In this article, we examine the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the labor conditions of domestic workers in the epicenter of the United States. We focus our analysis on the symbolic categorization of domestic work as “essential labor.” While domestic workers are lauded as heroes in public discourse, we argue that this symbolic recognition does not extend to material remuneration. Instead, we find that labor conditions better fit their categorization as expendable essential workers, meaning those whose essential labor is magnified during the pandemic but whose work remains materially undervalued. Data used in this article draw from observations of more than 30 hours of virtual town hall meetings on the pandemic hosted by migrant domestic worker advocacy groups in Los Angeles and New York.

在本文中，我们研究了COVID-19大流行对美国震中家庭佣工劳动条件的影响。我们将分析重点放在家庭工作作为“基本劳动”的象征性分类上。尽管在公共话语中称赞家庭佣工为英雄，但我们认为，这种象征性承认并不涉及物质报酬。取而代之的是，我们发现劳动条件更适合其归类为消耗性基本工人，这意味着在大流行期间其基本劳动被放大，但其工作仍被严重低估的那些人。本文中使用的数据来自对洛杉矶和纽约的移民家庭工人倡导组织主持的关于流感大流行的虚拟市政厅会议进行的30多个小时的观察。