Coronavirus Update 7-6-2020: Telsa fires workers for staying home after giving them permission to stay home … and after they complain about safety

"Carlos, there is no need to feel that you are going to lose your job. If at this time you do not feel comfortable returning to work, you can stay home without penalty and take the time unpaid."

That email, sent from Tesla's acting human resources director to a now terminated employee, will be central to that employee's wrongful termination lawsuit pending against the automaker.

Coronavirus Update 7-2-2020: Employee claims his remote-work request got him fired, sues

An employee suffers from high blood pressure and lives with his 81-year-old mother. He's an engineer and began working from home for his employer in mid-March when his state shut down non-essential businesses. His employer, however, remained open, and several weeks later required him to return to in-person work in the office. He refused, requesting continued work from home. The company refused that request and fired him for job abandonment. The employee sued for disability discrimination.

Coronavirus Update 7–1–2020: THIS is how you protect your employees

Mootown Creamery is an ice cream shop in my town. Consistent with Ohio's reopening rules, it requires its employees to wear masks while working. For the protection of her employees and customers, its owner also decided to require customers to wear masks while in the store.

Some, however, have been less than receptive to the mask requirement. Worse, they have taken their anger and frustration out on the store's teenage workers. 

Coronavirus Update 6–30–2020: CDC now recommends that people wear cloth face coverings in public

Your cloth face covering may protect them. Their cloth face covering may protect you.

As COVID-19 cases spike nationwide, and the CDC warns that we have "way too much virus" to control the pandemic, that same agency just released new guidance recommending that people wear cloth face coverings when in public. 

Coronavirus Update 6–29–2020: Judge hands McDonald’s a whopper of a rebuke for its COVID-19 response

A month ago I reported on a novel lawsuit filed against McDonald's Corporation in which the plaintiffs sought to have the fast-food conglomerate's alleged failure to comply with health guidance and provide PPE to its employees declared a public nuisance.

Last week, the judge granted the plaintiffs a preliminary injunction, concluding that they were likely to succeed on the merits of their claims. In so ruling, he concluded that the company fell short in its obligation to keep safe its employees and its customers.

Coronavirus Update 6–26–2020: New music Friday—Norah (en français), and a brand new Old 97’s song @suburbspod #FridayNightHootenanny

Since early May, Norah has spent her Friday nights jamming on the Rockin' the Suburbs podcast's Friday Night Hootenanny. Each Friday at 8 pm, the podcast hosts a virtual jam session via Zoom (sign up here). People can join just to listen or to share a song or two. Each week Norah's been sharing songs from the songbook she's been crafting during quarantine. Last Friday, she played her latest, a song she wrote entirely in French. (Fun facts: Norah has been taking French since kindergarten, she won the "Best Overall French Student" award at her recent middle school graduation, and I can feel her teenage face cringing as I type this.) 

The song is called, "Pas de Pluie, Pas de Fleurs" (No Rain, No Flowers). It's completely beautiful and blew me away. The Rockin' the Suburbs hosts were kind enough to share the video with me, and I'm now sharing it with you.

Coronavirus Update 6–25–2020: Are employees taking paid leave under the FFCRA? — the results

The results are in from my survey on the prevalence of employee leave under the FFCRA. Of those employers that are covered by the FFCRA:

• 86 percent have an FFCRA policy
• 59 percent train employees on the FFCRA
• 74 percent have had an employee take leave under the FFRCA