The COVID-19 work awakening | Morning Newsletter
And, our eternal life with potholes.
The Morning Newsletter
Start your day with the Philly news you need and the stories you want all in one easy-to-read newsletter
First: The pandemic illuminated the fight for better worker protections. As part of our Future of Work series, we take you inside the fight to preserve those protections post-COVID-19.
Then: We speak to Jamie Gauthier about her significant first year on Philly’s City Council. She’s one to watch.
And: Our eternal pothole problem has an explanation.
— Ashley Hoffman (@_ashleyhoffman, morningnewsletter@inquirer.com)
As COVID-19 put additional burdens on the shoulders of workers in the region, workers’ rights groups continued to seek change on pandemic-related inequities.
Labor organizations fought hard and won landmark victories for progress. Look no further than such laws as job security rights for employees laid off during the pandemic. And Philly became the first major city to make it illegal for employers to retaliate against their workers for raising their voices about COVID-19 working conditions.
Reporter Juliana Feliciano Reyes, who covers work through the eyes of the workers who do it, has the story on the push for worker protections to last when the pandemic is over.
Meet the undocumented advocate who lost her job as a housecleaner when the pandemic hit, and then took up the mission to fight for workers in service industries.
Jamie Gauthier, the Philadelphia City councilmember representing West Philadelphia, showed residents who she was during her first year.
Whether it was defusing a standoff between police and activists at the height of last summer’s protests or negotiating with Parkway encampment leaders, she took a star turn. Her seismic win over Jannie Blackwell in 2019 signaled the voting public’s enthusiasm for her promises, and she has since formed a consistently progressive bloc determined to move city policy to the left on such issues as police reform and housing.
Now, she has the balancing act of her ideology and her constituents’ needs.
“I represent Black neighborhoods that have been historically disinvested, so it’s not a coincidence that the same neighborhoods that have suffered [disproportionately] from coronavirus are suffering from gun violence, are suffering from police brutality, are suffering from an affordable-housing crisis,” she told us during a series of interviews. “It’s been hard on all my constituents, but it’s also been a topsy-turvy year for me as a first-term councilperson.”
For the whole story on how she rode out the complex year and her expanding outline for the future, reporter Sean Collins Walsh has the story.
Our eternal pothole problem has an explanation.
Like the rest of us, roads age. They cave and crack in defiance after a winter of low temperatures, and that can be hazardous. Potholes form when the water from rain, snow, and ice melt oozes into cracks and expands when it freezes, a little like a soda can that bulges in the freezer.
That’s meant that the region’s pothole chasers are left with a seemingly endless task. The city filled 15,000 this year, and there are thousands left to fix. We turned to experts for the best solution, and it’s routine resurfacing everywhere. But patching up potholes doesn’t work forever.
Reporter Anthony R. Wood covers the pothole problem and who you’re gonna call when you see one.
Where can I get a COVID-19 vaccine in the Philly area? Use our lookup tool.
Find out whether you’re eligible for the vaccine if you’re in Philly, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey.
Here’s how to prepare for your vaccine appointment.
What you can do safely once you’re fully vaccinated.
What you need to know today
Yesterday, a crowd surrounded officers, throwing objects at them, and injuring at least one.
A spike in Medicaid enrollment in Pa. during the coronavirus has surpassed enrollment during the Great Recession, according to analysts.
Rent has increased the most in the least expensive areas, Zillow report finds.
Through your eyes | #OurPhilly
You and the spring blossoms are going to be seeing a lot more of each other. Thank you for sharing this snapshot of a magical walkway, @mjf2007.
Tag your Instagram posts or tweets with #OurPhilly and we’ll pick our favorite each day to feature in this newsletter and give you a shout-out!
That’s interesting
✈️ Temple University is one of the few schools that hasn’t put the kibosh on study abroad programs in places such as Japan and Italy during the pandemic.
🏀 What if the 76ers don’t make a trade before the fast approaching deadline?
📻 Cassette tapes are back in the mix.
💰 Meet the rare tech start-up founder growing business in the city. From ending the business income tax to cutting the wage tax, the founder offers his suggestions for what will get employers into the city and creating more jobs.
Opinions
“The perplexing disregard by Wolf to distribute vaccines through long-ago agreed-upon county-level “medical countermeasures” plans set the stage for the scramble now upon us” — columnist Maria Panaritis writes that with better leadership, Southeastern Pennsylvania wouldn’t be forced to scramble to get people vaccinated.
After going to Philly’s first virtual gun violence prevention briefing, columnist Helen Ubiñas writes about the biggest issues the city needs to fix.
“Black people should not be scorned and, therefore, punished or rationed for vaccine hesitancy,” former chief public health officer Ivan Walks and WURD host Charles Ellison write, adding that the government needs to stop treating Black people like a monolith.
What we’re reading
A Kensington community leader writes a passionate case against forces that isolate the neighborhood in WHYY.
R.O. Kwon’s must-read “A Letter to My Fellow Asian Women Whose Hearts Are Still Breaking” in Vanity Fair contemplates belonging.
Psychology Today resurfaces an idea from the 1980s on treating anxiety differently.
Partaking in the sport of curling at home for DIY reasons may not be the new sourdough bread, but it does look fun in Defector.
We recently brought you the story on a teacher raising money to pay for a trip to Egypt for his mother, who is fighting cancer, by making and selling cheesesteaks. A sandwich shop owner from Jersey saw that story and had a heartwarming response recently. He rolled up in his food truck outside the teacher’s Northeast Philly house to sling steaks all afternoon. They raised $10,000, and spirits, too.