r/science • u/eastbayted • 1d ago
Health Sick food service workers remain top driver of viral foodborne outbreaks in US
https://www.healio.com/news/gastroenterology/20250331/sick-food-service-workers-remain-top-driver-of-viral-foodborne-outbreaks-in-us5.8k
u/Eadiacara 1d ago
People need mandated paid sickleave.
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u/Malfunkdung 1d ago
I’ve bartended in restaurants for years. I’ve seen lots of my co-workers come into work sick. The current place I work at actually requires you to go to the doctor if you call out for two day or more in a row. You only get health insurance benefits after one year of working there.
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u/DerpyDaDulfin 1d ago
The restaurant I work at has a points system if you are tardy / miss days. You get points on your record even if you miss days with a doctors note.
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u/theonetheonlytc 1d ago
Sounds about right. 13 years service industry myself. Got out due to the toxic environment that is restaurant work. That entire industry needs an overhaul.
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u/the_most_playerest 14h ago
That entire industry needs an overhaul.
So many of them do!!
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u/vinyl8e8op 14h ago
I left food service and worked IT for a few years. It’s just as bad, worse now, and less pay for what I was doing
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u/noahjsc 23h ago
I'm not American so your laws may be different bit I believe they're similar. Thats a potential lawsuit waiting to happen. Could be worth talking to lawyer. I've heard you can get $$$ from that kinda stuff.
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u/barontaint 23h ago
In America almost all jobs like that are what's called "at-will" employment. You can get fired for any reason as long as it's not because you're a member of a protected class(disabled, race, religion) is the cause for firing, even it is they usually just make something up. It's hard enough to get unemployment after you're fired much less be able to successfully sue for wrongful termination or anything like that.
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u/noahjsc 23h ago
Damn thats fucked up.
If my hours are cut for being sick I have a wrongful dismissal case up north here. Didn't realize your labor laws really had so little protection. But some states do have extra laws from a cursory search.
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u/KallistiEngel 21h ago
Yes, correct. At-will is not carte blanche for the employer. They still have to follow state and federal laws. But many workers don't know their rights and/or have a defeatist attitude about them.
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u/Shootemout 17h ago
for good reason, if you try to take them to court if the business is smart they will delay and contest everything meanwhile you have bills to pay. you will have to get another job and then you have to hope that if you gotta make an appearance that it wont interfere with the new work hours.
gave up on a case against taco bell because of the above reason, just took it on the chin since the new job i got was significantly better and an actual desk position. rgm sent me to work at her husband's store- that i never worked at before, shift was already short staffed, busiest store in the area, the drive through times were awful as a result. She fired me and I was going through the process of unemployment and whatnot.
I have a lot of labor grievances with Tacala- the folks who own taco bell, as they promote a myriad of straight illegal things to do like (not officially obv) time/wage theft from employees to save stores on labor. When I got a new job working for a temp agency that later converted me but while I was at the temp agency I got a notice that a hearing was scheduled- during my work hours. Couldn't go and everything was dropped as a result. Got the new job before unemployment kicked in so I couldn't even schmooze off of that either
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u/KallistiEngel 16h ago
I obviously can't comment on your personal situation, but the state department of labor often handles claims of labor law violations. It is not entirely or even mostly on the employee. You bring your claim to the labor board.
This is the kind of thing I mean when I talk about not knowing your rights. You only have to hire a lawyer if your wrongful termination was due to a reason other than state or federal law (e.g. violating a clause in your contract). If your termination violated federal or state law, either the DOL or your state labor department investigate it: https://www.usa.gov/wrongful-termination
Taco Bell is owned by Yum! Brands (I also used to work for them). Is Tacala maybe a large franchisee? A quick search says Tacala has 300 Taco Bell locations in the south, but that's all the info I've got on them.
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u/CustomerSuportPlease 17h ago
Or they just can't afford to hire a lawyer to actually pursue their claim.
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u/KallistiEngel 16h ago
The state department of labor often handles claims of labor law violations. It is not entirely or even mostly on the employee. You bring your claim to the labor board.
This is the kind of thing I mean when I talk about not knowing your rights. You only have to hire a lawyer if your wrongful termination was due to a reason other than state or federal law (e.g. violating a clause in your contract). If your termination violated federal or state law, either the DOL or your state labor department investigate it: https://www.usa.gov/wrongful-termination
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u/KallistiEngel 21h ago
Every state has at-will employment. That's the default model in the US (except in Montana and maybe 1 other state iirc). You do still have legal rights under at-will, it doesn't give employers carte blanche. The idea that it does only benefits employers. There are federal and state labor laws they need to follow, and consequences for not doing so.
You're right that it can be hard to enforce your rights, but the more workers that stand up for themselves the harder it is for employers to get away with violating them.
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u/Goosetiers 19h ago edited 17h ago
It's so discouraging, with how much the average worker is struggling even full-time to meet basic standards. The time and cost for an employee to litigate any of that, vs just dealing with it and finding other employment is often the difference between eating/losing your place to live.
You're aware of all this I'm sure, but the average working American living paycheck to paycheck has time for one thing, working. Another bonus for all the companies making sure we get paid as little as possible I guess.
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u/Disorderjunkie 18h ago
This is a common misconception about at-will employment. They cannot fire you for ANY reason, actually there is much more they cannot fire you for in every at will state than just protected classes.
For example, you can absolutely sue your employer in an at will state if they fire you BECAUSE you were sick for a week with covid, and it’s proven they didn’t take steps to make reasonable accommodation. They can fire you without telling you why whenever they want, but if they actually give you a REASON, i’d go talk to an employment lawyer.
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u/Immersi0nn 9h ago
So basically, they can't fire you for just any reason, but they can fire you for no reason.
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u/fuzzum111 17h ago
Yeah, American working protections are often almost a joke.
Collecting unemployment, may require fighting just to get it, and if you do it'll be a fraction of your income, and hard-capped after a certain point.
Even if you were wrongfully terminated, unless you've got proof and or a rock-solid case, finding an attorney that will take the case "for free"(meaning a % of the settlement at the end instead of $ up front), it could be YEARS before the case is settled.
Sure, you got your 100k payout from your employer, (more like 50k or less after legal, and fees) but it's been 2 years, you're homeless, and still unable to find a new job.
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u/kkirstenc 17h ago
I’m a nurse (you know, someone who is ostensibly meant to take care of sick people), and this is absolutely the policy almost everywhere I have ever worked. It is madness.
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u/virtual-hermit- 15h ago
Every job with a points system (like mine) can get fucked. Such a juvenile way to punish people.
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u/mud074 1d ago edited 19h ago
The only time I have seen coworkers call in at restaurants for being sick is when they are debilitatingly sick to the point that they cannot work. Otherwise, gotta make rent. Missing a shift feels about the same as a $160 fine. The cultural norm in the industry is to give 0 fucks about making customers sick, so long as it's not an acute food poisoning that will be traced back to the restaurant.
And as for that, the amount of people I have worked with that are particularly careful with food safety standards even outside of worker illness is a lot lower than it should be
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u/volkmardeadguy 1d ago
once you add in the fact that everyone runs a skeleton crew, one call out exponentially increases everyone elses workload so you have that on your decision to be out sick as well
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u/ZenAdm1n 23h ago
I worked at a restaurant that overcame that by having 2 or 3 unpaid on-call workers per shift. This means scheduling around a shift you won't get called in for because even if someone calls in, they don't necessarily call in the on-call workers. I'd be scheduled 4 or 5 days plus an on-call or 2, meaning I only had one day a week I could count on to be off work and one day a week I couldn't count on being paid.
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u/foxdye22 22h ago
By the way, unpaid on call is illegal. If your time is occupied and you’re not free to go to another job or do whatever you want, you’re supposed to be compensated for that.
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u/evie_quoi 20h ago
Here’s a fun fact: a lot of my coworkers are here illegally. It’s very easy to manipulate people who are vulnerable. All of them allow - with a smile on their face - their breaks to be pushed or not offered at all. Management loves these people
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u/ZenAdm1n 22h ago
It may be illegal now, but things have changed since the 90s. (Except the minimum wage for tipped employees, of course)
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u/foxdye22 22h ago
It was probably illegal then, too, but they were taking advantage of workers who wouldn’t stand up for themselves. I’m not faulting you, I’m just saying it so that other people know their rights and don’t take on call work as a normal thing.
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u/ObligationSlight8771 22h ago
He probably meant the word per diem. We do the same at work. They aren’t in call per se, but are usually available for shifts like this.
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u/travinsky 22h ago
Unpaid on call is not illegal unless you are required to be on premise
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u/FriendlyDespot 18h ago edited 18h ago
The FLSA standard isn't limited to whether or not you're on work premises, it has to do with how free you are to use your time. The differentiation is whether you're waiting to be engaged, or engaged to wait.
If you're free to do regular everyday activities then you're waiting to be engaged. The classic example is going to watch a movie, and a reasonable period of time before reporting for work sits at around 3-4 hours from the time you're called. If you're not free to do regular everyday activities and are expected to report for work in less than 3-4 hours then you're engaged to wait.
If you're engaged to wait as an FLSA-covered employee then that time is legally considered time worked and should be compensated as such.
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u/doublebubbler2120 22h ago
They did that at Trudy's in Austin, Texas. Coincidentally, one of their locations burned down. Burn, baby, burn! The owner, Gary, is an absolute dickhead.
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u/KallistiEngel 21h ago
This should not be on the employees as it's a problem caused by management. Management needs to step in and get into the thick of it if one callout will severely impact service. Good managers do, I've seen it at some places I worked. Bad managers will do anything to avoid having to fill in on the line.
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u/volkmardeadguy 21h ago
cool but "this should be..." and "they could haves..." wont change the scenario facing many people daily
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u/KeyCold7216 22h ago
Back when I worked in fast food, our shift manager was literally sitting in a chair by the dish tank doing dishes and puking in a trash can for 8 hours because we didn't have any other managers to cover and our GM made them come in.
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u/DoctorRoxxo 21h ago
That’s when you call the health department on your way to work and say hey I’m currently throwing up and I’m on my way to this restaurant to work a full shift come visit me and say hi
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u/drewjsph02 19h ago
I worked in restaurants for 20 years and it sucked so bad when it was cold and flu season.
A sick customer or coworker comes in, passes it to someone else, and on and on until it’s been two months of sickness.
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u/MysticalMummy 1d ago
Same at whole foods. You only get insurance after a certain period, you are required to bring a doctors note if you miss more than 2 days... but that doctors note does not excuse your absence, it only allows you to return.
It says you have to call in sick by law if you have certain symptoms, but then they still punish you when you call in sick.
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u/SandyTaintSweat 23h ago
And I'm sure doctors just love it when people come in with contagious colds so they can sign their "stay home" permission slip.
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u/Nedgeh 20h ago edited 20h ago
I lost my job at Ashley Furniture because I called in sick for 2 days in a row. When I returned to work (still sick but I need money to pay for rent and food) I was told I needed a doctor's note or else I can't return to work. Despite having insurance through my employer, all "regular" doctors were weeks away appointments and the only people who would see me were holistic doctors like acupressure clinics and whatnot. So I lost my job because I didn't have enough money to see an out of network doctor.
The system doesn't work.
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u/alexandra87239 16h ago
Years ago I worked at a restaurant that served breakfast. I was so sick I was coughing and had lost my voice, but came in as I was scheduled to open and didn't want to leave the 1 other person hanging. Once everything was set up I was hoping to leave because of the violent coughing fits and how do you work as a server when you have no voice. We also had a lot of elderly patrons.
The owner asked me if I was sure I couldn't stay!
Im not sure about other people but I would not feel comfortable dining at a restaurant where the waitress is clearly sick and contagious.
Not to mention, I probably would get other employees sick too.
This was about a decade ago and before COVID, but I'm still annoyed by how they treated sick employees.
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u/nonowords 1d ago
as a restaurant worker, this helps a bit, but the primary driver of people working sick in restaurants isn't them not getting paid if they don't, it's short staffing/management pressuring people to work anyway.
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u/gangler52 1d ago
At a restaurant I used to work at, when the dishwasher called in sick, one of the waitresses would have to wash dishes, which meant she didn't get tips from waiting tables.
So, that was a constant source of drama.
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u/nonowords 1d ago
unless they switch to an hourly wage for that time that is wildly illegal. If they did switch though, then that's funny as hell to me.
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u/DeshTheWraith 1d ago
I can't imagine the hourly wage they pay is anywhere near worth her time to not receive tips.
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u/barontaint 23h ago
I got $18 an hour to wash dishes when I last was doing it to help buddies out post covid. I'm told the going rate has gone up since then. Granted these are big city Cleveland rates though. If that's not worth her time then that place needs to have an honest discussion about BOH vs FOH payrate and potential tip sharing.
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u/nonowords 1d ago
it definitely wouldn't. Them having to do boh work for boh pay for a shift and it causing drama is why I find it funny.
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u/Piogre 1d ago
When I delivered pizza my wage when I was out on deliveries was a dollar less than when I was in the store. Literally the time elapsed between checking out for a deliveries and checking back in was tallied up and docked appropriately from my paycheck.
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u/Synapse7777 1d ago
My son just got a job at a local papa johns delivering pizza and after his first day he said he was required to clock out when he made a delivery. He didn't return for a 2nd day.
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u/doublebubbler2120 22h ago
I have a friend who worked for one in Conroe or Spring, Texas, and they get paid $2.35 while on delivery. Min wage for tipped workers.
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u/worldspawn00 22h ago
Damn, when I worked a papa John's in college (about 15 years ago) we got state minimum (5.50 iirc) for the entire shift, plus our tips, plus a sliding scale commission on the deliveries themselves, 10% of your first 10, then it would go up to 15% when you hit 20 in a shift, it paid really well on busy nights.
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u/unclefisty 15h ago
My anecdotal experience has been that restaurants are rampant with wage theft by employers, especially since many of the people working there are not well off and have no idea of their actual rights.
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u/Dashiepants 23h ago
Even if they did pay an hourly wage it would get eaten up by the taxes owed on tips, working a boh shift and foh shifts on the same paycheck means that you’re boh pay is going straight towards your end of year tax bill.
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u/Splash_Attack 1d ago edited 1d ago
as a restaurant worker, this helps a bit, but the primary driver of people working sick in restaurants isn't them not getting paid if they don't
This would not be an issue if there was mandated paid sick leave, because it would be paid.
You might now be thinking "no, you don't understand, these are shift workers" but that's a reflection of poor labour protections in the US. In many other countries statuatory sick pay or whatever the equivalent thing is includes people on zero hour contracts and casual arrangements.
You might think "well they would just retaliate against people who took it" except that using your statuatory sick leave is also protected. So if your employer treats you differently for taking it they are in a world of trouble.
It doesn't perfectly protect against all problems that might arise, but if the US just copy-pasted the sick pay laws from any other common law country whole-cloth it would solve a huge array of problems.
edit: I am illiterate and read "isn't" as "is". I've left the comment as is, but ignore the first paragraph. The bit about protection against retaliation is still valid. It's only possible for managers to apply pressure in that way because of a lack of protection against it, and there is a clear model for the kind of protection needed.
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u/PiotrekDG 1d ago
The dumbest part is that the restaurant owner still most likely loses more productivity overall when a sick employee comes in with a disease and infects their coworkers.
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u/Amberatlast 1d ago
Seriously, every kitchen has you working elbow to elbow with the same people in a stuffy room for hours on end. A cold can rip through a place like that so fast, and none of them have staff to cover two call-outs on the same day.
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u/Rocktopod 22h ago
Not if everyone just comes in and works while sick instead of staying home.
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u/PiotrekDG 21h ago
I mean, that might depend on the role, but presenteeism has negative consequences in general. Just the loss of productivity and mental health burdens might be enough to offset perceived benefits.
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u/Opening_Newspaper_97 1d ago
Ya calling out is just gonna get your coworkers treating you like you're a dickhead especially managers/boss
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u/SlothBling 1d ago
It’s one of the inherent issues of the service industry that I can’t really imagine a workaround for; no one should have to come in on their day off, but no workplace schedules extra staff to loiter around on property performing no labor on the off chance that someone calls out and they become needed. Honestly, I really feel like most of the luxuries afforded to workers in “civilized” countries must only be relevant to white collar workers or society would immediately grind to a halt. When Scandinavians take their summer vacations, who produces the food and provides public services?
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u/Splash_Attack 1d ago
When Scandinavians take their summer vacations, who produces the food and provides public services?
It's not all at the same time. People are entitled to a few weeks of holidays consecutively, somewhere within in a three month summer period. Businesses just plan ahead and make sure their staff don't all take it at the same time.
Or sometimes they do the opposite and do all take it at once, and simply close for a month. How many businesses are there that people cannot live without for one month?
Many businesses also take on some seasonal staff in the summer if they want to stay open. It isn't really that complicated, it's not like summer comes as a surprise to anyone.
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u/sfurbo 1d ago
It’s one of the inherent issues of the service industry that I can’t really imagine a workaround for; no one should have to come in on their day off, but no workplace schedules extra staff to loiter around on property performing no labor on the off chance that someone calls out and they become needed.
There's loads of reasonable solutions: Make the pay to go in on your day off worth it, pay people a certain amount to be on call, or have enough staff that a normal amount of illness takes it from "OK" to "busy". They all cost the business money, so there needs to be some external push, either from legislation or from unions, and they will increase prices.
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u/rileyoneill 1d ago
There can also be companies that offer “fill in” services for restaurants. Like they have dishwashers who work for them. If you run a restaurant and your dishwasher is sick you call up this company and request a dishwasher and one shows up and fills in. You pay the company, not the laborer (the company pays the laborer). If a city has hundreds restaurants it’s likely a common scenario where a dishwasher is sick in at least a few of them on a regular basis. This would be more expensive than paying a regular full time employee but at least they will likely never be short staffed and could fill positions with a very short notice.
If you work as a dishwasher for one of these companies you will probably work daily, just at a different restaurant every day. Your workload will not be agreed between you and the restaurant you are working for at the day but between you and your employer, your employer will work out the details with the restaurant. So if the restaurant owner can’t just ask you to do a bunch of extras because their agreement is with the company that employs you.
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u/funAmbassador 14h ago
Yessss!!! I’ve always fantasized about there being some kind of “food workers guild” or something. With services and resources like this to help us out. I love this industry, but man, it can be so cruel and unfair
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u/Lesurous 1d ago
Unfortunately that's socialism, an infringement on the rights of businesses, and against God's will. That's the three reasons they give us why we can't have nice things.
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u/polopolo05 1d ago
also businesses get tax breaks and grant... and loans they dont have to pay back
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u/BrewerBeer 1d ago
Shout out to Washington State for passing mandated paid sick leave.
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u/Eric_the_Barbarian 1d ago
Employers/managers also need to be liable when they let workers attend shifts while sick. It has to go beyond stated policy; it must be a bigger problem than finding a substitute to cover the shift.
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u/fankuverymuch 1d ago
One (1) pandemic later, and we still don’t have mandated sick leave. I don’t know what it will take.
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u/sysdmn 20h ago
The complete destruction of the conservative movement in America, and the utter ruin of Oligarchs and their money in politics. They will always stop it. How we achieve that I don't know.
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u/SmokeyDBear 22h ago
You don’t even need empathy to support this just a simple desire not to get infected by your food and we still can’t figure this out.
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u/Sickness4Life 1d ago
I had a manager brag about working with covid. He worked mostly in the kitchen. The entire kitchen ended up with it.
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u/ShadowSpade 1d ago
In the 'great' US of A, your employers have the FREEDOM to keep you working
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u/thefatchef321 1d ago
People need to make a wage that can allow to miss work.
In the last few years, service industry work has gotten cheap.
Everyone has to work 2 jobs to make ends meet
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u/Progman3K 23h ago
Meanwhile leon skum will continue to hack away at the social safety net while fattening himself up
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u/TraditionalLight1 1d ago
Mandated=/= efficacy. Many small /medium businesses skirt regulations easily, because enforcement is limited and costly; typically requires and employee getting fired and filing a lawsuit to hold owners accountable, so mostly the honor system.
I’ve worked in the restaurant business for years. I’ve fired people for “attendance issues”. I’ve been fired for “attendance issues.” It’s a cultural problem with America and our world in businesses where profit is prioritized over well being. Not to mention the margins are extremely thin in the best of circumstances.
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u/VonBeegs 22h ago
When you get it, there's always an HR department Nazi questioning every day you take.
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u/electricdwarf 21h ago
It feels like everything is already understaffed. I dont think many service industry jobs can even handle mandated sick leave. I mean sure, many go in because they NEED the money. But I would say the majority of people that go in sick do it because there just isnt anyone else available to cover that shift.
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u/ArtemisCatGoddess 21h ago edited 21h ago
Sick leave isn’t enough. The other problem is to justify any sort of wage increase places are slashing hours to maintain a bottom line that doesn’t decrease profit for CEOs etc. I’m a manager of a small pharmacy and I send people home and never enforce any rules in regards to people being sick. We have 5 paid sick days a year, and I can’t override that but if you’re sick stay home. Please don’t get me or my patients sick. However my staff is tiny, there’s 3 of us. So there’s literally no coverage or backup or anyone we can call to cover if people are sick, so people feel guilty about calling in. I literally have to send people home, “but you’ll be alone!” Which I can’t explain how much that makes my blood boil toward corporate. Especially since I have worked in 2 pharmacies for the same chain that have near identical script counts/workload. One store is allotted 40 pharmacist hours and 64 tech hours; the other is allotted 48 pharmacist hours and 100 tech hours. The difference? One pharmacy is more rural so the wages are 10-20% higher. Take a random stab at what allotted hours were given to the store and where the only difference was higher wage? Then we get caught in the loop of “you have too much overtime! Why aren’t these professional services being done?!” Well it’s because you refuse to hire more than a skeleton crew which is constantly behind and can barely keep up with the day to day to ensure the CEO gets his multimillion dollar bonus.
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u/MrLuthor 21h ago
But they'll use it to take vacations! You're absolutely right we should give mandated vacation time too.
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u/evie_quoi 20h ago
The problem is that we get straight time when we get sick time - which is minimum wage. We rely on our tips for a living wage. Everyone goes in sick, incredibly sick sometimes, because as long as you can stand, you gotta pay your bills.
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u/C_Madison 20h ago
That people in the US still don't have mandated paid sick leave gets me every time. It sounds like some kind of story from the 1800s or from very poor countries, not from one of the richest/the richest country in the world.
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u/sesame_chicken_rice 19h ago
I accidentally read this as, "Poors need mandated paid sickleave" welp, it still read the same
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u/Thors_Shillelagh 19h ago
Yes! But it's not just that. The workers feel very loyal to their co-workers. Everyone understands how difficult and exhausting it is to pick up the slack of a missing team member when they're sick. Team members often come in when sick even if there is sick time to be used because they don't want to burden and burn out their team. There needs to be a shift from maximizing profits to adequate coverage to allow someone to call in sick and the operation to still run smoothly.
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u/Upstairs-Teacher-764 18h ago
Yep. And it needs to be long enough to actually finish fighting a virus! It makes no sense to be handling food while you're still running a fever.
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u/AnAnoyingNinja 17h ago
peoplecompanies.Law is only relavent if it is enforced. It's not fair to the workers who are pressured to go to work, it should be the duty of employer, and they should be fined for failing to meet that duty.
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u/MourningWallaby 16h ago
I was going to say, even without reading the article I could tell this is why. when I worked in food processing you had a bunch of 18-20something year olds who didnt know any better showing up sick because 1) the didnt realize being sick was a reason to call out and 2) they didnt want to miss out on that pay.
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u/Fox009 16h ago
Yeah, I’ve seen this in the healthcare field where nurses come in sick because they’re not allowed to or punished for taking time off. I’ve also seen this in service in industries such as restaurants and bars because they’re already shortstaffed if somebody calls off, they’ll be punished.
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u/virtual-hermit- 15h ago
Also need a major shift in American work culture that recognizes the need to stay home when sick. Plenty of people go to work sick of their own volition, regardless of potential loss in pay, just because that's what's drilled into them. Work work work, no matter what. Bosses, too, will threaten and/or beg sick employees to come in because they just don't want to deal with finding coverage or being shorthanded.
The issue is a lot deeper than just providing sick leave. It's making people use it, and also making bosses let people use it. I'll never get over the dichotomy we have here between "it's absolutely essential that you come into work", and "also we aren't going to give you raises or benefits or anything to tangibly indicate how essential you are".
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u/THElaytox 15h ago
i'm not sure that it would stop them honestly. we get sick leave where i work and people still come to work sick all the goddamn time. had two people show up yesterday with the stomach flu. there's a weird work culture in the US where people seem literally afraid to not go to work for any reason.
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u/Throwaway021614 12h ago
Weird conservative business owners were so anti masking. Keeps your employees working and gives a sense of safety from the customer POV. Win-win from a /r/aboringdystopia pov.
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u/Magnusg 1d ago
Even when you have it people don't take it
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u/sewerhobo 1d ago
I have a coworker who brags about having the most accumulated sick time leave but also will come in coughing in everyone's space. Makes me want to punch a wall.
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u/Samtoast 1d ago
Hypothetical workplace you're told that if you are sick you need to stay home...however after 6 missed days you're required to bring a doctors note for every missed absence even if it's mental health related and you've already given a note from the doctor stating you've got mental health issues
Only, it's not hypothetical.
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u/FrighteningWorld 1d ago
One of the great ironies here is that food service jobs are often low paid with not enough benefits to justify taking sick days.
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u/LegallyDune 1d ago
Even in California, where sick leave is mandated for service industry workers, employers regularly pressure workers to come in to work sick. The culture is unlikely to change until managers and owners are held liable for it.
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u/Duelist_Shay 1d ago
I started a new job as a cook for one of those fast-casual dining places; got some sort of food poisoning from something I ate earlier in the day, which made me be on the toilet every other 5 minutes. I felt fine outside of that, and they still sent me home telling me not to come back for at least 48 hours of being symptom free.
This is my 4th kitchen job, and the only one to not only not pressure me into working while being sick, but actively took measures to make sure it didn't spread.
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u/greenappletree 21h ago
1/4 - I guess better than nothing - glad there are places like that.
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u/Duelist_Shay 10h ago
Couldn't agree more. I was actually kinda shocked they didn't give the whole "suck it up" schpeel
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u/swinging_on_peoria 1d ago
Feels like this should be a part of health code inspections. Inspector discovers sick workers, restaurant gets shut down temporarily and gets a bad quality grade.
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u/Dashiepants 22h ago
I have worked in the food service industry for more than 20 years as a bartender, granted mostly night shift, and have never in all that time encountered a Health Code Inspector. I only vaguely remember a visit from one being referenced by maybe two of the 8-10 restaurants I worked. You’d be shocked at how little they visit.
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u/worldspawn00 22h ago
They're supposed to come by once a year to provide a rating for the food service license in most states. More often if the restaurant fails certain metrics or receives complaints.
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u/IncendiaryIceQueen 20h ago
It actually depends on the state and the type of restaurant. Some are required inspections yearly, twice a year, or quarterly depending on the risk level of the food being served.
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u/ToMorrowsEnd 1d ago
can fix it easily. give workers a call in line. IF their boss pressures them to work sick the employee gets $1000 cash and the boss has to pay $10,000 in fines. and it's escalating, each offense the fine is multiplied into. 10th? the employee gets $10K, the company pays $100K. Just need proof of the pressure and sick. both are extremely easy today.
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u/Legionnaire11 1d ago
I've never worked in a restaurant that didn't preach "if you're sick, stay away" as part of their food safety training.
I've also never worked at a restaurant that took that seriously. They always demand that everyone be there every day no matter what health or other personal issues were going on. Not that the employees could afford to miss a shift anyway.
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u/Da_CoffeeWizard 1d ago
Had me in the first half, not gonna lie.
Thought you were about to say every restaurant you've worked in sent you home when you were sick and didn't take it out of your next month's worth of hours
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u/Eradicator_1729 1d ago
Exactly. And the fact that there’s a high number of managers that pressure them to come in and work.
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u/Area51_Spurs 1d ago
I got terrible food poisoning from a place I probably spent a hundred bucks a week at. Stopped going there.
It’s dumb af when they do that. Costs them more in lost business than just paying out sick days.
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u/worldspawn00 22h ago
It also costs productivity because they're probably getting other employees sick too.
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u/WinterWontStopComing 1d ago edited 22h ago
Not only that, even when management is supposed to know policy regarding danger symptoms and when staff should legally be required to not serve/prepare/handle food for X amount of time, call offs are extremely limited and people are pressured to work.
Or safety net procedures just aren’t known or properly understood in the first place.
What is the point of trying to have a safety net when we are always diving two feet to the left of it?
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u/HelenEk7 1d ago
No paid sick leave I take?
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u/kimch3en0odles 1d ago
No health insurance either
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u/shhhhquiet 1d ago
And squeeze-out-every-dollar strategies that leave no give in the schedule and lead managers to pressure staff to come to work sick.
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u/HelenEk7 1d ago
And part of your salary comes from tipping.. Its almost a miracle that they get people to work in restaurants..
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u/EredarLordJaraxxus 20h ago
Oh and top that off with a customer base that treats service workers like they are second class citizens
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u/ptcrisp 23h ago
this is the craziest part. not only is health insurance the cost of a new phone every month, it only MIGHT cover SOME amount of treatment! health insurance is more of a luxury item than a basic need
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u/Dependent-Arm8501 21h ago
One small example: new McDonald's employees get a $200 bonus if they don't call out in the first month of employment. Whoever referred them gets it also. They incentivize coming to work sick.
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u/General-Smoke169 22h ago edited 21h ago
It’s seen as a virtue in the service industry in the US to work while sick. People who call out are judged or assumed to be lazy. You would think the culture might have changed after covid, but it didn’t
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u/ManOnlyLurks 1d ago
House MD even made a point about sick food service workers and how they couldn't afford to miss time and so would risk contagion. And that episode is probably 15+ years old.
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u/VitaminH 23h ago
Typhoid Mary was a cook long before that!
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u/TOHSNBN 21h ago edited 20h ago
Typhoid Mary was a cook long before that!
Not trying to argue, i just like history stuff :)
Mary Mallon did not belive that she had Typhoid, most likely because she was asymptomatic. She refused to take even the basic hygene precautions, like washing her hands.
At one point she had herself tested for tyhpoid with negative results by a independent 3rd party because she did not belive the health department.She insisted to work for "rich people" as a cook because it paid better, she could have had other means of income and had to be forcibly quarantined twice because she refused to stop working as a cook.
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u/guitarburst05 17h ago
Yeah her excuse wasn’t a lack of leave or benefits. Hers was that she was stubborn and dumb.
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u/Excellent_Condition 14h ago
I wonder how much she actually believed she wasn't the reason people got sick. She wasn't particularly educated and germ theory wasn't known, but she would work places, people would get typhoid, then she would leave once the family got sick. This repeated a bunch of times.
If previously healthy people got the same illness after you started working there every place you worked, would you think it was you or something you did?
Then after she was quarantined the first time, she signed an affidavit saying she wouldn't work as a cook. She took a lower paying laundry job, got injured, then went back to working as a cook under a fake name. Every place she worked, people got typhoid and then she left, changing her name and then working as a cook somewhere else.
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u/GHSTKD 1d ago
Every fast food restuarant I've worked at would demand you come in while sick unless you got a doctor's note, which is basically impossible for underpaid workers. I've seen people who couldn't stop puking handling ready-to-eat food. I've also never seen anyone wash produce AT ALL and gloves have made everything far worse because nobody washes their hands anymore. They also stay understaffed to save money.
Meanwhile at high end restaurants we were overstaffed, given free meals, and being genuinely sick wasn't a possible firing. Working at a fancy dinner place and I was paid well and happy to work. Working at fast food I was once fired because a snow storm knocked out the power, we were closed and I called DAILY to see if we were open (I worked evenings) after three days the ice and snow were good enough I could safely get into town and noticed they were open, went inside and was told I was fired for a no-call no-show and mentioned I had called every day around 9am, I was told "oh yeah the phone lines are down".
The manager didn't even attempt to call me when I didn't show up. At my sit-down restuarant job I was told to take all the time I needed to recover when I went to the hospital. There's such a disconnect.
Fast food is also disgusting. Mold everywhere, being told by managers to ignore the temp times because food waste hurt our bottom line, etc,. This was at KFC, Subway, McDonald's, Burger King, Pizza Hut, and Taco Bell. I've heard it's almost every store from coworkers too.
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u/worldspawn00 22h ago
That sucks! I worked an Arby's when I was in school, that place was spotless, the manager spent most of the shift cleaning the back of the place, and we were meticulous about everything at close. All the produce was definitely washed as well (I did it a few times myself). Manager was also very good about sick leave. But it seems like that's not typical at all these days.
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u/chuiu 20h ago
But it seems like that's not typical at all these days.
A lot of it has to do with the quality of management. And with fast food paying less today than it did 10 or 20 years ago (in comparison to what's needed to live on) then you get fewer managers who care. And fewer employees as well. Coupled with understaffing and more demands on the individual worker, then the situation just keeps getting worse every year.
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u/worldspawn00 20h ago
Absolutely, they're trying to squeeze every penny of value from staff while paying them less every year (compared to the value of their work). Minimum wage should have been pegged to inflation or market-basket value decades ago. Average worker productivity has increased massively ahead of pay, and all that extra value ends up in the hands of the board. You can't tell me that the CEO of Google who gets paid $280M/yr is generating 3000 employees worth of value to the company!
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u/Hikaru1024 20h ago
Many, many years ago when I used to work at a McDonalds I remember being threatened with being fired if I didn't show up in a noreaster blizzard after the roads had been ordered closed. He was complaining that he was the only one in the building.
A few minutes later I'm told he was abruptly ordered to shut down by the police. Even if I'd been insane enough to try to get there in blinding conditions and dodging police the whole way, by the time I had I would have been trying to get into an empty building.
He did not bother to call me, nor anyone else he'd threatened back.
I've remembered that for the rest of my life.
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u/StopLevelingDex 1d ago
In the US it violates health code to come to food service work while sick, or at least it did when I worked in it. Yet most food service workers cannot afford to miss a shift. Just another broken system in the Land of the Free.
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u/Odin_69 1d ago
And it's not like regulators can just sit around waiting for sick people to show up for work. Yet that is who the industry has decided is in charge of reprimanding the service industry.
The actual workers have no power. Call in too much and you just get less shifts, eventually frozen out, and replaced.
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u/KeppraKid 1d ago
Currently suffering from this. The ultimate culprit here is higher ups not paying enough to get people to care while also expecting too much from too few people.
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u/Do_itsch 1d ago
So there is bird flu, measles and food service workers...
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u/Present-Perception77 21h ago
Covid is still around too. And we have tens of millions of uninsured with no access to paid sick leave nor healthcare… and they prepare and serve your food. Insane
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u/ty_rannosaur 1d ago
I work at a high end club/resort in the US and they tell us to come in when we have COVID or the flu. It’s on us to find coverage and we are looked down on for calling in sick
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u/Protect-Their-Smiles 1d ago
In America workers are forced to work, even if they are sick. In much of the world, that would be considered a terrible idea. But the billionaire class prefers their servants live paycheck-to-paycheck with no safety net.
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u/battyeyed 1d ago
As someone who has been in the industry for a decade—a lot of restaurants are not safe to eat at right now. Restaurants are struggling and are cutting back on sanitation. Multiple restaurants in my food-centered city have cancelled their professional cleaners. Do you know how often unhoused people have bathroom explosions (they don’t always make it to the bathroom either)? And how often staff are expected to “clean” it? Restaurants were dirty before 2020, but sheeesh it’s bad now. Lots of places have rats and roaches. They have broken fridges that don’t hold temperatures to keep food safe from bacteria. They’ll insist on remaining open even on 110 degree hot days with no AC. Hope you enjoy sweat in your food. I’m very fortunate to have coworkers who mask. All of us maskers haven’t been sick, but the ones who don’t mask have been.
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u/volkmardeadguy 1d ago
in 2016 one of the dominos i worked at had no working AC, would be over 100 F inside, people dropping from heat stroke but managements solution was to tell people to cool off in the walk in, bring popsicles and water
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u/cpMetis 20h ago
My local pizza place (at least the only one of the 7 with pizza not identical to the others) had broken AC 3 summers in a row.
But their owner ate the cost of always having an extra man on staff during midday/evening, doubled everyone's breaks, used some huge fans to get as much airflow as he could, and changed the rules to make drinks free for staff.
Eventually the HVAC guys got swapped and the new guys fixed it immediately. Helps they weren't crackhead Facebook hires.
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u/swarleyknope 1d ago
Those “what would your employer not want people to know?” posts always have horror stories of food service workers coming to work violently ill in order to not lose their jobs. The airport food service had the worst stories (lots of anecdotes about having to run to the back to puke between customers).
This was pre-COVID. I imagine it’s worse now.
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u/Matt90977 1d ago
As a food service worker, lemme just say, low pay and managers who treat you like hitler if you suggest staying home are the problem.
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u/Shoe_mocker 1d ago
I had a coworker who was sick on shift with a runny nose. He admitted that while making a customer’s food, his snot dribbled into their meal (this is the kind of place where you make the food in front of the customer as they tell you what kind of ingredients they want). They did not notice and he proceeded to serve it to them
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u/justsomeguy325 1d ago
hands customer the terminal that asks if they'd like to tip 30, 40 or 50% with extra snot covering the little 'no tip' field in the corner
Seriously though the mentality of working while sick is scientifically proven to be counterproductive. There's been a number of studies on illness presenteeism in recent years and it's a rather complex issue. Most of us think of the angry boss putting pressure on their employees but a lot of it is fully internal.
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u/some_possums 22h ago
Eh in food service it’s often external too though. When I worked at a pizza place I called in that I couldn’t work because I was throwing up and couldn’t leave the bathroom, they said I’d get written up unless I found someone to cover for me.
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u/DeshTheWraith 1d ago
Can't imagine why a food service worker would come into work sick.
It's not like jobs don't actually give enough sick days to cover the amount of days someone is likely to be sick. And they don't pressure people not to use said sick days when they do have sick days available. And they certainly pay enough that even missing a day unpaid won't set them on a spiral to financial ruin. And they provide health insurance. And that health insurance is actually good enough that going to the hospital is actually affordable.
It just baffles me...
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u/hansislegend 1d ago
Can’t afford to be sick. Gotta go beg customers to pay my salary.
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u/BriBrii 1d ago
This doesn't surprise me at all. Most of the food service people I know are forced to come into work even when they have high fevers or obvious lung infections. They'll get their hours cut if they don't show up, or they'll get in trouble because they couldn't find someone to cover their shift which has been made their problem/ responsibility instead of a manager, etc
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u/Minute-Object 21h ago
Unfortunately, the Trump regime just cut the CDC group responsible for setting restaurant food safety standards. Without their constant push to reduce the rate at which food workers go to work sick, expect this situation to get worse.
If you voted Trump, and someone dies from this, take comfort in knowing you helped make it happen.
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u/Professional_Mud5949 20h ago
Yes! CDC's Division of Environmental Health Science and Practice was decimated yesterday. These researchers were terminated. The work they did is important. Public health is important. Environmental health is important. They provided funding to state and local health and agriculture departments. Cuts to federal funding are cuts to state funding. The effects of these terminations will reach everyone reading this. They prevented illnesses and saved lives.
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u/Wolfram_And_Hart 1d ago
As I said to my mother during one of our many debates about how things were different then when she was my age. “Don’t you realize that the biggest heath peoblem is that our food workers all go to work sick because they can’t afford a day off? National healthcare would prevent that along with taking care of smaller problems before they got worse! You know how many people hurt themselves and that becomes a life debilitating problem when left untreated?”
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u/dbzgod9 1d ago
I'm a food service worker with nearly 700 hours of sick leave accumulated so far because every boss I've had for the last 20 years requires proof of sickness (doctor's note). Also most coworkers shame me for calling in sick because I'm the only FoH worker in a buffet and the cooks are allergic to work.
So unless I can't get out of the bed or the toilet, gotta go to work.
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u/Cakers44 1d ago
If only there was some way in which workers could stay home and get treatment from illness without putting their financial security at risk….if only
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u/IAmHavox 23h ago
When I worked at a national coffee shop with a siren mascot in 2020, I caught Covid. It was the day before Thanksgiving, and I started running a fever which is really rare for me so I drove an hour and a half to get a Covid test, in the days before rapid testing.
They essentially told me it didn't matter and I would be required to work until I received my results or face disciplinary action. I worked during one of the absolute busiest times of the year interacting with people in the drive thru window. When my results came back positive 5 days later, everyone had to quarantine, and the store had to close for 3 weeks, and I was fired for "willfully putting partners and customers in danger". They told the DM later that I was deathly ill and refusing to leave the store, which ??? (Had screenshot proof otherwise thankfully.) Essentially I found out afterwards the reason they wouldn't let me leave is they were saying that people were abusing Covid Quarantine for a free vacation, so they just weren't going to let people use it. They do not care.
I've worked at a restaurant washing dishes and vomiting into a trashcan beside me because they won't let you leave, just don't want you interacting face to face with customers. In my 7 years total food service experience compared to my 15 total years work experience, I would say food service was least likely to let you stay home if you're sick.
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u/Flames99Fuse 23h ago
Not surprising in the least. Food service employees are horribly underpaid to the point that one missed day of work can be the difference between paying rent and not. Also, food service is so frequently run by a skeleton crew, absolutely bare-bones. One person calling in sick will often leave the ones who did show up overwhelmed and exhausted.
I remember at my last food service job I had cut my thumb si bad I needed 5 stitches but my boss was reluctant to let me leave, and another time I threw up on shift and the owner only gave me a half hour break.
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u/C-creepy-o 22h ago
Restaurant managers can help reduce practices that contribute to outbreaks.
Lets be honest article....restaraunt managers forcing people to come to work sick is really the number one top driver for food borne outbreaks in the US. The people would be at home sick if they could be without risk of being fired.
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u/vantaswart 1d ago
Don't they teach them about Typhoid Mary?
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u/Raelah 1d ago
Hell, if Typhoid Mary was working in a restaurant today, they would pressure her to work her shift anyways.
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u/poopin_for_change 1d ago
When I worked at starbucks a decade ago, our manager bought costco packs of emergen-c. He said "once one of us gets something, we're all gonna have it. If you're sick, take as many as you need." Time off for sickness was not an option unless you were vomiting at the store. Even then, that was a soft rule.
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u/ExplanationFunny 23h ago
Yup! At my Starbucks you could trace illness as it went from person to person. I had to come in one day with a fever and awful sore throat or get a write up. On top of that, many people there had at least one other job and/or school, and were generally just very susceptible to illness.
At my store there was an understanding with night shift to bag up the food carefully and lay it in the dumpster in just such a way so that partners who needed to could get something to eat. And trust me, no one was digging through the dumpster for shits and giggles.
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u/Theacecadet 21h ago
When I worked food service, workers were shamed for calling out sick. We also had no paid sick leave, so, desperate sick folks would always come in and work sick because they had no alternative. It is disgusting how exploitable we are at the bottom.
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u/Hyperion1144 23h ago
Restaurant managers can help reduce practices that contribute to outbreaks.
Americans, on the other hand, can also help reduce practices that contribute to outbreaks. Like workers not getting sick leave.
Americans could vote for manditory sick-leave allowances for all workers and help to fix this problem.
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u/momspaghettysburg 23h ago
A huge factor in this is likely people being sick way more frequently now due to immune system from repeat COVID infections. It’s not the only factor (no paid sick leave being another obvious contributor, as well as the view of “working through pain” as a heroic and desirable thing to do), but it’s compounding an already mounting problem. If only something existed to prevent us from catching illnesses (especially ones that damage our immune system) so we’d be sick less often, and to prevent us from spreading the other illnesses we get to other people.
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u/PleasantSalad 23h ago edited 23h ago
Most food service workers could tell you this. You're not allowed to "call in sick" without getting your shift covered (often impossible) or getting a doctors note. Getting yourself to a doctor on short notice when all you have is a mild fever, a bad cold, or the flu is almost harder than just going to work. Especially since most food service jobs don't offer health insurance or paid sick time. Need 4 days off for the flu? Even if you get the sick note, you might not be able to make rent without those workdays.
You end up going to work.
This is anecdotal and pre covid, but in 3 different restaurants, I was coughing my head off and had lost my voice. Just a bad cold, so it's not worth a doctor's visit. Every manager refused to send me home early. Just had me work through my shift... serving food... coughing my brains out.
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u/buttorsomething 22h ago
Businesses not paying enough for their employees to not take a day off remains the top driver for outbreaks in the US. That’s what the title should say.
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u/Fuglypump 22h ago
Well yeah, try to call off sick then you get told to still come in anyway, there's no paid sick leave or health ensurance but if you don't go to a doctor to get a note, you're fired.
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u/CassianCasius 22h ago
Conversation between my an my manager when I worked at a grocery store:
Me: I can't come in today I'm sick and threw up
Manager: Of well that means you got rid of the bad stuff you should be fine to come in now!
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u/Themodsarecuntz 22h ago
Its just as bad in health care.
Skeleton crew. Call offs are frowned upon. I have worked with a fever more times than I can count. My heath is second and I have actually been told that covid isn't a thing anymore. I can't even have an excused absence with a doctors note. Any call off is unexcused and counts against you.
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u/xxxtanacon 22h ago
Yup I work food service and get call outs refused and last time I actually got one they tried to fire me
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