Help me understand this logic... it's not OK for customers to be a few feet away from other people in the dining area of a restaurant, but it's OK for low-paid (and often undocumented) line cooks and chefs, etc, to be right next to each other, interacting, sweating and toiling away in a hot kitchen? These people are heroes if they choose to show up for work, especially since takeout orders hardly tip.
It’s more OK, because the pool of customers is constantly rotating while the pool of line cooks is mostly static. Incidental contact from picking up food is much less infectious than breathing the same air for an hour.
No, it's not the same set, and it's not limited. Employees have different shifts, days off, vacation, callouts, etc. They all still go home after work and interact with their family. And the working conditions essentially guarantee that if one person is carrying the virus, everyone in the kitchen will get it, which is certainly not true in front-of-house.
This is a government policy that essentially tells low-paid line cooks and kitchen staff they are disposable and a lower priority than all the relatively wealthy people whose meals they are preparing.
You’re looking at this through a very weird lens. Low paid line cooks and kitchen staff are the ones who most need this, because they don’t have savings or a month of food stocked - where are they going to get their own food for the duration of the shutdown? It’s absolutely true that it’s still a transmission vector, but human society can’t function with zero transmission vectors.
Yes, they need to work, but they -- and front-of-house staff -- would be far better off with restaurants that are open and functioning. Perhaps not at 100%, but they could certainly allow half-capacity or "shift seating".
I'm sorry but it's simply a very bad look, when it is mandated by the government. Nearly everyone else has the luxury of remaining isolated and avoiding exposure, except for this small segment of vulnerable and low-paid workers, whose workplace has almost zero protection, to provide the most essential human necessity -- food.
There may be a misunderstanding here. The shutdowns we're seeing in the US aren't full lockdowns - under current plans, most businesses will remain open and most people will continue to go to work. I'd agree with what you're saying if there were a full lockdown happening that arbitrarily excluded to-go restaurants, but we're just doing targeted shutdowns of the biggest transmission vectors.
Virtually all white collar workers, tech, administrative, managerial - work from home. Teachers, school admins & university workers - home. Entertainment (shows, sports, movies, concerts) - home. Apple - home.
Shitty jobs that nobody cares about except during a crisis: janitorial/sanitation - work despite the risks. Cooks/food prep - work despite the risks. Grocery store/Walmart - work despite the risks. Truckers - work despite the risks.
(Trucking isn't necessarily a shitty job but a lot of people seem gleeful that technology may render them obsolete in the near future.)
That's obviously the point -- while everyone else stays safely at home, people in those jobs must come to the site and get up close to germs, other people, and possibly the virus itself. Who do you think is going to do all this "deep cleaning and disinfecting"? The CEO?
I won't be touching delivery food or fast food (or going to any restaurants) until this is over. I feel terrible for the workers in these industries and I hope we pass some kind of mortgage/rent pause and relief to people laid off or not scheduled but stopping the spread of the virus has to be our number one priority.
We need more than mortgage and rent suspension and relief. IRS has aggregate quarterly-granular data on how much businesses in a NAICS/SIC classification has paid out in wages. But not specifically who; the accountants, payroll processors and business owners who DIY payroll have that information.
We need a simultaneous approach. IRS creates a modified 941 form. Every business who files either 941 or 944 fills out new form. It has enough information to link it already-filed 941/944. And fields for list of employees, and where their pay is usually sent.
Direct helicopter drop fiscal stimulus to employers and employees. Employers in specific NAICS/SIC coded industries closed by law get wages they would normally pay taken care of as a straight grant. Direct deposit wages to employees directed by employees, cash at SSA or similar FedGov office parking lot drive thrus for the unbanked. Statistical modeling to roughly make up tip wages. Link to landlord-submitted data or statistical data is used to model and impute an additional grant package to cover a business’ rough revenue figure. Utilities-submitted data is used to estimate a third grant package. Wages, rent and skeleton utilities are granted month by month, retroactively if necessary to stricken industries. Healthcare is emergency Medicare-for-all for impacted employees. Any remaining revenue funds required are through unsecured loans at Fed funds rate.
This gives us a chance to resume our economic footing faster to status ante quo than letting businesses go under and wait a decade for the economy and equities market to recover.
Link quarantine peer pressure to grants. Each time someone from the business steps out of quarantine orders and is caught by LEO, their grant is reduced by 30%, and everyone else in their workplace has theirs reduced by a proportion (1 / total-employees&owners), with a message saying who stepped out.
Should do similar for industries deemed strategically critical and employees must come in. Sanitation, defense, energy, emergency response, transport and delivery, etc.
Take the currency hit on this grant tsunami, and hope for a rocket ride back up starting in a couple years when the vaccine is out to make up the monetary weakness.
