[nn35]

-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 < 40yo is very small. Put some masks on them and keep working.

I do think high-risk employees should basically be allowed to stay home, though.

[elicash]

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.

[knodi123]

> 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 diminishing the seriousness of the pandemic or saying people don't deserve sick leave or allowances for quarantine- but offering unrestricted full pay to everyone who chooses not to come to work is madness. Why would the employees care if the store gets shut down - they can simply stay home. Why would the employees care about sanitation? They can simply stay home. Etc etc etc.

[elicash]

My employer is allowing us to use our paid leave for this purpose, and we haven't seen this. You still only have a limited amount of paid leave per year and so you can use it for this but it means if you get sick later you can't use it for that.

Not sure why you added the word "unrestricted." Seems like bad faith.

[knodi123]

> My employer is allowing us to use our paid leave for this purpose

It's YOUR paid leave. They are "allowing" you to.... have what they promised you when you took the job. That has nothing to do with the pandemic.

> You still only have a limited amount of paid leave per year

Then what's the concession? If you have 3 sick days in the bank, and you get coronavirus, then what is the "protection" we're even talking about?

> Not sure why you added the word "unrestricted."

Because no one mentioned any restrictions.

> Seems like bad faith.

Sounds like you're about half a step above cussing out a stranger because you disagree with them.

[SketchySeaBeast]

There is a fair amount of good faith that would be involved with that, yes. Given testing is still scant, how does one remedy this? I think we can all agree that if someone is sick they should stay home, and ideally everyone who needs should get a test, but I just don't know how to separate the ill from the faking.

[fallingfrog]

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.

[knodi123]

> My last job offered unlimited paid sick leave,

If we were talking about sick leave only, then I misinterpreted the comment I replied to. I saw "isolate and self-quarantine" as not only sick leave, but also "feels like staying home for any reason at all as long as you work the word 'coronavirus' in".

> no questions asked, and in all my time there I never heard of anyone abusing it

Was your last job entry-level with no college requirement, and paid by the hour? Have you ever worked through a deadly pandemic before? Your defense is based on an extremely narrow experience that might not exactly apply to grocery store workers during a health crisis..

[bleah1000]

If you are being paid well, being treated well by your employer, you might not abuse paid sick leave. Or have a very low rate of it.

If you are not being paid well, maybe people would abuse the policy more often. I don't think you can really compare one company to another, even in the same industry. Company cultures can lead to vastly different outcomes with the same policy.

And, unless you are in HR, there is no way for you to know if people were abusing this perk. I would be willing to bet at least one person was abusing it, but maybe the company never found out, or, more likely, they didn't broadcast the abuse to everyone in the company.

[fallingfrog]

There may have been someone abusing it, I can only say for sure that it wasn’t anyone I worked with on a daily basis.

I’m one of those who believes that every person, regardless of what the job is, should be well paid and well treated- how much constitutes “well” is a complicated question of course, but as a matter of principle I do find that if the people taking on all these risks is making close to minimum wage, then we are incorrectly pricing their value.

[Nevermark]

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

[fallingfrog]

One example is enough to disprove the assertion that paid sick time would necessarily be abused any time it is given, which is what the original post asserted. If you’re going to be pedantic at least be correct. What you’ve done is move the goalposts.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moving_the_goalposts#Logical...

If the workers in question really are taking this kind of risk, and if their jobs really are essential for the functioning of society, then.. maybe they should be really well paid?

Also, to suggest that in the middle of a pandemic, if a person gets sick they should still have to go to work or lose their job flies in the face of logical reason and the recommendations of the cdc.

[Nevermark]

No one example only proves it is POSSIBLE for paid sick time to not be abused.

It does not ELIMINATE the possibility or even imply it is unlikely.

And in a plague where working puts healthy employee and their families at risk, there is an enormous incentive to not go to work, regardless hazard pay incentives.

BUT I agree:

Paying workers hazard pay is a fair thing to do, assuming the company is capable of doing so.

And paid sick leave for sick people will save lives, again assuming the company is able to.

We can assume Amazon is capable of both.

To eliminate the incentives to abuse that system I would explain to all employees:

(1) You think they deserve hazard pay for staying (2) You will conditionally offer it to them (or be up front why the business can't) (3) You think they deserve paid sick leave (4) You will conditionally offer it to them (or be up front why the business can't) (5) If you are offering either/both hazard pay and paid sick leave, make it conditional:

Each employee signs a form noting they understand the benefits but also understand they can only work if healthy employees show up, and commit to showing up if healthy.

People tend to act honorably when they feel respected, they have given their word, and see the company is doing everything it can for them.

Despite all that, the incentive for healthy workers to avoid a plague are huge and legitimate, so the hazard and sick pay could still muck everything up. But there is not risk free solution.

[cjblomqvist]

You do realize this is the default (guaranteed by the government) in all of Sweden? It's not madness.

[empath75]

> 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 don't think you're going to see a lot of that because most people are decent and honest human beings.

[Retric]

It’s not ‘full pay’.

-Guaranteed hazard pay in the form of double pay during our scheduled hours.

[diob]

If they're essential to society, do you support free medical care for all the employees who get sick during this time? Do you support paying for the ongoing costs of an employee that suffers the rest of their life due to complications or after effects from COVID-19?

[ramshorns]

I'm not the person you're responding to, but, yes. People who are sick should be cared for.

[__s]

Yes (granted I'm a Canadian who supports countries covering medical expenses for all citizens), but are we also going to close hospitals if any of their employees test positive?

[diob]

Glad to hear it.

Of course not, but companies need to be smart about it. Make sure the same people work the same shifts together, that way if one of the employees in a shift tests positive, you can isolate and test the others in the shift while continuing work in the meantime.

And of course, for things like grocery stores, focus heavily on pickup versus having customers come into the store.

[alistairSH]

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

[diob]

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.

[Nevermark]

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.

[rocha]

Hospitalization rate is hovering between 10% and 20%

Edit: source https://covidtracking.com/data/

[nn35]

We don't know the hospitalization rate. That site counts confirmed cases; epidemiologists seem to think total cases are greater by a factor of at least 10x. It also doesn't break out by age group.

Taken together, these considerations imply hospitalization rate for < 40yo should be far below the 10-20% figure. (On the flip side, many of the currently infected who have not yet been hospitalized will be hospitalized in the future.)

I don't know the hospitalization rate for < 40yo, but the death rate is thought to be around 0.1%. It would be very surprising if the hospitalization rate were more than a couple percent.

[rocha]

You are correct. The estimates are taken from the confirmed cases. I just wanted to point out that it is easy to dismiss the risk service workers are taking if you only look at the fatality rate. The hospitalization rate seems to be one or two orders of magnitude higher.

Edit: grammar.

[p1mrx]

What's the hospitalization rate for starvation?

[travisporter]

Disrespectful snide aside, probably 8-10 weeks with water supply, dependent of course on your excess body fat.

[rocha]

I didn't imply they should shut down. I just wanted to point out that the risk that the workers are taking is significantly higher if you take into account how likely they are to get seriously ill. Their protection should be prioritized.

[toomuchtodo]

> I do think high-risk employees should basically be allowed to stay home, though.

Employees in states where a shelter in place order is in effect can stay home and collect unemployment backed by the federal government [1]. One might argue everyone is high risk, as you might have a risk factor you're not aware of, leading to an unexpected death. [2]

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/article/coronavirus-stimulus-package...

[2] https://www.insider.com/spanish-coach-francisco-garcia-21-di... (A 21-year-old Spanish soccer coach died from the coronavirus after finding out he had undiagnosed leukemia while he was in hospital)

[thanatropism]

Are you guaranteed your job back if there's a stay in place order?

[toomuchtodo]

In the United States, no, but we're working on it. Please excuse the dust.

[zzzeek]

this fails to consider that if an employee of the store tests positive that has an implication for the store itself as well as all the food and products being sold to the public.

[matz1]

Yes but the risk is lower then not having grocery store at all. People still need to eat.

[zzzeek]

right well to solve that problem, you close down one store and not all of them. only the one where someone tested positive and only until that store can be cleaned. There are no towns on the planet that have only a Whole Foods and not 350 other food stores. you open the store again once it's been deep cleaned. nobody starves and that's a total straw man argument.

[nn35]

It does not seem remotely workable to me to shut down every grocery store in America with a positive COVID test among their staff.

If you want to argue for less extreme measures, I will probably support them.

[jdc]

I think discarding any product said employee could have touched (eg. baked goods) and sanitizing the store would be cheaper than a full shutdown.

[toomuchtodo]

How will you track every product a cashier touched while ringing up customers during a shift? Every product touched while restocking shelves? Every cart touched while collecting them from the parking lot? Will you sanitize the store nightly or weekly? Will you communicate when you do to customers? Will you communicate when the last confirmed case was in your store? How often are workers replacing PPE and is enough available to them (if critical medical staff can't get it, how will you?)? Or are they handling everyone's products and payment methods with the same set of gloves during their entire shift? All important questions.

[klipt]

At this point I assume everything I buy might have coronavirus sitting on the outside packaging. I wipe every item down with a soapy cloth after getting home, wash fruits with soap, reheat meats that are not completely sealed, etc.

I think everyone should be doing this, there's no way to track possible infection through the entire supply chain but since the virus dies after some time, inner packages are probably safe if they've been untouched for a while.

[ahoy]

the first rule of negotiation is to set your initial ask high