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Whole Foods employees are staging a nationwide 'sick-out'

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Re: Whole Foods employees are staging a nationwide 'sick-out'

#91

Post by rayhendricks »

claudiawerner wrote: post #76
34679 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Why aren't those employees fairly compensated They are, otherwise they wouldn't have agreed to work there. Not one person who works for Whole Foods is employed by force.

We agree to many unfair things day to day. It's not clear to me that accepting a contract means that the contract describes a fair arrangement. Fairness is also highly subjective; the employer, for instance, likely has a different opinion as to what is or isn't fair compared to the mass of employees. It's quite possible that even you and I have different ideas of what is and isn't fair. This is precisely why philosop…

They are agreeing to work there because the alternative would be the streets/moving back with parents/enlisting in the army.

They are agreeing to work an essential front line job most likely without health insurance, which means that they will have to purchase health insurance off of the state or federal exchange which may or may not be a garbage high deductible plan with a $2-5k deductible. What will most likely happen is that the same workers if not offered insurance from their employers will just forgot insurance and hope/pray that they don’t get sick. In which case for a mild Covid case (80%mild in the younger adult workers that typically occupy these jobs) then they come to work sick and infect the whole place workers and customers both.

I remember in Seattle checking out at a Trader Joe’s in January in Seattle and the checker looking like absolute death and obviously had a cough but was still working, understandably some people have rent to pay but to suggest this isn’t happening everywhere that doesn’t at least offer decent insurance/hmo coverage would be nuts.

The solution is at the very least to force decent health insurance for all retail workers, or emergency subsidies for all grocery workers health insurance until Covid is over.

Re: Whole Foods employees are staging a nationwide 'sick-out'

#92

Post by fallingfrog »

knodi123 wrote: post #60
elicash wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd bet that if Amazon agreed to all demands but that one that the workers who organized this would be ECSTATIC. There should be negotiation, back-and-forth. What's frustrating, as somebody not affiliated with the organizing here but has been in similar circumstances, is when the company won't even come to the table to bargain.

> I'd bet that if Amazon agreed to all demands but that one that the workers who organized this would be ECSTATIC. Yeah, except item 1 is "Guaranteed paid leave for all workers who isolate or self-quarantine instead of coming to work." I imagine that if Amazon agreed to that one demand, the workers would be ECSTATIC, because it allows them to get paid whether or not they decide to keep coming to work. I'm not diminis…

My last job offered unlimited paid sick leave, no questions asked, and in all my time there I never heard of anyone abusing it. Your assertions are not based in fact.

Re: Whole Foods employees are staging a nationwide 'sick-out'

#93

Post by amluto »

knodi123 wrote: post #61
amluto wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> -Guaranteed paid leave for all workers who isolate or self-quarantine instead of coming to work. This should be required by law of all employers. > -Immediate shutdown of any location where a worker tests positive for COVID-19. This seems like overkill. How about having all employees wear masks (not N95) and cleaning the store thoroughly if someone tests positive? Or do they mean a few-hour or one-day shutdown?

>> -Guaranteed paid leave for all workers who isolate or self-quarantine instead of coming to work. > This should be required by law of all employers. All businesses should be required to tell every employee "You don't have to come in to work for the duration of the crisis, unless you feel like it. But you'll get paid regardless."?

No. All employers should be required to tell employees “if you believe you have a communicable disease that could infect your coworkers or customers, then you MUST NOT come to work, and we or the government will find a way to take care if you.”

This should be the case regardless of any pandemic. Allowing an employee with a mild flu to come to work is irresponsible.

Re: Whole Foods employees are staging a nationwide 'sick-out'

#94

Post by alexpetralia »

amluto wrote: post #93
knodi123 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> -Guaranteed paid leave for all workers who isolate or self-quarantine instead of coming to work. > This should be required by law of all employers. All businesses should be required to tell every employee "You don't have to come in to work for the duration of the crisis, unless you feel like it. But you'll get paid regardless."?

No. All employers should be required to tell employees “if you believe you have a communicable disease that could infect your coworkers or customers, then you MUST NOT come to work, and we or the government will find a way to take care if you.” This should be the case regardless of any pandemic. Allowing an employee with a mild flu to come to work is irresponsible.

What prevents a worker from stating they believe they have coronavirus? Surely you'd agree there is an incentive to do so (stay home and get paid).

Re: Whole Foods employees are staging a nationwide 'sick-out'

#95

Post by krtong »

nn35 wrote: post #11
elicash wrote: post #3

Here's what they're asking for: https://www.coworker.org/petitions/global-retail-worker-sick... -Guaranteed paid leave for all workers who isolate or self-quarantine instead of coming to work. -Reinstatement of health care coverage for part-time and seasonal workers. -Increased FSA funds to cover coronavirus testing and treatment for all team members, including part-time and seasonal. -Guaranteed hazard pay in the fo…

-Immediate shutdown of any location where a worker tests positive for COVID-19. This seems likely to shut down the majority of Whole Foods stores in short order. An unreasonable request, IMO. Grocery stores are genuinely essential to society and the death rate for I do think high-risk employees should basically be allowed to stay home, though.

I just dont know whawt it means. So someone at the store tests positive, okay. Take precautions to ensure workers arent also at risk. Okay. Shut down the whole store and reopen... when?

Re: Whole Foods employees are staging a nationwide 'sick-out'

#96

Post by Nevermark »

fallingfrog wrote: post #92
knodi123 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'd bet that if Amazon agreed to all demands but that one that the workers who organized this would be ECSTATIC. Yeah, except item 1 is "Guaranteed paid leave for all workers who isolate or self-quarantine instead of coming to work." I imagine that if Amazon agreed to that one demand, the workers would be ECSTATIC, because it allows them to get paid whether or not they decide to keep coming to work. I'm not diminis…

My last job offered unlimited paid sick leave, no questions asked, and in all my time there I never heard of anyone abusing it. Your assertions are not based in fact.

In this situation workers are taking on risk by showing up due to a pandemic.

Did the situation you reference have similar urgent hazardous conditions?

Even if that is the case, your counter-example does not produce a counter-fact.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proof_by_example

Re: Whole Foods employees are staging a nationwide 'sick-out'

#97

Post by Nevermark »

diob wrote: post #85
alistairSH wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. As should everybody else. Lack of health care access in the US is shameful.

Definitely agree. We pretend it's an economic issue to have universal health care, but really it would help our economy in so many ways. The only ones it's an economic downer for are the insurance companies.

I certainly support universal solutions for universal problems like healthcare which everyone needs and can benefit from sharing the risk, and the rewards of a healthy community.

But ignoring the balance sheet of the insuring entity (company, pool, whatever) will only insure that people don't get that healthcare. It still has to be paid for.

Re: Whole Foods employees are staging a nationwide 'sick-out'

#98

Post by Nevermark »

sickleave wrote: post #33
NovemberWhiskey wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Guaranteed paid leave for all workers who isolate or self-quarantine instead of coming to work. Does anyone have any idea how they're supposed to operate their business if they have to pay workers who don't work? I mean, they would have to hire replacement workers - who also don't need to come to work? Or are the replacement workers supposed to be second-class vs. the original workers?

Certainly Jeff Bezos could spare a billion or two.

While I am sure he can, I personally like to see reasons that are more general than picking on particular people.

Amazon can spare a billion or two.

What would be even better is a country-wide system for essential workers, but I imagine that negotiating that at the political level won't be timely.

EDIT: Even a recommended essential worker policy from the top would be helpful guidance for both companies and workers trying to quickly resolve these critical nation-wide issues.

Re: Whole Foods employees are staging a nationwide 'sick-out'

#99

Post by 34679 »

claudiawerner wrote: post #76
34679 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Why aren't those employees fairly compensated They are, otherwise they wouldn't have agreed to work there. Not one person who works for Whole Foods is employed by force.

We agree to many unfair things day to day. It's not clear to me that accepting a contract means that the contract describes a fair arrangement. Fairness is also highly subjective; the employer, for instance, likely has a different opinion as to what is or isn't fair compared to the mass of employees. It's quite possible that even you and I have different ideas of what is and isn't fair. This is precisely why philosop…

The only people who need to consider the fairness of a transaction are the parties involved. With their consent to the contract, and the determination that no force was used, we can objectively consider the transaction to be fair. The inherently subjective nature you describe of extending judgement to the masses will never be as true a reflection of fairness as is the parties' own judgement.

Re: Whole Foods employees are staging a nationwide 'sick-out'

#100

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

ttul wrote: post #13

I'm sure that one of the long term outcomes of the COVID-19 pandemic will be a (potentially short-lived) resurgence in unionization and a general leftward shift in global politics. This move to the left will coincide with governments continuing to exercise greater authority over the population and economy. Our reality after COVID-19 will look more like 1970s Britain.

We're hearing a lot of stories about labor activism now because every employer allowed to stay open needs as many workers as it can get. When the rest of the economy reopens, and the millions of unemployed people start looking for jobs, that's unlikely to weigh on labor's side of the bargaining table.
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