Faculty members Armando Ibarra and Alexia Kulwiec have partnered with the University of Wisconsin-Madison Population Health Institute to understand how workers are impacted by working through the COVID-19 pandemic. To learn about workers’ experiences, faculty are conducting focus groups and interviewing leaders of both unions and worker rights organizations. Participants have included workers from food processing, construction, education, healthcare, and agriculture. From the conversations, faculty heard that many workers feel forced to work in unsafe conditions, have insufficient protection provided, receive no hazard pay, and the daily risks are unacknowledged. The state Department of Health Services will receive the project results with the aspiration to inform their future decisions with a better worker perspective.