Violet Moya, a Texas resident, describes her spontaneous firing from Sephora and how, from her point of view, the incident exemplifies that Sephora never really cared about employees like her. She describes herself as one of the hourly service sector workers that wanted more hours, but instead was given unstable schedules and few benefits.
The new Essential Workers Bill of Rights, proposed by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), aims to protect frontline workers in the next COVID-19 relief package. The bill has support from various organizations including MoveOn, SEIU, the American Federation of Teachers, the National Domestic Workers Alliance, Color of Change, and the Sunrise Movement.
While many retailers and fast-food chains offer two weeks of paid sick leave when employees get COVID-19, these policies often require a coronavirus diagnosis or official quarantine recommendation, making the polices inaccessible for many workers.
California Governor Gavin Newsom signed an executive order requiring companies in the food sector to offer two weeks of paid leave to full-time workers that are exposed to COVID. Part-time workers are also covered, to a lesser extent.
The Shift Project's report on paid sick leave highlights service industry workers' lack of access to this benefit. The report also identifies the economic hardships workers face, finding that a higher percentage of women report a lack of access to sick paid leave than men.
The Shift Project's report highlights a lack of paid sick leave access service workers have across the largest companies and the even smaller percentage that can take two weeks off to self-quarantine after COVID exposure.
The cities of San Jose and San Francisco passed emergency bills that require large companies to give all their employees 14 days of paid sick leave if they contract COVID-19. The federal coronavirus bill, which guarantees 14 days of paid sick leave and leave time for issues related to COVID, exempts business with less than 50 employees or more than 500, and as result, the bill only covers about 25% of all workers.
NBC Bay Area finds that workers are worried about taking time off from work because they may lose their jobs otherwise. In their investigation, NBC points out to the nearly 20 million workers receive little or no paid sick leave from their employers, which is further explored in The Shift Project's findings.
Due to the crisis, many companies are hiring additional workers, but current part-time employees at these companies express wanting more hours and are worried about their stability and futures. Daniel Schneider points out that current financial struggles may not only continue affecting existing employees, but also the new ones.
