[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.