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Sick Workers Connected to 41 Percent of Food Poisoning Outbreaks, CDC Reports
- philjohn 3y agoIs this any wonder? Lower paid work often has ridiculous rules about being off sick, if it even offers paid sick time. This is the inevitable conclusion of the race to the bottom in the US over the last 43 years.
- jeffbee 3y ago> 43 years Surprisingly specific.
- devonkim 3y agoIt’s usually political in nature I’ve noticed when being that specific and that would be Reagan’s first time. I go much further back than that to even prior to the Southern Strategy. It’s a tad of a red herring to look at a presidential term when it’s usually a lagging indicator.
- jeffbee 3y agoIf it is political it bothers me that it is off-by-one.
- pstrateman 3y agoPeople like to blame Reagan but the separation between GDP and worker compensation happens around 1971. I'm sure it's just a coincidence this happened at the same time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithsonian_Agreement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithsonian_Agreement
- cma 3y agoWomen heavily started entering the workforce around then increasing the labor pool (increased supply of labor, downwards pressure on wages.
- inetknght 3y ago> downwards pressure on wages I would believe that if it weren't for the fact that top-level pay has significantly widened from the bottom-level pay.
- ToValueFunfetti 3y agoI don't know whether the claim is true, but I think this effect supports it. Women are underrepresented at the top, so you'd expect the wage pressure to be lower there.
- nemo44x 3y agoThere’s also many more people (in percentage terms and actual) that are making top level pay. The upper middle class has expanded greatly. Once the domain of lawyers, doctors, and execs, the upper middle class has been opened to a wider range of professionals. 50 years ago this class of people was <5% of people. Today it approaches 30%. The lower class has also shrunk. So this has come at an expense to the middle class. It isn’t that the middle class is poorer but rather are closer to the lower class than upper middle. Before the middle class was much larger and more people were similar and people compared themselves that way. This is why housing in some markets seems insane to people in other markets. And why middle class people are locked out when living in an upper middle area.
- Retric 3y agoChanges to the workforce size don’t correlate well with the downward wage pressure. Similarly female participation in the workforce don’t line up well with wage stagnation. https://www.investors.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/wLFPrate021320.jpg https://www.investors.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/wLFPrat...
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- Lammy 3y agoTry 1971's “An Interim Report to the President and the Congress from the Commission on Population Growth and the American Future”, chaired by John D. Rockefeller Ⅲ https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED050960.pdf#page=10 https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED050960.pdf#page=10 (copy and paste to avoid HTTP Referer check)
- HideousKojima 3y agoRelated to your link is also the Bretton Woods II agreement which got us off the gold standard completely.
- josu 3y agoMany indicators started diverging in 1971: https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/ https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/
- leononame 3y agoI'm still baffled every now and then about the US. That paid sick time is even a thing to discuss and that the workplace sets those rules is another of those moments. Can anyone chime in in defense of this? Is there a side to this I'm not seeing?
- droopyEyelids 3y agoThe USA is extremely hostile to unions, and labor has virtually no ability to negotiate with capital. For example, last Thursday the Supreme Court just ruled that unions can be sued for losses caused by striking https://archive.is/0bYhe https://archive.is/0bYhe But that is just the last pieces of labor's power getting washed away in the USA. Already things like sympathy strikes, which give labor actual power in Europe, are completely illegal.
- twoodfin 3y ago“Losses caused by striking” is a funny way to describe the holding of the case, which was about cement truck drivers deliberately timing their strike to maximize the risk of damage to the trucks and at a minimum spoil their loads. The decision was 8-1.
- hgsgm 3y agoOr management deliberately times the cement mixing to block the strike. Everyone seems to miss that the Court did not rule on the merits of the case. They rules on a procedural question. They ruled that the suit can go forward because intentional damage was within the realm of possibility. Jackson dissented because she believed that NLRB has priority jurisdiction before other lawsuit venues. No one on HN knows who is "right".
- fnordpiglet 3y agoThe context is : Instead, the employer contended in a lawsuit, “the drivers prompted the creation of the perishable product” and then waited until the concrete was inside the trucks before walking off the job. The bar being set is intentionality in destroying property even through spoilage by setting up a situation to cause the spoilage intentionally. It’s a fairly minor erosion if it is at all.
- cj 3y agoI’m not sure higher pay would fix the problem. Money rarely fixes any social problem. I hear about workers not showing up for work from a cousin who manages a restaurant. They’ll hire someone, tell them they start Monday, and then Monday comes and the person doesn’t show up. Or a chef who has a drug/drinking problem (extremely common in the industry) calling in “sick” last minute. Obviously there are exceptions but I’m not convinced that lower pay = less reliable employee. Very possible it’s a correlation rather than causation.
- djbusby 3y agoDon't even need higher pay. Just don't be an asshole boss when folk need to be sick. Else, the burden is transferred to the clients! Would all be easier with better health-care options and assurances of an improved social-saftey-net.
- cj 3y agoI’m not convinced social safety nets would fix worker reliability (people skipping work when they’re not sick) Work ethic, reliability, trustworthiness, etc are character traits that aren’t easily changed by a better HR policy or safety nets. Unreliable workers will still be unreliable regardless of how much they’re paid.
- throw_m239339 3y ago> Work ethic, reliability, trustworthiness, Aren't character traits that are encouraged by slave wages either. You care about these values? Employees care about money, "values" don't fill stomachs or pay the rent. this is about getting paid. If I need money I'll show up to work even if I'm sick otherwise I don't get any money, I don't care about the rest, just like the employer doesn't care about me when I'm sick. You really think that these food processing companies/restaurants pay employees enough to get some some of allegiance from them or something? that's absurd.
- fnordpiglet 3y agoI thought the issue being discussed overall was presenteeism in food industry jobs causing customers to get sick. Work ethic isn’t created by not allowing humans to isolate when they’re ill either. It’s a public health issue. Will people take off sick when they’re not? Of course. I don’t think that has a social stratum. I take off when I’m not sick using my sick leave as a “mental health day,” and I’m in the upper end of the upper end of the labor force.
- black_puppydog 3y agoI remember the reactions from restaurant workers to the idea of voluntarily self isolating. In short: "The fuck out of here." It was a bit of an eye-opener to me at the time; the idea of no paid sick leave was very strange to me and let me mentally prepare for quite a long pandemic...
- CoastalCoder 3y agoThe article seems to conflate food poisoning with food-born illness [0]. [0] https://apnews.com/article/health-poisoning-food-poisoning-1f3a3a53630447f3919a093b077bce65 https://apnews.com/article/health-poisoning-food-poisoning-1...
- aaronbrethorst 3y agoProbably because if you got sick after eating at a restaurant, you wouldn't say 'wow, I contracted norovirus from a sick employee or ate old or mishandled food!' You'd just say 'I got food poisoning!'
- JustFalse 3y agoLol, wish in one hand serve food in the other. So long as we don't have universal healthcare and paid sick leave in the US poor folks are gonna make your food while they're sick.
- lifeisstillgood 3y agoImagine a world where every employee not only had the sort of sick-cover nice white collar jobs in software get, but got paid sufficiently well they could afford to put their kids through college and had enough left over that they coukd walk out of any job confident that they could take months to find the next one. Imagine a world where business had to really actually compete for workers. Wonder what that world would look like?
- zulban 3y agoService industry purchases like burgers would be a lot more expensive and I'd gladly pay.
- inamberclad 3y agoExcept that in nations that require such labor protections still have plentiful and reasonably cheap fast food. The US really does just get the worst of both worlds.
- Larrikin 3y agoDon't forget that restaurants not only exist at reasonable prices, but they don't all go out of business without tipping.
- HarryHirsch 3y agoSomething has to give if a greater share of sales goes to wages and benefits - it's usually the rent. Imagine: not only does labour and the customer benefit from better worker protection, the supremely unproductive real estate sector gets a smaller share. Wins for eveyone except the FIRE sector.
- cj 3y agoHadn’t heard of FIRE, in case it helps anyone else: > FIRE refers to a sector of the economy composed of finance, insurance, and real estate
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- NoZebra120vClip 3y agoWhen I worked front desk, it was made known that I was indispensable. We had a storm with law enforcement urging folks to stay home, and I took two buses then slogged through a flood to get into work. I caught a cold, and my supervisor said to come in unless I was running a fever, and I'd need a doctor's note for more. When I announced I had bed bugs, they were OK with an open-ended leave though! Now a doctor's note seems to be a reasonable ask, but have you ever tried to get one? Start with limited transportation and insurance, then get into the doctor's office and ask. I think I've made 3-4 requests and at least two, I was refused any excuse. I got 24 hours off in another case. Your mileage may vary: "I work at a buffet and my typhoid may be unwelcome" could be a compelling case. But you still took two buses and showed up at the doctor's office. Don't even think about a telemed alternative. They'll render their letter worthless with disclaimers, because the HCP didn't meet or examine you in any meaningful way.
- genocidicbunny 3y agoMy PCP hated these sorts of policies, so if you needed a 'doctors note' from him, he would put down whatever you wanted. No work for a week and then no heavy lifting for a month after? Sure. Need to sleep in and start work no earlier than 11am? Sure! He'd write these out as a prescription too, which was helpful in shutting up HR after.
- alistairSH 3y agoI’ve seen the same. That’s the way to do it, IMO. Employer doesn’t trust employees to use sick leave appropriately, they should pay the price. Or we could just legislate some sanity. 10 days sick and 15 days holiday minimum nationally. But that would make too much sense.
- cameronh90 3y agoSick days shouldn't be countable except in extreme cases. If someone is unfortunate enough to get something that requires extended time off work, losing income shouldn't be a worry. What is needed is a national insurance scheme that pays your salary when sick beyond some minimum that your employer has to cover.
- explaininjs 3y agoThe percent given is deceptive, it’s in fact 40% of outbreaks where the cause was known. But since many outbreaks have no known cause, it’s only 25% of all outbreaks. Extrapolating “known cause” data to all cases is foolish - clearly if someone had been sick then the cause would be known (unless for some reason they were hiding that fact from investigators).
- kitsunesoba 3y agoEven so, that 25% represents a lot of cases that could've easily been prevented. It's extremely low-hanging fruit that would quickly be acted upon in just about any other situation.
- explaininjs 3y agoWhat exactly is this “extremely low-hanging fruit”? A federally fin cancer sick leave program seems the only option. Creating, maintaining, and preventing fraud in such a program seems far from easy or low-hanging.
- dboreham 3y agoThe stats might work against your thesis: the outbreaks where the cause is unknown might be more likely to be caused by pathogens transmitted by workers.
- explaininjs 3y agoPerhaps, but the fact remains that the title as stands is deceptive. The direction of the deception is related to the probability investigators are unable to determine if someone working at a restaurant was sick. Which seems slight.
- _delirium 3y agoThis is the CDC report that the article is summarizing: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/72/ss/ss7206a1.htm https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/72/ss/ss7206a1.htm (It's linked in the first sentence of the article, but thought I'd drop a direct link here.)
- oldgradstudent 3y agoReminds me of the 1984 Rajneeshee bioterror attack[1] which was investigated by the CDC and also blamed on sick workers[2] because they were the first to fall ill. Only after internal conflicts between the Rajneeshes rose up to the surface, it turned out it was an intentional biological attack. Netflix' Wild Wild Country is a good that covers it (eventhough it is too long, and way too nice towards the Rajneeshees). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1984_Rajneeshee_bioterror_attack https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1984_Rajneeshee_bioterror_atta... [2] https://www.nytimes.com/1984/10/21/us/ill-handlers-suspected-in-oregon-food-poisonings.html https://www.nytimes.com/1984/10/21/us/ill-handlers-suspected... [3] https://www.netflix.com/title/80145240 https://www.netflix.com/title/80145240
- hgsgm 3y agoIn 1984 people were already spamming the word "terrorism" on everything? That wasn't a terror attack. No one was terrorised or threatened. The crime was voter suppression by physically preventing people from accessing the polls.
- ersatzz 3y agoThis comment is surreal given what happened the last 3 years.
- tedunangst 3y agoU.S. Code Title 22 Chapter 38, Section 2656f(d) defines terrorism as: "Premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents". Actual terror is not included in many definitions of terrorism.
- Fomite 3y agoOne of the things every epidemiologist I worked with urged during the pandemic was universal sick leave.
- SamoyedFurFluff 3y agoI would vote for a presidential candidate that would nationalize sick days…
- sp332 3y agoCDC: Stay home if you have symptoms. Worker: I took sudafed, ibuprofen, and dayquil. I don't have symptoms!
- ipaddr 3y agoIf you want to avoid a host of problems later in life stop eating out.
- pierat 3y agoWhen I worked at Starbucks, we were threatened with "low/no hours for the next week or 2". It wasn't 'official policy', but it was certainly tolerated. 1-2 weeks is small enough that unemployment insurance won't cover that, but is extremely detrimental to the wages we got. Our store made some of the highest profits in the area, so certain policies were fuzzy. If you get my drift. That was just 1 corner cut. Unless we were in the hospital, we came in sick. I made your drinks sick. I took money and got pastries sick. I made other patrons sick. I made other employees sick. The one time I "got out of working sick" was when I told the shift manager that I felt very bad and requested home. She said to wait it out. And I suddenly had a bad urge to vomit. I was in the doorway of the front room and back room. Lets just say it was bad. I was sent home for illness that day.
- nico 3y agoThey should do a study like this about disease transmission at daycares and preschools Pretty sure most parents just pump and dump their kids when sick[0] And it’s understandable that parents do it, because their jobs kinda demand it, and their bosses are not ok with them missing work to watch after their sick kids It’s really fascinating (and sad), how we shoot ourselves in the foot by prioritizing work and money almost above all else, including happiness and the health of our families [0]: pumping the kids with meds in the morning before dropping them off at school
- WirelessGigabit 3y agoAs long as this country doesn't enforce mandatory paid sick leave and as long as employers can just fire people because they're absent too often this will continue to happen. What also doesn't help is that these are the lowest paying jobs, so you end up with someone doing 3 jobs just to keep the lights on. They cannot afford to miss work. We're doing this to ourselves.
- News-Dog 3y agoPresenteeism or Working While Sick : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presenteeism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presenteeism I once worked at a place where the Boss would kill you (figuratively) if you came into work sick. The cost of having reduced mental acuity, and the possibility of being infectious, were considered far too great to chance. We also were supplied with open Taxi vouchers, with the explicit instruction that if you had been drinking, you were not to drive.
- NamTaf 3y agoI never quite understood the meme of getting diarrhoea after eating fast food (chiefly, taco bell) because the couple of times I'd tried it in Australia, it seemed average but entirely uneventful food and didn't cause any sort of adverse reaction for me. Nor did KFC or any other one I can think of where that's been made as a joke. It was all just... fast food. Then the penny, rather like an anvil, dropped when I realised it must instead be describing by proxy the food safety standards inherent in US fast food vs elsewhere around the world. I hadn't then also factored this specific issue into that broader realisation, but it definitely tracks.
- mucle6 3y agoI don't know many people that have gotten sick and can point it back to fast food. I think its more likely that fast food will upset your stomach since its more oily than whatever you make at home. Or maybe thats what I tell myself to not think about the food safety
- furyofantares 3y agoTaco Bell just has lots of beans