How did Europe treat its essential workers?

Mary McCaughey is Head of Information and Communication in Eurofound. A graduate of Trinity College, Dublin and the College of Europe, Bruges, she started work in Brussels with Europolitics and the Wall Street Journal Europe. She worked with the Association of European Parliamentarians with Africa (AWEPA) in South Africa during the country’s transition to democracy, and in 1998 she took up the post of spokesperson with the Delegation of the European Union in Pretoria, heading up its press and information department during the negotiation of the EU–South Africa free trade agreement. Following the end of the Kosovo War, she worked as a communications consultant for the European Agency for Reconstruction in Serbia. She took up the post of Editor-in-Chief in Eurofound in 2003.

Jorge Cabrita is a senior research manager in the Working Life unit. He is responsible for formulating, coordinating and managing European-wide research, and promoting the dissemination of findings in the areas of working conditions and industrial relations. His main research areas of interest include working conditions and job quality, working time and work–life balance, workers’ health and well-being, gender equality and the socioeconomic impacts of the transition to a climate-neutral economy. He is currently leading research on working time developments and on social dialogue and collective bargaining during the COVID-19 pandemic. Previously, he worked as a researcher at the Centre for Studies for Social Intervention and at the Research Centre on the Portuguese Economy of the Lisbon School of Economics, and as a trainer and consultant in the areas of strategic management, organisational communication, leadership and team building. He holds a BSc in Economics and an MSc in Socio-Organisational Systems of Economic Activity from the Lisbon School of Economics.