The rise of the sick, distressed and oppressed worker

Why does it take an international pandemic that costs tens of thousands of lives to reveal the worst in some employers and government leaders who put themselves ahead of the welfare of workers?

OK, that broke one of Rick’s cardinal rules of writing: Never lead your story with a question. But in this case, I think a question, rhetorical as it is, embellishes the senseless selfishness of some of the world’s largest and wealthiest corporations that treat its workers as if they are nothing more than disposable widgets.

Let’s start with Amazon, which of course owns Whole Paycheck — oops, upscale grocery chain Whole Foods. According to the Wall Street Journal, a Whole Foods workers group urged employees to call in sick on March 31 after seeking health care coverage for its part-time workers and paid leave for all workers who must isolate or self-quarantine as a result of coronavirus. Whole Foods employees also sought improved workplace safety measures including hazard pay and sick pay for employees who may be sick but haven’t been tested for the coronavirus.

We’ve seen a similar corporate insensitivity on the part of grocery delivery service Instacart.  Some employees stayed off the job March 30 demanding greater pay and better access to disinfectant and paid leave. 

Really, Instacart and Amazon, is it asking too much to provide these workers with more humane working conditions? You’ve both amassed fortunes on the backs of these low-paid employees. As you and dozens of other retailers desperately seek to hire thousands of new employees, providing them with a bottle of hand sanitizer and paid leave if they are sick is the least you could do for your workers who are being lauded nationwide as heroes.

And frankly, it never occurred to me just a few short weeks ago as Instacart shoppers scurried past me filling brown paper bags with spaghetti sauce and Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal that these workers would be risking their health and safety for customers. I’m guessing it never crossed their minds, either.

Yet here we find ourselves. As an insidious virus ravages our population, we now come face-to-face with an age-old standoff between labor and employer. I won’t quite say that the downtrodden workers will throw off their chains and “expropriate the expropriators,” but these companies need to quickly understand that the coronavirus is creating a radically new workplace.

While it’s just mind-boggling to consider hazard pay for hourly grocery store employees, the sad reality is these people are on the front lines spending hour after hour, day after day restocking shelves and being downright pleasant to customers — any one of whom could be a ticking time bomb spreading COVID-19.

In fact, big-box grocer Costco is among the companies (Target and Walmart, too) that are temporarily doling out extra money to its employees. Costco is paying $2 more per hour from March 2 to April 5 for its U.S. workers.

But even that temporary perk comes at a price. A family member employed by Kirkland, Washington-based Costco now understandably lives in fear of contracting the virus.

She was extremely grateful when the memo came from corporate leaders about the temporary bump in pay. Three weeks later, however, it was clear that working in an essential job among the public was taking an emotional toll on her.

She was literally crying the other night as she told me that she knows two people who have died from the deadly virus. The reality that it lurks in any customer she comes in contact with has set in.

The bump in pay was appreciated, but what is the cost? The physical toll on first responders has been apparent for several weeks. We are just now awakening to the mental and emotional anguish these employees are revealing. I doubt any retail employee ever envisioned themselves as a first responder.

As my colleague Andie Burjek so adeptly penned recently, “COVID-19 clearly has severe and potentially deadly physical symptoms. But that doesn’t mean mental health is something that can be sidelined for now.”

I don’t think I am overstating here, but governments and employers across the globe need to set aside their differences and undertake drastic measures to salve the emotional and physical needs of workers. As New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said recently, COVID-19 is colorblind.

“This virus doesn’t discriminate — it attacks everyone, and it attacks everywhere,” Cuomo stated March 30. “There are no red states, and there are no blue states, and there are no red casualties, and there are no blue casualties. It is red, white and blue. If there was ever a moment for unity, this is it.”

I opened this post with a question so I’ll close with one, too.

Is unity among government and business leaders to ease the burden on the world’s working people too much to ask?