15:52

been so much need for their services.

15:56

But yes, so most of the all of

15:58

these people were minimum wage workers. workers

16:00

or neominimum. This

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17:27

Now you describe the women going to

17:29

work at 7 a.m. Tell

17:31

us about that description. Yeah,

17:34

I opened one of the chapters

17:36

with a description of a really

17:39

typical scene of people going to

17:41

work because I think it tells

17:43

us so much about power, inequality

17:45

and the social organization of time.

17:47

So so in this, what

17:50

drew my field work, I lived in this

17:52

fairly kind of comfortable middle class neighborhood in

17:55

Brooklyn, and I started to

17:57

notice that around 7 a.m. or

17:59

even so that's a bit. earlier, you could see

18:01

streams of women, predominantly women of

18:03

color, who emerging from the subway

18:06

stations around the neighborhood and heading

18:08

to their jobs and people's houses

18:10

as caregivers of young children or

18:12

elderly people or to staff the

18:15

local stores. And shortly

18:17

after these women started emerging, you

18:19

know, around eight, you'd start to

18:21

see a counter flow of mostly

18:23

white professional people leaving their homes,

18:26

stopping at coffee stores and then heading

18:28

to the subway for

18:30

their jobs and finance or law

18:32

offices, etc. And

18:34

in the evening, the flow reversed. So

18:37

starting about five, you'd see all these

18:39

professional workers come out of the subway,

18:41

pick up groceries or dry cleaners and

18:44

heading home. And only after these

18:46

professional workers returned and all the

18:48

kind of local stores closed, could

18:50

the women who stashed all of

18:53

these services, so the

18:55

child care worker, the home

18:57

health aide, the barista, the

18:59

grocery cashier, etc. Only

19:01

then could they return home to their

19:04

own families, often much later into the

19:06

night. So this

19:08

fairly everyday kind of moment, at

19:10

least every day in many U.S.

19:12

cities, I think

19:14

it tells us a lot about

19:16

how low-income individuals and families are

19:19

forced in order to survive, to structure

19:21

their time around other, you know, around

19:24

their employers, more powerful groups and

19:26

make themselves available to work at

19:28

times that others might not want

19:30

to. And that's kind of fundamental

19:32

to one of the book's arguments

19:34

about how the time of people

19:37

with less power and resources is

19:39

kind of devalued. Now,

19:41

you talk about federal policy in your book.

19:45

How, it tells more about

19:47

federal policy and how

19:50

women care for themselves in

19:52

limited ways. Yeah,

19:54

so as I mentioned,

19:57

the United States actually is fairly

19:59

notorious. having very weak protections

20:01

for working people, especially

20:04

compared with other industrialized countries. And

20:06

this is something that people are

20:08

often not aware of that, that

20:10

there's only about four countries in

20:12

the world that don't have paid

20:14

maternity leave, and the United States

20:16

is one of them. So

20:19

there really isn't a lot. In

20:21

terms of pregnancy, the federal government

20:24

actually did just pass the Pregnant

20:26

Workers Fairness Act in 2022. And

20:29

that is a federal

20:31

law that guarantees reasonable

20:33

accommodations and time

20:35

off for prenatal care for pregnant working

20:38

people. So that's a

20:40

really important step. But we still don't

20:42

have any federal law, for example, around

20:44

paid sick leave, or paid

20:46

family leave, as I said. And

20:49

the only thing we do have in terms

20:51

of maternity leave or family leave is that

20:53

federal medical leave act, which was passed in

20:55

1993, so a

20:58

long time ago now, which

21:00

gives eligible workers unpaid

21:03

time to care for sick or dependent

21:06

family members for about for up to

21:08

four months without losing it. But,

21:11

and this is a huge but, this

21:13

is unpaid. So only people

21:15

who either have significant savings or

21:17

another earner that can support them

21:19

can't really take advantage of this

21:21

for any period of time. And

21:24

you have to work for at least 12 months

21:27

at a job where there's at

21:29

least 50 employees. So there's a

21:31

very large population of workers who

21:33

can't take advantage even of this

21:36

unpaid leave, either for economic issues

21:39

they can't afford to, or because they're just

21:41

not eligible. You talk about

21:43

working while pregnant, and oh,

21:46

the conflicts that the people

21:48

had to navigate, work

21:50

pre-natal period. What was your

21:52

overall finding about

21:54

this litigation? Yeah,

21:57

so I think one of the big takeaways,

21:59

which of course is not news to

22:01

any of your listeners who have ever

22:03

worked in low wage service work, it's

22:05

just how inflexible it can be and

22:07

how much effort it is for

22:10

people who work in this

22:12

huge sector to attend routine

22:14

care. So I

22:16

talked about a little bit about the

22:18

financial penalties that service workers take every

22:21

time they decide to give up a

22:23

shift in order to go

22:25

to prenatal care. And that's really different

22:27

than people who have

22:29

salary jobs where they might be able to

22:31

take a long lunch break or come to

22:33

work late to go to prenatal care and

22:35

they don't lose income as a result of

22:38

that. But service workers can't just take an

22:40

hour or two out of a shift, they

22:42

can't just call and say I'm going to

22:44

be late, they have to call out of

22:46

their entire shift. So there's

22:49

this conflict between work and

22:51

prenatal care where they're essentially incurring

22:53

a financial penalty for attending

22:55

care. But they also

22:57

can't miss too many shifts because they

22:59

risk being fired if they do so.

23:02

And this choice between either making

23:04

money or going to

23:06

prenatal care is a choice that most

23:09

middle class or professional workers just don't

23:11

have to make because that's not the

23:13

way that professional work is structured. And

23:16

this of course, as I've already

23:18

mentioned, has implications in terms of

23:21

prenatal care and reproductive health income.

23:23

So as I've mentioned before, we

23:25

already know that low income women

23:27

and women of color have much

23:29

worse reproductive outcomes than higher income

23:31

women. And in New York

23:33

City, maternal mortality rates for black women

23:35

are 12 times higher than

23:37

they are for white women and infant

23:40

mortality is three to four times higher.

23:42

And the US's maternal mortality rate, contrary

23:45

to most countries where it's declined,

23:47

has actually increased over

23:50

the last two decades. So

23:52

this issue of a really inflexible work

23:54

environment was driven home to me by

23:56

one of the women I interviewed. And

23:58

she was employed really physically

24:01

demanding job in retail, which required

24:03

her to bend a lot, lift

24:05

boxes, carry things. And during one

24:07

of her shifts, she starts to

24:09

feel contraction. And she's only

24:11

about six months pregnant. So she asked her to

24:14

leave work to go to the ER because her

24:16

doctor told her that she's at higher risk

24:18

for pre-timber. So she should get checked

24:21

out if she feels contraction. And

24:23

her supervisor says, no, you're not allowed to

24:25

go. Her contractions continue. And so she decides

24:27

to leave work and go get checked out

24:30

in the emergency. So

24:32

in the end, the contractions turn

24:34

out to be Braxton-Hicks or what's

24:36

often called false labour. But

24:39

the only way you can tell

24:41

the difference between Braxton-Hicks and true

24:43

labour is that Braxton-Hicks contractions gradually

24:45

subside rather than escalating into a

24:48

birth. So from her perspective,

24:50

it was entirely possible that she was

24:52

in labour. So she was

24:54

really in a bind. Either she left work

24:56

and she was a bad worker, or she

24:58

stays at work and is a bad patient

25:00

or bad mom. And as it

25:02

turned out, even though she brought a

25:05

letter from the ER doctors to her

25:07

supervisor, her supervisor gave her a demerit

25:09

to missing work for leaving work. And

25:11

the policy at the place was at

25:13

a workplace was treat demerit and you're

25:15

fired. So these are the kind of

25:18

rigidity that really make access

25:20

and care so difficult and that are

25:22

often invisible to people who don't work

25:24

in these sectors. In

25:28

chapter three, you discuss the

25:30

frustration of both patients and

25:32

providers because of lack of

25:35

care. What type of lack

25:37

of care are you describing

25:39

here? What's happening? Yeah,

25:42

this is one of the insights that

25:44

came out of the immersive work and

25:47

just spending hundreds of hours at the

25:49

hospital. So Safety

25:51

Net Hospitals in New York

25:53

City Like safety net, public

25:55

hospitals in much of the

25:57

US have been steadily deprioritized.

26:00

Handing over the decades you know

26:02

a lot of funding cat and

26:04

this has resulted in health care

26:06

and working conditions where. It's.

26:08

Just not great. Computers and equipment

26:11

don't work reliably. Said providers were

26:13

always talking other computers that kept

26:15

crashing. it's uncomfortably hot or cold

26:18

depending on the seeds and this

26:20

to feed providers often for the

26:22

number he should set up there.

26:25

So that sets up a situation

26:27

where everyone feels frustrated and I'm

26:29

caring for patients. Feel frustrated because

26:32

they're waiting hours for an appointment

26:34

that lot might last only about

26:36

and. And provide

26:39

a self frustrated because they feel

26:41

overworked and under time pressure to

26:43

see lots of patient. So

26:46

these temp what I could simple

26:48

racing for the way that time

26:50

and is all the knives and

26:52

the clinic means that everybody is

26:54

annoyed and everybody is frustrated. But

26:57

what's often hidden when I realized

26:59

when I was talking to patience

27:01

is providers is the scientific different

27:03

experiences of pints of patients will

27:05

waiting for ever and doctors who

27:07

are rushing around. Is. All

27:10

created by has stark economic

27:12

system which has deep her

27:14

ties to funding said these

27:16

institutions and for the people

27:18

the providers who are abdul

27:20

it carrying some low income

27:22

and vulnerable. Now

27:26

in the conclusion of the dope you

27:28

ask the question. How. Do we

27:30

value appear in an unequal. Society.

27:33

For some the A as the she came up with. I

27:37

guess the short answer is that

27:39

we don't and that we have

27:41

really struggled to sync up how

27:44

to even make this hair visible.

27:46

Larry Loan to value it. Ah,

27:48

so this a long history of

27:50

undervaluing the carrying work that women

27:53

have to dissuade done in the

27:55

home. and this is insane of

27:57

kind of invisible less of what.

28:00

from work that earns money,

28:02

which is traditionally then the round

28:04

of men. And

28:07

that when that undervalued caring work becomes

28:09

paid work, so when it becomes work

28:11

for wages like child

28:15

care workers, home health aides, people

28:17

who work in nursing homes, it's

28:20

still undervalued. It is low paid,

28:22

low status jobs that usually

28:25

come with very few benefits.

28:27

So what this means in terms of

28:30

society is that the very people that

28:32

we rely to care for us and

28:34

our loved ones when we are sick

28:36

or dependent are often the

28:38

ones that receive least care and

28:40

value themselves in terms of pay

28:43

or benefits or even job security.

28:45

Then I think that was something

28:47

that was made very clear during

28:50

the pandemic and the national conversation

28:52

about essential workers who were working

28:54

so you know constantly

28:56

during the pandemic and yet had very

28:58

little job security

29:00

or pay support. I

29:04

think the other part of this

29:06

question about care is what Anne-Marie

29:08

Slaughter called the infrastructure of care

29:10

and we do not have a

29:12

great infrastructure of care like affordable

29:15

and universal child care, maternity

29:17

leave, flexible job policies for

29:19

parents. So in other words

29:21

or paid sick leave policies

29:23

that would allow us to

29:25

care for ourselves and our

29:27

loved ones. So

29:29

I think that you know this has

29:31

become more on the table recently, these

29:34

conversations, but I think we

29:36

still are really as a society thinking

29:38

about how do we value work

29:41

that doesn't produce much profit

29:44

but is so essential in

29:48

creating human relationships and

29:50

caring for people who

29:52

are vulnerable in our

29:54

society. Now what message do you

29:56

want the reader to leave with once

29:59

they finish your Well,

30:02

I think one of the key

30:04

points I'd like readers to leave with

30:06

is how trying structured

30:09

social lives in ways that are

30:11

often invisible to people with more

30:13

resources. And so one of

30:16

the frequent comments I get when I talk about this

30:18

work is people say, oh, but

30:20

I had no idea things were so difficult.

30:23

But of course, this is

30:25

because many are talking from

30:27

a particular position where they're

30:29

protected from these punitive time

30:31

regimes because they work in

30:33

professional jobs where they have

30:35

more flexibility, or they have

30:37

money and resources to, for example,

30:39

pay a sitter to

30:41

pick up their kid when they have a work conflict

30:44

and they kind of get to school on time, or

30:47

they have private insurance and therefore go

30:49

to get health care at

30:51

places where they don't have to wait for hours

30:53

and hours to care. But

30:55

for millions of Americans and for

30:57

people around the world, the kind

31:00

of time conflict I write about

31:02

and the recognition that this is

31:04

fundamentally about social inequality, I just

31:06

parroted daily life. So

31:09

the second point, so that's one point, I

31:11

guess, the second point is my

31:13

real, superb belief that policy

31:15

and legislation matters and that

31:17

the protection of time needs

31:20

to be front and center

31:22

in our discussion of labor

31:24

and reproductive rights. And

31:26

that this is really different from now than

31:28

in the past. So our labor roles are

31:30

really still based on the kinds

31:32

of work problems that were happening in the 1930s.

31:36

So they're focused still on

31:38

things like protecting people from

31:40

overwork. But

31:42

now the problems aren't generally

31:44

about overwork. The problems of

31:46

the current labor situation is

31:49

underemployment, precarious scheduling,

31:51

and unstable work. And

31:53

we need policy to address that. So

31:56

we've seen, as I've said, we've seen some

31:58

movement on this. the Pregnant

32:00

Workers Fairness Act. Some cities

32:03

and states have recently passed

32:05

the Fair Workweek Act which

32:08

mandates employers provide fair

32:11

notice of scheduling changes to their

32:13

employees or pay their employees

32:15

a penalty. You know and

32:18

it's still too early at this point

32:20

to say how extensive the

32:22

impact of these will be in protecting workers

32:25

and promoting health but it's also really clear

32:27

that low-wage employers are not doing this of

32:29

their own. We need policy to have

32:34

to encourage or force employees

32:36

to do this. So

32:38

I guess what I'd like readers to think about

32:41

is that we need to make the

32:43

protection of time a central part in

32:45

our agenda for social justice and equality

32:47

and that actually this benefits everybody.

32:50

If we have policy protecting people's

32:52

time it's not just low income

32:54

folks that benefit but everybody

32:56

does. Well I'm

32:58

taking up enough of your time. Can

33:00

you tell us the next project you're

33:02

working on? Well

33:05

after 20 years or more

33:07

of working on issues around

33:09

reproductive health I'm

33:11

actually going to switch gears for a

33:14

little time. So like many

33:17

people during the pandemic I became

33:19

fascinated with the issue of

33:21

smell and particularly people's

33:23

reports about how distressing it was

33:25

to lose their sense of smell

33:27

which was a sense that I

33:30

hadn't really paid much attention to

33:32

and so as a medical anthropologist

33:34

I'm really interested in thinking about

33:36

how people experience this and access

33:38

to health care. So that's a

33:40

very just the very beginning of

33:43

thinking about smell and people's experience of

33:45

physical or emotional health when they lose their sense

33:47

of smell but if any of your listeners want

33:49

to talk to me have lost their sense of

33:52

smell not necessarily due to COVID but they want

33:54

to talk to me I would love to hear

33:56

from them and they can reach me through my

33:58

website at www.cst.gov. Well,

34:02

we look forward to that new project.

34:05

Again, we've been talking with Elise

34:07

Andrea, by author of

34:09

Pregnant Edwork, The Wage Workers,

34:11

Tower and Temporal Injustice. Thank

34:14

you for being on the podcast. Thank

34:16

you so much for having me.