Denver — After raking weeks for unemployment checks and peanut butter sandwiches, Jay Crillon was recently called by many who temporarily lost their jobs due to a coronavirus pandemic. The tea shop in the college town where he worked was reopened. Time to return.
However, a 23-year-old laid-off colleague in Lyon and Fort Collins, Colorado worried that he might get the virus, so he asked the store owner to delay resumption and discuss safety measures. Reluctant, they were sacrificed. Six lost their jobs permanently in May, and former employers reported to the state unemployment department that they could nullify their interests.
“You all refused to return to work,” their former boss wrote in an email.
Employees worried about their health risks say they face painful retaliation because people across the United States are told to return to work: Some of them try to stay home Losing work and thousands more have been reported in the state to end their unemployment benefits.
Coronavirus pandemics continue to strain the economy. On Thursday, the Ministry of Labor reported last week that 1.9 million Americans had filed new claims for state unemployment insurance. Companies want to regain profits with their customers. However, workers are worried about getting the coronavirus when few colleagues are wearing masks back in cramped restaurant kitchens, dental clinics, or conference rooms.
Some states with a weak history of labor protection encourage employers to report workers who do not return to work, and if they refuse to accept a rational job offer they may lose the unemployment check. I am citing state law.
Oklahoma has set up a “back to work” email address for companies to report employees who declined work. Ohio provided a similar way for employers to report denials of work related to coronaviruses.
Defenders of workers and trade unions say pushes to recall workers and drive passive employees out of unemployment benefits pose a significant risk in the era of coronaviruses. Breathe same surface and same air.
“The options are: “I’m at risk of going back and risking my life or even saying no and starting unemployment, can’t I pay my bills?” Oklahoma said. Employment lawyer Rachel Bassett said, 179 companies reported workers to the Unemployment Office.
Alabama, Oklahoma, and South Carolina are one of the few states that told workers that they could not continue to be unemployed if they refused to offer a suitable job. Missouri has received 982 reports of workers refusing to return to work.
In Tennessee, 735 workers were reported to have refused to return to work, and fears of getting a coronavirus were not enough excuses to go home. Announced that there was not. To remain eligible for unemployment, workers must be directly affected by the virus. Workers must be diagnosed with COVID-19, take care of patients, or be detained by quarantine. The law was passed in March.
Republican politicians and business owners complain that workers have little incentive to return to work if they are making more money from the emergency relief provided by parliament. It was.
Treasury Secretary Stephen Munutin recently told a Senate panel worker that those who resigned from old positions were not eligible for unemployment benefits. But the Democratic Governor of Pennsylvania took another view, saying workers should refuse to return to jobs they consider unsafe.
“This is an unknown waters,” said Georgia Department of Labor spokesman Kasha Cartwright, saying that after the state became one of the first countries in the country to reopen, it plans to hire a company with employees. Encouraged to cooperate with.
In a national interview, workers said they were anxious to continue working when the economic devastation of the coronavirus left more than 40 million people unemployed at home. With the job market slumping and many families unemployed, many said they felt unwilling to refuse orders to return to work or question safety measures at work. It was.
In the tea shop case, Lyon lost unemployment benefits after a former boss reported to the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment. State agencies ruled Lyon’s work “didn’t pose an unacceptable risk” to his health and did not leave him unemployed for 20 weeks.
“What we are looking for is very basic during an unprecedented global pandemic,” Lyon said.
However, Qin Liu, who owns the tea shop Ku Cha House of Tea, worked with his wife to raise concerns about employee safety by limiting customers in the store, installing sneezing guards at the cash register, and requiring masks. Stopped tea service and free sample of tea said to try. But if it remains closed until vaccines and cures are available, his business will be the founder, he said.
“They wanted to wait a little longer until they were out of danger,” Liu said. “But as a small business, the danger is imminent.”
Mr Liu also said under Colorado labor law, he was obliged to notify the state when six workers were dismissed and to incite an unemployment investigation.
In Toledo, Ohio, 45-year-old Stephanie Van Slambrouck said he urged his husband, who had been working for several weeks at home, to return to work as an ironmaker, resign. According to Van Slambrouck, he reads the blueprints and pores numerically all day long and rarely needs to go to the office.
However, the couple have three children and have already lost their homes for foreclosure after the 2008 housing accident. So now her husband is having lunch at his desk, sanitizing his hands, and wearing a mask for Monday’s planned meeting in a small conference room.
“I was caught,” said Van Slambrook. “We have to do what our boss is telling us, and quitting work at this uncertain time would be ridiculous. Who knows what will happen in a week? We cannot stay away from providing food to our family.”
A car saleswoman in the suburbs of Detroit, Mark Adani, worked at home for several weeks to avoid the coronavirus. He is 71 years old and has high blood pressure, and his wife has heart problems. But he recently got a final notice from the dealer. Return to the office or consider a new job.
“If I come to work, I’m cursed if I don’t come to work,” he said.
Adan said one of his colleagues had already died at COVID-19 and had his boss dismissed him when he was called back to his office.
Eventually he decided to go back. He couldn’t reach anyone from Michigan’s overwhelming unemployment system, refuse to return, and ask if they could still keep their profits.
With so few customers, Adani said he spends most of his day at his desk, chasing online leads, and worried about bringing the virus back to his wife. Most of his colleagues wear masks when they go to the break room for coffee.
“I really don’t think this place is safe,” Adan said.
Nurses, grocery workers, fast food cashiers, slaughterhouse workers, and those who seem to be “essential” have overcome these fears throughout the pandemic because they never stopped working. It was. Concerns are now spreading to a wider area of the economy.
In Boise, Idaho, Robin Cooker, a 65-year-old line cook who has chronically run out of smoking at the age of 40, is reluctant to respond to a callback to work at a sports bar that constantly collides with other cooks. Said in a small kitchen. He said he was the only one to wear a mask. The plan was to limit the table to no more than 6 people, but a party of 14 came to eat last Sunday.
Slater said he was almost certain to lose $220 with weekly unemployment and was compensated by the $600 passed as part of the coronavirus rescue bill, so he had little choice but to return to work. So far, 147 workers in Idaho have been reported refusing to work, but the state does not say how many have lost their benefits.
Slater’s anxiety hasn’t gone away after his first few shifts, but it seems that few others are working.
“Most of our servers and cooks are in their 20s and 30s,” Slater said. “They’re all like “it doesn’t really matter”, but I don’t want to go back to work and die.”
