All it took was a global epidemic and suddenly it’s like we’re turning into Denmark over here.
In the last few days, a parade of American companies that had long resisted providing humane and necessary benefits to their workers abruptly changed their minds, announcing plans to pay and protect even their lowest-rung employees harmed by coronavirus.
Uber and Lyft – which are currently fighting state efforts to force them to pay benefits to drivers and other “gig” workers – announced that, actually, a form of paid sick leave wasn’t such a bad idea after all. Drivers who contract the new virus or who are placed in quarantine will get paid for up to two weeks, Uber said. Lyft offered a similar promise of compensation.
Trader Joe’s also says it will cover for time off for the virus. Several tech giants said they would continue to pay their hourly employees who cannot work during the outbreak, and Amazon said it won’t dock warehouse workers for missing shifts.
And after the journalist Judd Legum pointed out its long history of fighting sick-leave policies, Darden Restaurants, which runs several restaurant chains, including Olive Garden, said that its 170,000 hourly workers would now get paid sick leave.