Conversation to Transformation

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KUNV Studios on public radio. KUNV 91.5. The content of this program does not reflect the views or opinions of 91.5 Jazz and More, the University of Nevada Las Vegas, or the Board of Regents of the Nevada System of Higher Education. Introduction of COVID into our society helped make more clear than ever before the importance of connectivity.

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We can systemize this whole thing.

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No one, no one is better. I guess maybe it was the intensity of fear and uncertainty that somehow simultaneously and magically magnified the intensity of compassion and innovation. Welcome everyone to Conversations to Transformation. I am Magdalena Martinez. I'm an associate professor at the College of Urban Affairs at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and I'm also the director of education programs at the Lindsay Institute. I am accompanied today by my dear friend and colleague Carmen. And we have a very special guest today, another dear friend of mine, whom I've known for almost two decades. And just to remind our listeners, these conversations are an extension of the work that we've been doing with the COVID experience in Nevada. And so through these conversations, we're hoping to extend a lot of what we're learning in terms of the pandemic. What happened? What did we learn? And who are the folks that were really on the front lines? speaker, Dr. Kim Nells is the Assistant Dean for External Relations and a lecturer for Marketing and International Business at UNLV for the College of Business. And Kim, tell us a little bit more about yourself, your background, and tell us about this research that you've been doing on frontline workers. Great. Thanks, Magda. I'm happy to be here today.

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I am somebody who has been affiliated with UNLV for over 20 years. I started as a master's student in communications, went on to get my PhD in higher education here, so I'm a double UNLV alum, and then also earned a MBA from Duke University Fuqua School of Business. I started teaching for the business school about five years ago. And in doing so, quickly learned that I needed more business education. I'm a lifelong learner and really can't get enough of that. So I'm back in school again. And one of the things that I've been doing as a student is studying the impact of COVID-19 on our frontline workers. I define frontline workers as people who had to work in person during the pandemic in a variety of roles. So those are people who are your everyday hairstylists, grocery clerks, Amazon, lawyer house workers, Uber drivers, prison guards, bail bondsmen, folks that really were the backbone of our economy during the pandemic. And it was my honor and pleasure to be able to talk to them about their experiences working in on the front lines every single day, making sure that Nevada kept moving

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forward.

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Wow, that's such important work. And Carmen, I know that you have been as a research assistant, really combing through reading and trying to understand a lot of these interviews that Kim, by the way, has been so gracious to share with our research team, and she is a part of our research team, to add to the number of interviews that we've conducted with heads of organizations and a lot of the leaders within our state. Carmen, I know you're itching to ask her some questions. Let's get started.

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Dr. Nils, thank you so much for talking with us. We have met before on a couple of occasions. Maybe you've never heard my name before. It's really long. My name is Elia del Carmen Sorano Patricio. I've been a researcher with Brookings Mountain West and the Lindsay Institute for most of my undergraduate career here.

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I have only ever called you Carmen.

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Yeah, most people do. And that's really okay. I have read about your research a lot, especially encountering you at the Undergraduate Research Symposia here at UNLV, and when I heard that you were turning over your data to us, I was so excited to just comb through it, analyze it, and make patterns. So I tend to read, I'm an urban studies major, and I tend to research criminal justice issues, but also economic development issues, sustainability matters, from a policy analysis perspective. That is how I've wanted to build my resume, right? So when I went into the data, and I started looking at those interview transcripts for all those people that you've mentioned, I started making connections, right? So for example, let's talk about public safety, right? That's within my realm. There were TSA officers working at the airport, there were bail bondsmen that were talking about how they had to change their policies to make what they call financing, right, a bail bond loan more accessible because all of a sudden people were earning less income. They were jobless, they didn't qualify for the parameters that bail systems had set. So can you tell me about what your reaction was? Did you see those same connections the way I saw them?

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Yes, so I was interested more from a business perspective. So it's really interesting to hear your perspective from more like public health and safety and well-being. But I think that there was certainly a thread through both of our perspectives and lenses that we brought to this research. I definitely believe that there was a sense of fear for many people working every day. Not only fear for themselves, in fact many people weren't necessarily fearful for themselves, they were more fearful for their families and who they were going to be interacting with or what they might be doing while being on the front lines. One woman who you may not think of as necessarily essential considered herself essential, she was a wax specialist. And she had to be very close to people during the pandemic while say waxing eyebrows or parts of the face that might have been exposed that wouldn't necessarily have been exposed while wearing a mask or have been in such close quarters. You can't be six feet away as a wax specialist, for example. And she was worried that every day when she went home from work, not necessarily for her own safety, but what she was taking home to others. And so in many industries, we did see certain protections for people. You may all recall during the pandemic, how plastic guards suddenly went up in a lot of the casinos in our city, for example, or how there may have been at a grocery store, you would slide your credit card through a Plexiglas card reader and then they would wipe it down before and after each use, things like that. Those protections were definitely there for individual safety, no doubt. But what about those individuals who didn't have those sorts of protections? And I think that the sense of public health and well-being and also that sense of fearfulness is really something to talk about. One thing I also want to mention is how so many ordinary jobs suddenly became high-risk jobs and that was something that we had not really seen in any other time in recent history. That was something that was very

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paramount during the pandemic. And we really started to see some contention around those issues, right? Things that you would think are basic. Suddenly there was tension between employees that didn't want to mask up and those that did, or managers that needed to enforce new policies when everything was so unclear, right? From the top down, there was really a public safety issue that arose out of this situation.

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Yes, we had somebody as a front desk clerk at a motel tell me that they said people wanted to come to Las Vegas on vacation, didn't want to have to mask up, didn't want to have to have to separate and be the six feet minimum apart from one another, and didn't want to have to follow any protocols and got really frustrated. And this motel clerk said, look people, you can't take a vacation from the pandemic. The pandemic still exists wherever you are. So you still have to abide by the same safety guidelines and well being and it's to protect you as much as it is us and making sure that we're all in this together, I think was one of the messages that they took away.

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It's really a unique environment, right? How many other states or cities can say that your service sector is so prominent, that this becomes an issue, right?

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I think so, with what, 50% or more of our local economy being reliant in the gaming industry or some sort of adjacent industry that relies on tourism and well-being for all the people that are here, it's important that we do what we can to protect our visitors that come every year, over 40 million a year that are coming to Las Vegas.

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That is something else when you think about it and of course, gaming, hospitality is our bread and butter in this state. We know that just the strip and the resorts generate close to 80 percent of state revenues. So it really became important for the state to try to open up as safely as possible, a lot of those organizations and resorts so that we could also plan for our future, right, and think about where our education funding was coming from, social services, etc, etc. So this real urgency to ensure that our frontline workers were safe. And Kim, earlier you said that some positions that you wouldn't have thought of as essential became essential during the pandemic. Tell us a little bit more about that.

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That's right. So a lot of folks who work in food service along a variety of lines, so that could be somebody working at a grocery store that certainly without question became essential during the pandemic, but people even working in restaurants. Now, at the beginning of the pandemic, many places switched to a online or a carry out service only but then many of the restaurants opened back up to the public and they had new precautions and new questions in place. So food service, and it certainly was a big part of our everyday needs that people wouldn't necessarily have thought of like this restaurant is a necessity, but it absolutely was because it was feeding our populace during the pandemic. There were things like people so much relying on Amazon during the pandemic and other delivery sorts of apps and you know whether that was Grubhub or Uber Eats or others that were willing to make those sacrifices to bring food to folks or deliver supplies to folks. All of those individuals who I want to be you know clear it was not just the delivery folks but it was every step along the line. The people who were preparing the packages, preparing the meals, preparing all the items to go out, the folks who are handling all of the equipment, the processing, everything along the way, and then the gracious delivery drivers as well. So I think all of those folks you may not have thought of as essential previously, but we could not have lived without them.

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Absolutely, and that's a really good point. Now, one of the unique things about your work, Kim, is that you're really focusing on these lived experiences of these particular individuals. And when we think about the pandemic, when we think about the COVID experience, we know that the media has done an excellent job of really providing us just a macro overview in the way of numbers, right? Demographics and things like this. But you really are going beyond that, and including the voices of the frontline workers. What do you think that can add to our conversation from a business perspective and then from a public policy perspective?

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Great question. So we have, of all developed nations in the world, one of the highest percentages of low-wage workers. And it's almost one in five in America that is considered low-wage worker. Now, people define that differently. It's basically the way that you can live in your area wherever that means is. So in certain parts of rural America, you can survive on much less than you might in a very urban area like a San Francisco or a Chicago or a LA or New York. So the cost of living indicator is high, but we have a poverty level set here. Low wage worker is somebody that barely meets that poverty line. And it can be, you know, of course, as many of the jobs we've mentioned already, but also I want to highlight like fast food workers who worked a lot during the pandemic, folks who are really just working on a day to day or even a paycheck to paycheck basis. So those sorts of situations certainly are, are key to highlight. But I really in this research, as you mentioned, Meg, I wanted to dig in deeply to not just the big picture, which is certainly important, but those individual voices. I think the media did an awesome job of talking about the work from home phenomenon because that was such a huge shift in the American business way of life. But we also, and even like FlexTime and hybrid jobs and more Zoom calls, I mean, we heard about Zoom meetings ad nauseum. We heard a lot also about the healthcare industry and how people were working their tails off in healthcare. And that absolutely is important to recognize. Some of the people that I talked to in the research were nursing home aides, for example, or surgery techs or folks who cleaned up in the hospitals and were working custodial work. And that sort of, those sorts of jobs were essential as well and not to be overlooked. But what we heard mostly again, were those work from home perspectives, and the nurses and doctors on the front lines. What I'm trying to do is really highlight all the other jobs that suddenly were these essential workers and so key to keeping things going. So from a business perspective, we could not have done all the things that were possible with just keeping our GDP afloat, keeping our economy afloat, and making sure that things kept moving forward, even during a time of crisis. It was really essential for our economy. I want to say that again, the essential workers were essential for our economy. Right. Kim, I know you, sorry, Carmen,

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I know you've got some follow-up questions for that.

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From a policy perspective, I think there was so much really demonstrated through this research about how much we take for granted, right? From harvest to delivery, from treatment by a nurse or a doctor to the person that cleans the hospital. It really kind of brought to light how much we undervalue these people. A lot of some of the words that that were that we pulled from the research and we hashtagged, if you will, were overworked, overwhelmed, underpaid. And that hasn't stopped, right? We are well into post vaccination times. And some of this stuff is still relevant. For example, the railroad workers, which are dealing with policies around sick paid leave, right? We're still in COVID. People are still dying from COVID. Hospitals are still being overwhelmed by COVID-19. And this is still happening. What do you think about that?

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Yeah, I think the railroad workers is a great example. I think we are, and I'd love to hear your perspective as well on this, but I think we're going to see more and more unionizing and workers coming together to fight for basic rights and needs and also just making sure that basic needs are met. That was something that came out both in the research and in popular media, whereas some of these companies were actually making a big profit during the pandemic. And of course, companies like your Netflix, your Amazons, these big companies were making lots of money during the pandemic, but then some of their frontline workers were barely able to survive and were putting their lives on the line to make it happen for everybody else to enjoy their Netflix or Amazon packages and whatnot. So I think we're going to see more and more and whatnot. So I think we're going to see more and more individuals and workers coming together, working together, hopefully having their voices heard, and making sure that they understand that they deserve a share of those profits. So when a company is making so much money on the backs of individuals, that they should just be taken into account, that they should have a say in that, too, and not have to worry about how they're going to feed their families, how they're going to pay their rent, how they're going to survive on a day-to-day basis. And heaven forbid if an emergency happens within their own family and somebody gets hurt or disabled and is unable to work. Those are the very real issues that having a health crisis hit the economy at the same time that folks are barely able to make their own life sustainable and their own payments throughout their days. And I think those are some of the things that I've been thinking about. I've heard of, for example, baristas coming together and perhaps unionizing in different industries. I'd love to hear more from you all if you're seeing that unionization. It doesn't even have to be a union. I think it's just having that collective voice be heard, that I think we're going to see more and more of.

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I even heard about graduate students starting to entertain the idea of unionizing, which I think is really revolutionary, Kim, but I have a question for you, that I think perhaps a lot of our audience members would like to hear your opinion on. So we're taught we're coming out of a time where workers' compensation claims are still not processed, right? A lot of people are underinsured and their pay hasn't gone up, especially because they're not unionized. Let's talk about inflation, Dr. Niles. You're an economics expert, and I understand that there's an inflation crisis happening around the world. So this is not unique to us, just like COVID wasn't, it was universal. Can you talk a little bit about what perceptions have been in your research, what you expect to happen, or kind of how these first of all, how these mechanisms work so that we can really have a strong grasp around what it means when somebody says we're experiencing inflation?

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Sure. So I think, you know, inflation has been as high as double digits in some weeks, some months, but we have still seen significant inflation. In fact, at some points, I think it was what, around 7% is what the average was over the last year. And that is higher than what we've seen in previous years. So I think a lot of people are feeling it and they feel it in day-to-day visits to a grocery store, going to get pump their gas, you know, going to buy a gallon of milk that suddenly seems maybe out of reach now and may choose or opt for a half gallon instead. So things that people are starting to make decisions on a daily basis about what is affordable anymore. At the same time, we all know that pay has not kept pace with that. So if pay was keeping pace with it, we would all have seen cost of living raises of about 7% to keep pace with inflation. I know I personally haven't seen a cost of living raise of 7%. I'm sure most of us have not seen that. Uh, there, in fact, what I heard recently was somebody mentioned that if you only got a 1% cost of living raise, then you're actually taking a 6% pay cut because all your expenses are going up, things like your rent, your groceries, your gas, et cetera. And yet your pay is not keeping pace. So I do think that businesses, especially those that have been profitable during the pandemic are going to need to take a hard look at that and how they are paying their folks and making sure also that we are abiding by new minimum wage laws, making sure that we are also voicing opinions and hearing from people who this is going to mostly affect. A lot of folks in public policy and especially at the top levels of business and management aren't necessarily going to feel the pressure of inflation as much as those everyday folks who are the one in five workers, right, who are working and just trying to make ends meet and they're the ones that are going to feel that pinch, the real effects of

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inflation. And Kim, I know that part of your expertise is also in higher education and college access. And we know that there are strong correlates between educational levels, specifically a college education, and poverty levels. And we also know that Nevada has one of the fewest percentages of college degrees among its adults. So we really feel the squeeze here. What are your thoughts around that? What can we learn from this experience, not just from frontline workers, but also from college attainment rates? How can we think differently here in the state of Nevada on the issue of college access, who should be going to college, How do we expand this valuable public resource of a higher education from your perspective?

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So many great questions to unpack there. Thanks, Meghda. I think for sure that a college pathway can not only create social mobility for the students who take advantage of it, but it has ripple effects through their families. And I think that that is an absolute wonderful path for many people, but I don't think it's the path necessarily for everyone. There's a lot of great jobs out there in many of these folks that I talk to in plumbing, electrician work, folks who are working construction jobs are doing great work and are making great pay as well, doing many of these jobs as well. Our gaming industry is highly filled with workers that don't necessarily need a college education. So I think those are some of the reasons why we don't see high college going rates in Nevada. But I want to make sure for students who are interested in going or future students who are interested in going to college that we do have open accessible options within the state of Nevada. The community colleges, the state colleges, and our universities were all built upon the premise that we are meeting needs for our future workforce, both now and in the future. So Nevada State College, soon to be Nevada State University, for example, was highlighted as a place where they really wanted to emphasize nursing and education. At many of the universities in Nevada, you can get degrees in engineering, which is desperately needed here as we continue to grow in those areas in manufacturing. We just launched a new cybersecurity program because that's a huge growing area in the tech field, and that's a joint program between engineering and business, so I'm seeing more and more opportunities that are going to meet needs both now and in the future. I think higher education is absolutely an essential piece of that puzzle. We have to be able to build our workforce not only now, but in the future as well. And we're going to continue to diversify our workforce, and as we do so, education is going to be a big part of that.

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I agree with you, and I'm glad you clarified that. And when I said higher education, I was thinking of, really more accurately, should have been education post high school. Sure. Because I agree with you that those type of vocational careers, technical careers, are absolutely essential. However, we do, I think, might be an agreement that we could probably use more people in higher education here in the state of Nevada and in those type of technical degrees, vocational degrees, certificate programs, associate degree programs.

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I think you need all of the above. I think we cannot just focus on one or the other. One program that I'd love to highlight if I could is called YouthBuild Las Vegas. That's a program that is here locally, although YouthBuild is an international program. It is funded through a Department of Labor grant, and it is a program that takes former high school drop-offs and encourages them to get back on path for either a GED or a high school diploma, and teaches them a trade as well, typically in construction, and they build homes for Habitat for Humanity as they also go through a program that will give them on the path to at least a high school education, if not beyond. And so that's one awesome program that's happening right here in our own community that is re-engaging folks who have opportunities but haven't necessarily taken advantage of them. So I want to highlight YouthBuild because I think it's a great program, but there's lots of other programs and people in place in this community that are doing such phenomenal work. And I just think it's important to highlight what's already been done, but there's still so much work to to be done as well.

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Carmen, I'm really glad that you guys tied together the conversations around front-line workers and students because as a student who also works at UNLV, I'm seeing that this is a really unique space to be, right? UNLV is a commuter school and we comprise a significant portion of the state's power, right? The state's labor and workforce but also brain power. So I thought it was a really unique situation, first having experienced that myself and then listening to my peers talk about having to keep up with school, everything going online while we're working full time, while we're working part time, while we're working just enough to make ends meet but not quite enough to qualify for benefits or resources, right? And that's a really difficult place to be. And it's such a small segment of the population, which ought to be bigger, I think. But what what would you say to students like me who are in your class, for instance, they're working there where they're driving for lift, they're working at fast food. Keep going.

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First, I would say thank you, really, thank you. Thank you for what you're contributing to our economy. Thank you for working on your education, because you're all making the university a better place and you're making our community a better place. So I think that's the most important thing. And I would encourage everyone to keep going. Also, I would encourage folks to look for scholarships and other means of support and use each other as support systems as well because it's not easy. I know I have students who are getting off work at 8 in the morning and coming to my class at UNLV at 830 and that's after working a nighttime graveyard shift on the strip and it gosh I just really want to thank them for thinking about making sure that they can get their jobs done. And I say jobs plural because I would say going to school is a job, working jobs, multiple jobs many times. And I just want to be grateful and thank them for keeping going.

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From my perspective, I can tell you that we definitely do lean on each other despite the challenges and the obstacles. But we are also in a much better position than a lot of the population here in Nevada. Unfortunately, I say that with a lot of sadness, that we have access to things in the university space that aren't otherwise available, right? I have access to health care. It's limited, but it's there. I have access to counseling. I have access to a career advancement, things that aren't necessarily out there for everybody else, especially when you put this problem into context, like we're talking about UNLV in Las Vegas being in an urban space. What about everybody in the rural areas, right? What they're facing, how we stay connected, right? I can talk to somebody who lives just outside of Reno, and we're living similar experiences. So what I see moving forward is that same population becoming entrepreneurial, right? We've seen a lot of that since COVID and that comes with its own challenges. Yes, you suddenly become a leader because you're already a leader by investing in your education but suddenly you become somebody responsible for other people and you're not quite at the CEO status but you're still at your restaurant on the front lines making sure that your workers are being paid and they're safe prioritizing their wellness and so I just want to give a shout out to everybody out there who's doing that, who maybe didn't get a PPP loan or who maybe did, but they were having issues with making that happen, who haven't gotten their workers' compensation claim check yet, right? I think that to anybody listening, if you're listening to this podcast, if you read these materials, if you look into the research that Dr. Kim Nells is doing over here, then maybe maybe you might find some solace, some encouragement, some motivation to keep going and understand that we're not doing

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any of this alone.

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Absolutely. That's such a positive note to end on. Thank you, Carmen, for that.

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Thanks.

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Thanks so much for joining us, everyone. We look forward to having you hear our other podcasts in the future. Have a great day, everyone. Thanks, Kim. Thanks, Carmen.

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Thank you for tuning into this episode of Conversation to Transformation, Opportunities Born from the Pandemic. This podcast is made possible through the Lindsay Institute at the University of Nevada Las Vegas. For more information, please follow us on social media and of Nevada Las Vegas. For more information, please follow us on social media and visit our website at www.unlv.edu slash Lindsay Institute.