--:-- [Upbeat background music fades out]
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Support for Today Explained comes from Saks Fifth Avenue. Fall is here. Might be time to find some nice new pieces you can wear again and again.
--:-- [Music transitions to a gentle, conversational tone]
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: With Saks Fifth Avenue, it can be a breeze to shop for your personal style, like maybe a relaxed Prada blazer or Gucci loafers that are great for both work and the weekend.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: This is very Sean. This is very Sean-coated. Gucci loafers.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Saks says Saks makes shopping feel totally customized to you, whether that's from an in-store stylist or a visit to Saks.com, where they can show you just what you want to see.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: They say they'll even let you know when arrivals from your favorite designers are in or when something you've been eyeing is back in stock.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: You can find inspiration for your personal style every day at Saks Fifth Avenue.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Not all journalism is the same. Take The Guardian. Our coverage has something unique. Fierce independence. Nobody owns us or tells us what we can and can't say.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So we're free to report the whole picture. We connect what's happening in Washington to the rest of the globe. Expose corruption wherever we find it. and give first perspective on everything from wellness and soccer to culture, the climate and more.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Read, watch and listen to The Guardian for free at theguardian.com.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: The United States is in flux. You've got lots of people still being very careful, wearing masks, staying home, avoiding crowds.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And then you've got lots of people getting back to business as usual. Dining in, seeing movies, committing to that wedding that was postponed six months ago.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Between the two are people who are returning to some sort of normalcy, but not feeling totally comfortable about it. Going back to work with lots of reservations.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And today we're going to talk about those people and what protections they have in this pandemic.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: My name is Jordan. I work at a fitness company in California. I've been working from home and it's been about six months now.
--:-- Jordan: Recently, I was requested to come to Texas for a business trip with the owner of our entire company who was flying in from Europe.
--:-- Jordan: Traveling during this pandemic is not something that I've done. I haven't been on a flight since March, so this was my first flight throughout the whole pandemic.
--:-- Jordan: I felt like I didn't really have a choice in saying yes or no because it was such an amazing opportunity.
--:-- Jordan: And I made jokes like, I'm probably going to die for my job. Like, it was a risk I was willing to take, I guess.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: My name is Jen. Well, for the sake of this story, my name is Jen. and I work at a private school in New York.
--:-- Jen: So once all of the schools shut down, I was working remotely, but middle to late summer, it was decided that anyone who was working in the school would be required to come in.
--:-- Jen: And exposing myself to the virus or exposing others to the virus made me incredibly nervous because the pandemic was not in the distant past.
--:-- Jen: It was very much in the present. So I looked into options to see whether or not working from home would be possible, just as it had been in the spring.
--:-- Jen: And that request was denied. And with that, I had a pretty quick decision to make.
--:-- Jen: Would I go into the building or would I choose to take an unpaid leave instead?
--:-- Jen: And I could not just think about myself in that matter. In reality, this decision had so much to do with my family and my family's experience because early on in the pandemic, I lost a very close family member to COVID.
--:-- Jen: They were not much older than me. They were in far better health than me. So their death was a shock, and it was very devastating to my family.
--:-- Jen: In the end, I took the unpaid leave. It wasn't an easy decision in many ways, But in some cases, it's the easiest, hardest decision I had to make because, as my siblings put to me, we can't lose somebody again.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: My name is Allison. I am a school bus driver on Long Island in New York.
--:-- Allison: I lost my job mid-March due to COVID, closing the New York schools, and I remained unemployed until the day after Labor Day when schools reopened.
--:-- Allison: My boss told me that I had to go back to work, that I was not able to refuse the work, or I would lose my unemployment.
--:-- Allison: I have high blood pressure. I have diabetes. I'm middle-aged. I consider myself in a high-risk group.
--:-- Allison: I've been very careful only going out to groceries and doctor's appointments and coming right back.
--:-- Allison: I don't even go through a McDonald's drive-thru. I can't take the risk. It's life and death and I terrified
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: We were told that all the children are required to wear masks when they ride the bus and during the school day But we were also told if a child doesn't have a mask, we should pick them up anyway.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: There's no plexiglass, there's no plastic, there are no face shields. It's not enough.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: They haven't taken enough steps to protect us.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I never thought of myself as an essential worker or a frontline worker. I'm a bus driver. I never thought I'd have to risk my life to do my job.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Josh Idelson at Bloomberg News has been reporting on the challenges people face when they go back to work.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And he stopped in his tracks when he found Irma Cruz. A single mother of three kids who works at McDonald's in Gilroy, California.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: In July, she took a couple days out sick because she was having shortness of breath and a cough.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And then she went back to work because she says her boss was refusing to pay for sick days.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And so she needed to go back onto the job.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: When she did, she got a headache. She got an Advil from a co-worker.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: The manager told her to stay at work. And the next day, she tested positive for the coronavirus.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Cruz, in an experience that echoed what I ended up hearing from a lot of workers around the country, said that her supervisor downplayed the risk of the virus, said no one else can get it from you if you spent less than 10 minutes with them,
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: and that it was confidential, the fact that she had the virus.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: so Cruz who had urged her supervisor to let her co-workers know that she had the virus came to the conclusion after talking to the supervisor that that supervisor was not going to tell anyone about this
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: and so Irma started calling co-workers herself and telling them that she had tested positive for the virus and they should know
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: she says that led to an angry phone call from her supervisor who asked her why she would tell people that she had the virus and then hung up on her in anger for revealing her own COVID diagnosis to people she worked with.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And the motivation here, according to Irma, is staffing.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: That previously there had been a situation where one of the workers there got the virus and when employees found out, they wouldn't come into work.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And so it was hard to keep the shift staffed.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So Irma's view was that the company was withholding information so that people would keep coming into work.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And that if she went along with it, if she withheld from people the information that she had the virus, then it could be on her conscience that other people could get sick as a result.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Irma Cruz's experience is part of a much larger pattern.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: At hundreds of companies, according to interviews and documents, workers at major employers like Amazon, Cargill, Target, and Delta,
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: workers at all sorts of companies saying they've been silenced by gag orders by their bosses that restrict them from talking about COVID-19 cases or discussing COVID-19 concerns.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: In some places, that takes the form of a written policy saying something like that employees should not inform others on their own about having COVID-19 or should not post on social media about their own health status.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: In other places, it's a matter of comments from managers or supervisors telling people that information that was shared with them or information they got from their own COVID-19 test is confidential and not to be shared with other people.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And filings with federal and county agencies reveal there are hundreds of allegations of chilling workers from discussing COVID cases or concerns or punishing workers because they did.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: How are companies justifying that?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: In many cases, workers say they were told this was a matter of privacy or confidentiality.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And some of the comments we received from companies about these allegations echo that, that privacy is a concern here.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: But in many cases, we're talking about workers' own health information.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: You have workers who wanted to tell people that they had the virus and were told not to.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: In other cases, like allegedly at a cheesecake factory in Arizona, what was being described as confidential was not the fact of who had the virus, but the fact that anyone in the workplace had COVID
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And while workers say privacy laws have been cited as a reason to silence them about this
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: In fact there is no federal law that requires companies to silence their own employees about health hazards in the workplace.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: To the contrary, they're actually federal laws that protect workers' ability to talk to each other and to other people about workplace concerns and particularly about safety hazards that they're confronting at work.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And what public health leaders, including a former head of OSHA, have said in facing these concerns is silencing workers is exactly the opposite of what companies should be doing to get a handle on the virus.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: In fact, sharing information is pivotal to keeping people safe.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Has shining a light on these cases at the Cheesecake Factory, at Amazon, at McDonald's helped change any of these policies or any of these sort of norms within these companies?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Since the story came out, I've been inundated with allegations and concerns and responses from workers at more companies who say this has happened to them.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And this reporting is coming out as we've been seeing efforts to find ways to address this issue and the broader set of COVID-19 workplace fears and hazards in a moment when the federal government's response has left many workers and advocates dissatisfied.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So we've seen some states and cities moving to pass their own safety standards or whistleblower protection laws.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: We've seen litigation used to try to take on companies or take on the federal government itself to force a different response to these issues.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: We've also seen workers engaging in their own data sharing as a way to try to get around what they see as efforts to silence them and to prevent information from coming out.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: What happened to Irma, Josh?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: she is back at work and said that she still had not been paid for her time in quarantine although the franchise owner of the restaurant says that her allegations mischaracterize what they've done and that they do provide sick leave and notify people who may have been exposed.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Cruz, along with informing co-workers about her own health and refusing to treat it as merely confidential information, also took a complaint to the county environmental health department,
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: as a lot of workers around the country have gone, whether it's to the federal government or to the county or into court, trying to address choices by large and small companies throughout the United States that they say are making this pandemic worse.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Standing between employees and companies are a whole lot of attorneys.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I'll speak to one after the break.
--:-- [Music transitions to a gentle, conversational tone]
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: CHIME says with qualifying direct deposits, you can be eligible for free overdraft, up to $200 on debit card purchases and cash withdrawals.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Plus, they say you don't need to worry about monthly fees or maintenance fees.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: You can work on your financial goals through CHIME today.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: You can open an account in two minutes at chime.com slash explained.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: That's chime.com slash explained.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: CHIME feels like progress.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: CHIME is a financial technology company, not a bank.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Banking services and debit card provided by the Bancor Bank N.A. or Stride Bank N.A.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Members FDIC.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Spot me eligibility requirements and overdraft limits apply.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Timing depends on submission of payment file.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Fees apply at out-of-network ATMs.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Bank ranking and number of ATMs according to U.S. News and World Report 2023.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Time checking account required.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Credit approval, AppleCard is issued by Goldman Sachs Bank USA, Salt Lake City branch.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Terms and more at AppleCard.com.
--:-- [Music transitions to a gentle, conversational tone]
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: As an employment lawyer, Alka Ramchandani Raj has been focusing on COVID-19 at the workplace since January, but for employers, not employees.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: She's been making sure companies have plans in place to keep employees safe
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So I asked her about this situation so many American workers find themselves in
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: With no more extra benefits from the federal government you can either go back to work or quit
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And if you quit there no guarantee you can get unemployment insurance.
--:-- Alka Ramchandani Raj: Traditionally, yes.
--:-- Alka Ramchandani Raj: But there's nothing that would stop the employee from filing.
--:-- Alka Ramchandani Raj: And in many situations, employers may not contest if an employee files.
--:-- Alka Ramchandani Raj: So an employee can always file for unemployment benefits.
--:-- Alka Ramchandani Raj: It may or may not be denied depending on the situation.
--:-- Alka Ramchandani Raj: But basically, employees face a tough road if they feel uncomfortable with something their employer is asking them to do because they probably won't get unemployment benefits if they quit, historically speaking.
--:-- Alka Ramchandani Raj: Historically speaking, yes.
--:-- Alka Ramchandani Raj: Employees do have the right to say if there's a constructive discharge issue, for instance, if they really do believe something is unsafe and they've talked to their employer about it and the employer hasn't corrected it,
--:-- Alka Ramchandani Raj: in those cases, they may be able to claim constructive discharge.
--:-- Alka Ramchandani Raj: And in that situation, most of the time, unemployment is granted, at least in certain states that are prone to grant unemployment benefits to employees.
--:-- Alka Ramchandani Raj: And how many states are those?
--:-- Alka Ramchandani Raj: Quite a few, I would like to say.
--:-- Alka Ramchandani Raj: Like half?
--:-- Alka Ramchandani Raj: Less than half?
--:-- Alka Ramchandani Raj: It's hard to say.
--:-- Alka Ramchandani Raj: I would say about 50%. percent.
--:-- Alka Ramchandani Raj: So what about the rest of the country?
--:-- Alka Ramchandani Raj: What about the 50 percent who aren't going to get unemployment and might be forced back into an uncomfortable position or maybe even forced back and then told not to say anything when people come down with COVID like we heard about Irma?
--:-- Alka Ramchandani Raj: Well, in those situations, employees have the right to go to an attorney and try to see what other claims they can allege against their employer.
--:-- Alka Ramchandani Raj: There's always some sort of recourse.
--:-- Alka Ramchandani Raj: And if an employer is doing something that's against the law, there's always that ability for the employee to file a lawsuit against the employer,
--:-- Alka Ramchandani Raj: which is what we see across the nation.
--:-- Alka Ramchandani Raj: You know, with COVID-19, we are seeing an increase in whistleblower claims and other claims of that sort where the employee may complain about a workplace issue, a workplace exposure issue.
--:-- Alka Ramchandani Raj: In addition, they can also complain to OSHA.
--:-- Alka Ramchandani Raj: OSHA's accepting complaints.
--:-- Alka Ramchandani Raj: I could tell you specifically to my state, California, the division had received over 3,500 complaints over four months between, I think it was February and July.
--:-- Alka Ramchandani Raj: I mean, what's the liability employers have if they are, you know, causing super spreading events right now, if they mandate that people come back and then all of those people get sick?
--:-- Alka Ramchandani Raj: Well, there's a lot of liability that's involved.
--:-- Alka Ramchandani Raj: An employer could be, of course, shut down.
--:-- Alka Ramchandani Raj: But on top of that, there could be wrongful death claims if there's a fatality involved.
--:-- Alka Ramchandani Raj: There could be, of course, numerous workers' compensation claims if those employees did actually get the virus at work or if they're in a state where there's a presumption that if an employee is working and they contract COVID-19, they got it at work.
--:-- Alka Ramchandani Raj: From an OSHA standpoint, in those facilities where there's clusters of cases or there's outbreaks, you know, you could have an extensive amount of penalties.
--:-- Alka Ramchandani Raj: The largest we've seen with COVID-19 was in California, which was a $400,000 violation.
--:-- Alka Ramchandani Raj: So there's a lot of different types of liability that can come up if an employer is not trying to protect its workers.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: You're kind of in the middle of this, advising companies on health and safety for employees.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I wonder, you know, do you think this situation we're in favors employers or employees?
--:-- Alka Ramchandani Raj: Employers stand to lose a lot of money. Employees could lose their lives.
--:-- Alka Ramchandani Raj: I think it depends where you're at.
--:-- Alka Ramchandani Raj: I think there are some states like Oregon, Virginia, California, that either have developed emergency rules or developing emergency rules, even Michigan,
--:-- Alka Ramchandani Raj: where they are properly inspecting and investigating any type of COVID complaint.
--:-- Alka Ramchandani Raj: We are seeing a lot of that in many states.
--:-- Alka Ramchandani Raj: And in other states, probably not.
--:-- Alka Ramchandani Raj: As I mentioned, 50% of states at least have a pretty strong unemployment program.
--:-- Alka Ramchandani Raj: I would say 50% or more states also have a very strong occupational safety health program.
--:-- Alka Ramchandani Raj: There are 22 separate states that run separate from the federal government that have their own state program.
--:-- Alka Ramchandani Raj: So there definitely are those states that are, I would consider very much employee-friendly, as there are those states that are definitely more employer-friendly.
--:-- Alka Ramchandani Raj: So if you're lucky, you live in a state that has the infrastructure to protect you,
--:-- Alka Ramchandani Raj: And if not, you're kind of out of luck?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I wouldn't say you're out of luck.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I think you just have to look at other avenues to try to get protection.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: You can always make a complaint to the federal government.
--:-- Alka Ramchandani Raj: We have seen federal inspectors come in, in fact.
--:-- Alka Ramchandani Raj: I have many cases right now with employers that are being inspected by federal OSHA as well.
--:-- Alka Ramchandani Raj: and there's always attorneys.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Alka Ramchandani Raj is an attorney.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: She works at Littler Mendelssohn.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I'm Sean Rameswaram.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: This is Today Explained.
