What to Do When Scared Workers Don’t Report to Work Due to COVID-19
Throughout the globe, many are terrified of contracting the communicable disease, the coronavirus. With this being said, many essential workers are refusing to go to work with that fear in their minds. Read this blog post from SHRM to learn more.
Some essential workers are refusing to come to work out of fear of contracting the coronavirus. Their employers must weigh the employees' legal rights and understandable health concerns with the organizations' business needs. It can be a tough balancing act.
"A good first step for an employer to respond to an essential worker who's expressing fears of returning to work is to actively listen to the employee and have a conversation," said Brian McGinnis, an attorney with Fox Rothschild in Philadelphia. "What are their specific concerns? Are they reasonable?"
McGinnis said that employers should consider whether it already has addressed those concerns or if additional steps are needed. Often, having a conversation with the employee "will avoid an unneeded escalation," he said.
Employees' Legal Rights
What if that doesn't work? Tread cautiously, as employees have many legal protections.
An employer usually can discipline workers for violating its attendance policy. But there are exceptions to that rule, noted Robin Samuel, an attorney with Baker McKenzie in Los Angeles. Putting hesitant employees on leave may be a better choice than firing them.
Christine Snyder, an attorney with Tucker Ellis in Cleveland, cautioned, "If an employer permits employees to use vacation or PTO [paid time off] for leave, it may soon find itself without a workforce sufficient to maintain operations. Therefore, an employer may want to rely upon the terms of its existing time-off policy, which typically requires approval to use vacation or PTO, to require that leave for this reason be unpaid."
OSH Act
Employees can refuse to work if they reasonably believe they are in imminent danger, according to the Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) Act. They must have a reasonable belief that there is a threat of death or serious physical harm likely to occur immediately or within a short period for this protection to apply.
Samuel explained that an employee can refuse to come to work if:
- The employee has a specific fear of infection that is based on fact—not just a generalized fear of contracting COVID-19 infection in the workplace.
- The employer cannot address the employee's specific fear in a manner designed to ensure a safe working environment.
NLRA
The National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) grants employees at unionized and nonunionized employers the right to join together to engage in protected concerted activity. Employees who assert such rights, including by joining together to refuse to work in unsafe conditions, are generally protected from discipline, Samuel noted.
"That said, the refusal must be reasonable and based on a good-faith belief that working conditions are unsafe," said Bret Cohen, an attorney with Nelson Mullins in Boston.
ADA
Employers should accommodate employees who request altered worksite arrangements, remote work or time off from work due to underlying medical conditions that may put them at greater risk from COVID-19, Samuel said.
The EEOC's guidance on COVID-19 and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) notes that accommodations may include changes to the work environment to reduce contact with others, such as using Plexiglas separators or other barriers between workstations.
The Age Discrimination in Employment Act, unlike the ADA, does not have a reasonable-accommodation requirement, pointed out Isaac Mamaysky, an attorney with Potomac Law Group in New York City. Nonetheless, he "would encourage employers to be flexible in response to leave requests from vulnerable employees," such as older essential workers, as the right thing to do and to bolster employee relations.
FFCRA
If a health care provider advises an employee to self-quarantine because the employee is particularly vulnerable to COVID-19, the employee may be eligible for paid sick leave under the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA), Cohen noted. The FFCRA applies to employers with fewer than 500 employees, and the quarantine must prevent the employee from working or teleworking.
FFCRA regulations permit employers to require documentation for paid sick leave, noted John Hargrove, an attorney with Bradley in Birmingham, Ala.
Employers may relax documentation requirements due to the difficulty some employees could have obtaining access to medical providers during the pandemic and to encourage ill employees to stay away from work, said Pankit Doshi, an attorney with McDermott Will & Emery in San Francisco.
Hazard Pay
Although not currently mandated by federal law, hazard pay—extra pay for doing dangerous work—might be appropriate for an employer to offer to essential workers, McGinnis said.
If hazard pay is offered, similarly situated employees should be treated the same, he said. Otherwise, the employer risks facing a discrimination claim.
Andrew Turnbull, an attorney with Morrison & Foerster in McLean, Va., noted that companies with multistate operations may have legitimate reasons for offering hazard pay to employees working at locations with a high risk of exposure and not where the risk is minimal.
Hazard pay might be a good choice for public-facing jobs, where employees may not be able to observe social distancing, said Román Hernández, an attorney with Troutman Sanders in Portland, Ore.
Some localities require hazard pay in some circumstances, Doshi noted. These localities include Augusta, Ga., Birmingham, Ala., and Kanawha County, W.Va.
Inform and Protect Workers
Lindsay Ryan, an attorney with Polsinelli in Los Angeles, said that employers should keep employees apprised of all measures the employer is taking to maintain a safe workplace, consistent with guidance from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, and local health authorities.
If employers have the means to do so, they should screen employees each day by taking their temperatures and send workers who have fevers home, Snyder said. Alternatively, employers can require employees to take their own temperatures before reporting to work, she added.
"Finally, in light of recent CDC guidance regarding the use of cloth masks to prevent infection, employers should allow employees to wear masks in the workplace and consider providing employees with cloth masks if they are able to acquire them," she said.
Workers Overwhelmed by Health Care Decisions
Employees are feeling the stress of healthcare costs. In the article below by Jack Craver, he provides insight as to the pressures workers are currently dealing with in todays healthcare marketplace.
Original Post from BenefitsPro.com on July 29, 2016
In case you haven’t noticed, Americans are in a tough spot on health care.
For one, their health care costs far more than that in any other country. Even worse, perhaps, they increasingly have many more decisions to make about how to pay for that care.
A new report demonstrates the frustration and hopelessness that grips so many in the face of health care decisions.
The study by Alegeus, the benefit account platform, surveyed 4,000 adults about their health care choices. It showed that there are seldom health or insurance-related choices that Americans make with relative ease or comfort.
There are no health care finance decisions, for instance, that a majority of Americans don’t find challenging. At the top of the list was “planning for out-of-pocket costs,” which two-thirds of respondents say they found either challenging or very challenging. Fifty-five percent say the same about choosing health care benefits.
Fifty-two percent said they found “maintaining health and wellness” challenging. If respondents are being completely honest with themselves (and the pollster), that figure would probably be much higher, considering that three-quarters of Americans are overweight or obese, and a certain percentage of those who aren’t still engage in unhealthy habits, such as problem drinking, substance abuse, or smoking.
One of the reasons health care is so expensive, many argue, is that for so long, Americans have been shielded from the true cost of care by generous employer-based insurance policies. As employers increasingly shift to high-deductible plans or consumer-driven health plans, millions of Americans are for the first time confronting decisions that in the past were left to higher-ups.
Alegeus CEO Steve Auerbach explained the shifting dynamics of health care shopping to BenefitsPRO.
“In the past, with health plans paying for the majority of health care costs, consumers have been conditioned to be disengaged,” he says. “This shift to consumer directed health care represents a complete paradigm shift in how consumers will need to manage their healthcare going forward — and there is a sizeable percentage of consumers who are resistant to this change. It is definitely going to take time for consumers to acclimate, build confidence, and rise to the occasion.”
He noted, however, that a similar “paradigm shift” took place with retirement benefits two decades ago, as many companies moved from defined-benefit pensions to 401(k)s.
“The infrastructure for education and support had to be built, and consumers had to adapt,” he says. “But now 401(k)s have become ubiquitous.”
See the original article here.
Source:
Craver, J. (2016, July 29). Workers overwhelmed by health care decisions [Web log post]. Retreived from https://www.benefitspro.com/2016/07/29/workers-overwhelmed-by-health-care-decisions?kw=Workers%20overwhelmed%20by%20health%20care%20decisions&cn=20160801&pt=Daily&src=EMC-Email&et=editorial&bu=BenefitsPRO&slreturn=1470060827
Job Gains by Demographic
May 21, 2012
By Michael J. O'Brien
Despite the weakening jobs data of late, signs of an economic recovery abound. But is the rising tide lifting all demographic boats equally?
Economists continue to argue about the overall significance of jobs-report figures released by the U.S. Department of Labor, but debates notwithstanding, data from earlier this year shows that older workers -- those ages 55 and older -- may be making a better argument for their employment than their slightly younger competitors.
According the Labor Department's March 2012 figures, those older workers gained 2.8 million jobs since March 2010, compared to a net job loss of 258,000 for workers between the ages of 45 and 54 during that same time period.
Such figures should not come as a surprise, says John Challenger, CEO of Chicago-based Challenger, Gray & Christmas.
"The 55-plus population is expanding rapidly and, whether by choice or by necessity, many of these older workers plan on working beyond the traditional retirement age of 65," he says.
Some of these older workers are continuing in the occupations and industries where they spent most of their careers, he says, but many others are starting entirely new career paths.
"Because they may be more willing to work fewer hours or accept lower pay in exchange for better health benefits," Challenger says, "employers are welcoming these older job seekers.
"The older worker's experience makes it more likely that he or she can hit the ground running with little or no training and, in many cases, can do the job of two younger workers, simply by knowing the 'tricks of the trade,' " he says.
But, despite the advantages that many older workers offer to employers, Challenger says, recent college graduates should be stepping into a labor market that is more positive than in the recent past.
"Each year, we continue to see improvement in the college-graduate job market," he says. "Last year was slightly better than 2010, and this year should be slightly better than 2011."
Challenger points to two surveys to support his theory: one from the National Association of Colleges and Employers that finds employers plan to increase hiring of spring graduates by 10 percent over last year; and a survey from Michigan State University's Collegiate Employment Research Institute, which finds that employers are planning to hire bachelor-level graduates at a 7-percent higher clip than last year.
Indeed, according to DOL data from March, workers ages 20 to 24 gained 939,000 jobs during that same March 2010 to March 2012 period -- second only to the 55-plus segment.
Challenger says that, while the slowly improving economy is creating more opportunities for all job seekers, many companies have started looking beyond recovery toward expansion, and those organizations have to make sure they have started to develop the talent they will need to fuel the next period of growth.
"That means beginning to build the entry-level ranks now," he says, "so that, over the next five or six years, it is possible to identify and cultivate the high potentials who will drive the company forward."
There is also new data confirming that the economic recovery is impacting passive candidates.
According to the Corporate Executive Board, for the first time in five years, the ranks of passive candidates -- or employees who aren't actively looking for a new job -- shrank in the first quarter of 2012.
While still below pre-recession levels, active job seekers now make up 27 percent of the employed workforce, which the Board calls "another sign that the job market is recalibrating."
"Overall, this is a positive trend," says Christopher Ellehuus, managing director of the Washington-based Corporate Executive Board. "It means candidates in the labor market are feeling more bullish about job opportunities in the labor market and are more willing to take risks and move to another job with better career opportunities or better pay."
Ellehuus says the Board's new data also finds that employees who left their old companies in the second half of 2011 received 10-percent higher pay with their new employer, up from 8.5 percent in the first half of the year.
"While the global downturn provided organizations with selective opportunities to 'trade up' on talent for bargain prices," he says, "that opportunity appears to be fading quickly as the market begins to re-equilibrate in favor of candidates."
But one demographic that is not enjoying any effects of a revived economy is disabled workers, according to a new study based on DOL data analyzed by Allsup, a Belleville, Ill.-based provider of Social Security disability representation.
The Allsup Disability Study: Income at Risk finds that the unemployment rate for people with disabilities was nearly three-quarters (74 percent) higher than for non-disabled workers during the first quarter of 2012: 15 percent for disabled workers versus 8 percent for non-disabled workers.
And compared to the first quarter of 2011, the figures show no positive movement for either group: 13 percent for disabled workers versus 8 percent for non-disabled workers.
Allsup has been tracking such figures since the first quarter of 2009.
"People with disabilities often face a much greater challenge in securing employment," says Paul Gada, personal financial planning director for the Allsup Disability Life Planning Center. "Their health condition may make it difficult to continue to work for extended periods, or it worsens so they are forced out of the labor market entirely."
With all this data, it's no surprise many HR executives are unsure of their next step, says Challenger.
"This is complex time for HR executives," he says. "HR has to manage staffing demands for the next six months without losing sight of what will be needed over the next six years.
"Unfortunately," he says, "those expecting a rapid turnaround and sudden burst in hiring will be disappointed."