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To: Buddy Boy Brands
Hazard Pay and Guaranteed Wages for Buddy Boy Brands Employees
Buddy Boy Brands employees - managers, store associates, packagers and growers - need hazard pay immediately. Hazard Pay is defined as “ As stores throughout the country, including major retailers and mom and pop shops, are implementing shortened hours, social distancing policies and new practices to reduce exposure to the COVID-19 virus, Buddy Boy Employees are being exposed to full lobbies, unchanged store procedures and a dangerous lack of cleaning and personal safety supplies with no concrete plan to attain more. We are exposing ourselves, as well as our loved ones to danger without compensation.
The CDC recommends those expressing symptoms of COVID-19 “Stay home except to get medical care”. Symptoms of the virus can last two weeks or more. Buddy Boy recommends to anyone experiencing symptoms that they stay home until they have been asymptomatic and has made it clear that employees who choose to stay home will only be paid if they have acquired sick time and PTO. Speaking plainly, very few of our employees have accrued the three or more weeks of time off necessary to cover this period. We live and work in one of the most expensive cities in the country and many will not be able to pay rent or buy food amongst our other expenses while we stay home. All this policy does is inspire more Buddy Boy employees to come to work sick, this spreading the virus to their coworkers and patrons. There are already rumors circulating the staff of employees who are working with fevers and other symptoms.
Those employees who become ill or quarantine for the protection of themselves and their families deserve guaranteed sick leave. Those who remain at work deserve Hazard Pay equal to one and a half times their standard wage, or time and a half. Hazard Pay is defined by the Department of Labor as, “additional pay for performing hazardous duty or work involving physical hardship,” with “physical hardship” including “extreme physical discomfort and distress … not adequately alleviated by protective devices.” Given the current situation — in which thousands have died around the world, there is not yet a vaccine, and protective gear like lysol and hand sanitizer are in short supply, employees who remain at work, exposed to severe illness, deserve compensation for the additional risk.
Buddy Boy needs to respond to the global pandemic in a comprehensive way that protects the jobs and safety of their employees. We have had numerous scares and close calls within our company that have been outright ignored or swept under the rug. If our employees are expected to undertake that risk, they must be compensated appropriately.
Why is this important?
The world is experiencing a global pandemic. Countries around the globe are shutting their borders, enforcing curfews and imposing quarantines on their citizens in an attempt to quell the rise of this new virus. With estimates that 1 in 2 Americans will contract COVID-19 in the next year and the duration of enforced time off from work, Buddy Boy needs to adequately protect their employees that are putting themselves at risk for the company.
All the responsibility now falls on us to adequately protect ourselves, which we cannot do if the company we work for will not provide for us. Hazard pay and guaranteed closure leave provide security, comfort and the increased morality of know our company has our backs during this global crisis.
