Dutch bosses make coronavirus-infected workers work

This 9 October 2020 video from California in the USA says about itself:

At a strike rally at the Alameda County offices in Oakland on 10/8/20, striking AHS SEIU 1021 & NNU-CNA workers protested the attacks on themselves and their patients by the Alameda Health System.

Two County supervisors Board of Supervisors President Richard Valle and Wilma Chan spoke and promised that they would remove or replace the AHS management and apologized for allowing their appointed board to create a crisis leading to the strike of over 3700 workers.

In April 2020, after repeated reports of health and safety problems and retaliation against whistleblowers including the firing of SEIU 1021 nurse Saber Alaoui, the Supervisors set up an investigation committee. Their committee, however, was met with contempt by the management of AHS and Noha Aboelata, the president of Alameda Health System even kicked the investigative team out of the AHS Alameda Hospital in order to prevent them from doing their jobs.

Despite this, the Board refused to take any immediate action against the AHS management and directors.

Workers at the rally talked about their issues including PPE and the lack of staffing creating serious health and safety problems for the workers and their patients. The reported that these dangerous conditions have escalated in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic.

They also reported that numerous Cal/OSHA complaints had been made about the serious health and safety violations but Governor Newsom’s Cal/OSHA had failed to take action for the serious violations of health and safety regulations.

Cal/OSHA has a hiring freeze in place and there are less than 200 Cal/OSHA inspectors for the more than 18 million workers in California.

They discussed the contracting out and privatization of the public health system by the managers put in place by the Alameda Board of Supervisors and the failure by the Supervisors to provide proper oversight of the appointed AHS Board of Directors. According to them, the strike has already cost over $10 million which should have gone to provide proper PPE and strengthen the public health system in the County.

Workers said that the AHS operation has run like a privatized for-profit hospital chain instead of a public healthcare system.

Musicians and artists also contributed with art and music during the event.

Translated from Dutch NOS radio today, by Nina Bogosavac:

Working with coronavirus complaints: ‘I had to come, my boss said’

As the number of coronavirus infections at work is rising rapidly, corporations should be stricter about who can or cannot come to the office. In sectors where working from home is not possible, workers with complaints – such as a cold and sore throat – must stay at home. But that does not happen everywhere and that is a worrying development, say CNV and FNV trade union federations.

The unions are increasingly receiving phone calls from worried employees. According to the unions, especially in supermarkets, pressure on personnel is increasing, as in distribution centers.

NOS Stories asked supermarket employees about their working conditions … A large majority indicated that they had to stay at home in case of complaints. But there are also dozens of people who say they have to keep working. Many of them say there is otherwise a shortage of staff.

Box filler Vera (17) recently suffered from a cold in her nose. “I called the day before and my boss said I should just come. If you’re coughing all day, you have to stay home. But I’ve had a cold for a while, and then you’re just expected on the floor.”

Undesirable situation

“You notice that flex workers, including many young people and foreign employees, think: I will continue to work anyway, because imagine that I stay at home and then lose my job,” says CNV chairman Piet Fortuin. “The slow test pace doesn’t help either. People go to work anyway, while it is wiser not to.”

FNV also says that employers are increasingly dismissing cold complaints. “You can also see this in transport and healthcare. People are ‘allowed’ to report sick there, but in exchange for vacation days. Very undesirable.” …

Kevin works at a large supermarket chain. His sister, with whom he lives, had coronavirus complaints. “The medical service did not allow me to come to work. But when I called my team leader to tell them that, I got a lot of questions about whether I really couldn’t come to work anyway. It was really difficult.”

The employee ultimately chose not to work after all. “Because I follow the advice. I then called my manager, who thought it was OK that I stayed at home.”