Amazon, World’s Richest Company, Doesn’t Want To Pay Sick Workers

Stingy and stupid.

That’s about the best that can be said of Amazon’s decision to not pay workers sick with Covid-19 and instead allow them unpaid time off.  At least most of the time.  Sometimes, they fire the sick person once they return to work.  Sometimes,they get paid upon their return.

As detailed in The Atlantic, Amazon only recently came up with a policy allowing their sick workers time off without pay.  Before that, they’d just be fired.

Considering they are the world’s richest company and logistics are their business, it’s hard to overstate how dumb this policy is.  On the other hand, I guess they figure the American taxpayers, who are already paying them, might end up footing the bill for their workers illness, and that would save Amazon some money–if the illnesses don’t decimate their work force.  There, too, the cynicism is that they’ll be able to hire plenty more people when this is over, as the rest of the work landscape will be decimated.

To be fair, the article’s web title is “Does Walmart Provide Paid Sick Leave?”

Walmart, to their credit, also instituted an unpaid sick leave policy.  After at least one employee had taken too much time off, time off he took on their advice, to recover from what he thought was Covid-19, three days, they fired him.  And because of their work points system, he isn’t eligible to be rehired until August.

Nice what these “essential” businesses are doing for their essential employees.