Coronavirus Update 10-7-2020: Could White House employees file an OSHA complaint?

Monday night saw President Donald Trump dramatically return to the White House after his three-day stay at Walter Reed Medical Center for COVID-19. We saw Marine One land on the White House lawn, President Trump emerge and walk up the stairs to the White House, remove his mask for a photo op, enter his home with his mask still in his pocket, reemerge for a reshoot, and again enter the White House maskless.

It's that last part I want to talk about. HuffPost asks if White House employees could lodge an OSHA complaint about the President's COVID recklessness? I'd answer that question with a solid and resolute "thumb's up." The bigger question, however, is whether OSHA would do anything about it.

Coronavirus Update 10-6-2020: Fired for COVID-19, or fired for irresponsibility

Prada v. Trifecta Productions, filed a few weeks ago in federal court in Ann Arbor, Michigan, asks whether an employer can legally fire an employee with COVID-19 based on the perception that the employee's out-of-work activities placed the business at risk.

The facts are fairly simple. Nicolas Prada, worked as a waiter and assistant manager at Tomukun Noodle Bar. On  June 24, 2020, he began experiencing COVID-19 symptoms and stayed home from work. He tested positive three days later. After 14 days of isolation, Prada texted his employer about being medically cleared to return to work. 

Coronavirus Update 10-5-2020: Your employees should never learn about positive test from anyone but you

Ninety percent of the [White House] complex most certainly learned about it in the news, as has been the case ever since. There are reports that COVID is spreading like wildfire through the White House. There are hundreds and hundreds of people who work on-complex, some who have families with high-risk family members. Since this whole thing started, not one email has gone out to tell employees what to do or what's going on.

– Anonymous White House Senior Official

If your employees are learning about a positive COVID-19 diagnosis from anyone other than from an official communication from you as their employer, you have failed in your duty as their employer. 

Friday follow-up: Covid quarantine/isolation, politics at work, and crab people

With the shocking news that Donald and Melenia Trump have tested positive for COVID-19 (along with Hope Hicks, one of Trump's top advisors and key inner-circle members), I thought it is a good time to review the CDC's rules for quarantine (how long you must stay away from others when you've been exposed to someone with Covid) and isolation (how you must stay away from others when you have Covid).

7 tips to manage political discussions at work

Did you watch the Presidential Debate Tuesday night? Do you think it showcased the best of America? If you do, I think you were tuned to the wrong channel. In fact, I'd argue that it was the low point of American presidential campaign history, if not all of Amerian presidential history.

Our country is broken. We are more divided than we have been in 155 years. This division also exists among your employees. Approximately half will be Red/Republican/Trump and the other approximate half will be Blue/Democrat/Biden. Given our 24/7 news cycles, social media, and the overall unavoidability of this election, these issues will bleed into discussions among your employees at work, and outside of work on social media and otherwise. 

Coronavirus Update 9-30-2020: Covid, hazard pay, and overtime

Wage and hour compliance is complicated enough for employers. Layer a pandemic on top of wage and hour compliance, and you have an absolute nightmare for companies.

Consider, for example, hazard pay.

Coronavirus Update 9-29-2020: The 9th nominee for the “worst employer of 2020” is … the covid denier

The human resources manager for a New Hampshire company is suing her former employer after she sent an email about COVID-19 to employees and required two employees to stay home for one week after going on vacations to China and Malaysia. 

She claims company officials told her she was being fired for "exaggerating 'the China Virus.'"