Coda–Essential Yet Invisible, Pandemic or Not

Years of field research and activism are embedded in this book. The book’s coda points out that the COVID-19 pandemic has precipitated reflection upon what ‘essential’ work done by migrants means. Yet, the primary designation of frontline daytime labourers as essential, has implicitly cast those who work backstage and through the night as expendable. Thus, even as the pandemic has resulted in some public acknowledgement of the migrants’ contribution to their host societies, in the case of nightworkers, the darkness of night still leaves them out of sight. The first ever Nightworker Charter is now in its second editions (2023). The Charter stresses the need to recognise the contribution of nightworkers in our societies, many of whom are women and migrants and thus, put nighttime workers on equal footing with their daytime counterparts. Hence, the Charter upholds the strategic role that nightworkers have been playing in keeping societies going around-the-clock. The Charter seeks to transform night workplaces by upholding the basic rights of nightworkers to live and work in dignity. I have faith that the readers will join me for an encounter with workers who travail in the dark, night by night. In solidarity with nightshift workers.