It's Brian Lehrer, and this is my daily politics podcast from WNYC Studios.

It's Friday, March 20th.

In this new phase of self-quarantine and mandated social distancing, it's increasingly going to be you essential workers

who keep the city, the state, the region, the country running, and at risk. We express over and

over again our deep appreciation to those of you who need to go out to work. And again,

here's a short list of the kinds of work that are deemed essential,

taking care of the sick and elderly, obviously, grocery store work, keeping the pharmacies open,

keeping the trains running, maintenance work, sanitation, construction is controversial now,

but they're out there. The list goes on. There are a lot of you.

We see you. We want to make sure that you're getting the protections you need or help contribute

to seeing that you get them in ways that we can. We had a call yesterday that I'm going to replay a

little bit of as an example from a worker at Newark Airport asking this.

I work at Newark Airport.

And things seems like everything is fine.

No gloves, no mask, no nothing.

So I'd like to know who should we talk to about this.

Who's your employer at Newark Airport?

United.

And to be honest, we didn't have a good answer for Lena from Scotch Plains.

So we wanted to do a follow-up and get that answer and also provide a couple of guests who are going to come on with me now to answer questions

about protection and other essential things from people who are essential workers and out there

still being asked to work not from home. So joining me now are Elizabeth joins Jordan,

...