Dennis Dickson Worked To Clean NYPD Headquarters Of The Coronavirus — Then He Died From It

CLEANING IS FRONT LINE PANDEMIC WORK DONE BY THE LAST THOUGHT OF WORKERS THE JANITOR, CUSTODIAN, CARETAKER 

Dickson worked 17 days straight during Hurricane Sandy to keep police headquarters clean. He was working again during the coronavirus pandemic before he himself fell ill.

Emmanuel FeltonBuzzFeed News Reporter March 27, 2020



Instagram
A photo Dickson posted to Instagram of himself at work in 2015.

Dennis Dickson, who worked for 14 years as a janitor with the New York City Police Department, died Thursday from COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus. He was 62.

Dickson, who died at Brooklyn’s Kings County Hospital, was the first NYPD casualty of the coronavirus pandemic.

In a video message posted to Twitter on Thursday night, NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea said, “Today, we lost one of our own.”

“We have lost a member of the NYPD family,” said Shea, “and our thoughts and prayers go out to his family.”


Commissioner Shea@NYPDShea

Today we lost one of our own: City Custodial Assistant Dennis Dickson, who faithfully served with the NYPD since 2006, has passed away from complications related to the coronavirus. Our deepest sympathies & all of our prayers go out to Dennis’ colleagues & family. #NeverForget12:24 AM - 27 Mar 2020
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On Facebook, Dickson’s widow, Debbie, posted a photo of the pair smiling and embracing.
“This is how I want to remember my husband,” she wrote. “Never expect u would leave me this soon.”
“U r and will always be my true love,” she said. “Until we meet again, my baby.”

Police described Dickson — a native of Guyana, according to his Facebook page — as a “revered” member of the department who had first joined the NYPD in 2006.

In the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy in 2012, Dickson worked for 17 days straight, keeping 1 Police Plaza, the department’s famed lower Manhattan headquarters, safe and clean for his colleagues, even as the neighborhood around the building was plunged into darkness for days after the storm struck.

In a photo from the time provided by the department, Dickson still had a smile on his face during those trying days.

NYPD

Dickson (second from right) working in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy.

As COVID-19 presented another crisis for the city, Dickson again stepped up, working to disinfect 1 Police Plaza before he himself fell ill.

“Mr. Dickson was again on the front line cleaning and disinfecting 1 Police Plaza so that our personnel could be here safely, allowing them to continue to serve the people of the City Of New York,” police officials said in a statement.

According to the NYPD facilities team, custodians have been busy disinfecting hard surfaces that officers and staffers might touch throughout their day in police buildings, including doorknobs, elevator buttons, and staircase railings.



Dan Finkelstein/Flickr/Creative Commons / Via Flickr: steuben
One Police Plaza in Manhattan, where Dickson worked as a member of the custodial staff.

As of Thursday night, the NYPD reported that 351 employees — 294 uniformed officers and 57 civilian staff members — had so far tested positive for the coronavirus. As of Friday morning, CNN reported that 512 employees had tested positive, according to a senior NYPD official.

On Facebook, Dickson was also remembered by his mother-in-law, Christine Fernandes.

Referring to Dickson by his nickname, Double D Sexy, she spoke of her “profound sadness and deep regret.”

“May his soul rest in peace and rise in glory,” she wrote. “Just sleep on.”

CORONAVIRUS
An American Airlines Flight Attendant Has Died From The Coronavirus As Employees Fight For Safer Working ConditionsBrianna Sacks · March 27, 2020

THE VICTIMS OF COVID-19

Mark Blum
69, Actor in New York City.
Floyd Cardoz
59, an Indian-American chef in New York City.
Alan Finder
72, a reporter for The New York Times in New York City.
Dezann Romain
36, school principal in Brooklyn
Nashom Wooden
50, a drag queen in New York City.

See our full coverage here of the coronavirus outbreak here.

Emmanuel Felton is an investigative reporter for BuzzFeed News and is based in New York.

FASHIONABLE EXPLOITATION

In response to the coronavirus pandemic, big clothing brands, including Ann Taylor, American Eagle, and Anthropologie, shut their stores across the world but earned praise for announcing they'd pay their store employees during the closures.

But employees told BuzzFeed News that the companies are misleading them as well as the public.

April 1, 2020

Gene J. Puskar / AP An Ann Taylor store in Pennsylvania.

Store associates ended up getting paid very little or nothing after stores cut their scheduled shifts before announcing the closures. And employees said the companies have failed at communicating with them during the pandemic.

“They’ve been misleading, manipulative, and created far more stress in an already stressful time,” an Ann Taylor store manager, who requested anonymity for fear of losing her job, like several other people who spoke for this article, told BuzzFeed News. “People who shop there were texting me saying they were so happy Ann Taylor was paying associates, and I had to tell them they actually weren’t. Everyone is angry — clients, managers, associates. Everyone.”

[If you're someone who is seeing the impact of the coronavirus firsthand, we’d like to hear from you. Reach out to us via one of our tip line channels.]

BuzzFeed News reached out to some employees after they had commented on a BuzzFeed post about companies that said they were paying associates through the crisis.

In a now-edited announcement on its website, Ann Taylor said it was closing its stores March 18–28.

“Our associates are at the heart of what we do, and they will be paid for their scheduled shifts during this time,” Gary Muto, the CEO of Ascena Retail Group, whose brands include Ann Taylor, Loft, and Lou & Grey, said in the announcement.

After BuzzFeed News reached out to Ann Taylor for comment on the morning of March 27, the part about paying store associates was removed from Muto’s statement on the website.




anntaylor.com



The Ann Taylor store manager told BuzzFeed News that store associates “got absolutely nothing.”

“No pay at all,” she said. “If they did get paid, it was the people who usually work 25-plus hours, and we snuck them on for three hours for one day to cover managers' breaks.”

She said that Ann Taylor first directed managers like her to cut associates’ shifts back on March 12, a week before stores closed. A few days later, more associates’ shifts were cut when Ann Taylor reduced store hours.

Then, on March 16, managers were told to operate on “minimum coverage,” which meant that only two people from the management team would be scheduled to work, she said. This meant that no associates were put on the schedule.

“This was a full 24 hours before we knew we were closing,” she said. “We had associates on the other side of the phone crying, saying we couldn’t cut their shifts because they wouldn’t be able to pay rent. It was one of the worst things I’ve ever witnessed.”

So when Ann Taylor publicly announced the next day that it would pay store associates through the closures, it caused confusion and anger among employees, the manager said.

“The store associates were calling and texting, asking if they were getting paid now — after we had just told them they weren’t getting paid,” the manager said. “It didn’t just mislead the public; it misled the people who work for the company.”

A company spokesperson declined to comment.


Jels@HeyItsJels
@PButterfield18 Ann Taylor LOFT made stores SIGNIFICANTLY cut back on payroll, had store managers make a new schedule giving part-time associates maybe 4 hours/week IF that, then announced they are closing and associates get what they are scheduled. This is through the 28th. Unknown after that.12:54 AM - 18 Mar 2020

The company has since furloughed all store associates until it can reopen stores.

“We found out on March 24th that we had to call everyone from home and tell them they were furloughed,” the Ann Taylor manager said. “Associates are able to use up the rest of their sick time if they choose to, which they have very little of."

In a letter to employees published on StreetInsider.com, Muto said, “Furloughing our [store] associates is one of the most challenging decisions we have ever had to make as an organization.”

He said that it was “incredibly disheartening” for the company to take this step “due to the unpredictable and unimaginable impact of COVID-19.”

“I want you to know that as a furloughed associate, you are still very much part of our team, and it is our goal to recall you to work as soon as possible,” Muto’s letter said.





Twitter: @DrBethK, Twitter: @hartkeas

The Ann Taylor employee said the company used managers like her as “puppets” and made them look like “the bad guys.”

She said that other managers she has talked to across the company’s brands felt that the company had treated store employees unfairly.

“When we go back to work I am going to have a team full of women who dislike me because the company made us the bad guys,” she said. “We were the people responsible for doing all these awful things.”


Randy Hoeft / Yuma Sun via AP A sign on the door to an American Eagle in Arizona.

In a news release March 17, American Eagle Outfitters announced it was closing its stores at least until March 27 and that “all store associates will be compensated for scheduled time during that period.”

Naomi Slack, a store associate at an American Eagle in Oklahoma City, called the statement a "cleverly worded lie."

Slack, 43, told BuzzFeed News that while American Eagle said it would pay associates for "scheduled" shifts, it didn't say "we'll just take you off the schedule."

"That's so shitty," Slack said.


Courtesy of Naomi Slack

Slack, who was hired at American Eagle a little over a week before it closed its stores, was expecting to be scheduled for at least 10 hours a week as a part-time store associate.

But on Tuesday, when Slack logged into the employee website to check how many hours she would be getting paid for, "I felt like I got punched in the gut."

"I got zero hours because I got scheduled for zero hours," Slack said.

Slack, who still has her day job at another company, said she was depending on the approximately $100 she would have gotten from American Eagle to go toward her medical treatments and the "extra money I need every month to make sure I don't overdraft my checking account by pay day."

Slack said American Eagle's statement to the public and to employees about paying store associates for their scheduled shifts did not clarify that some associates like her would not get scheduled at all.

"They shouldn't get the press they're getting for being kind to their employees. when they're not," she said.

Slack provided BuzzFeed News with screenshots of group chats in which her store manager informed associates about closures and the pay schedule during that period.

In one message on March 18, Slack's coworker asked their store manager, "So we will get scheduled but not have to come in and we will get payed [sic] for those days!!"

The store manager replied, "That's the idea BUT if corporate feels we 'overscheduled' they can pull the hours out. Hopefully we fell into their guidelines."


Slack

He later added that not everyone was scheduled and that priority was given to leaders and core associates.

"Then if hours were left, we could schedule flex associates," Slack's store manager said in the chat.

Slack told BuzzFeed News that she had never been told she was a "flex associate" and did not even know what that meant.

When she found out she had not been scheduled to work at all during the store closures, Slack asked the store manager about it.

"I know that you guys were going to scale down but I didn't think it would be to zero [hours]," Slack told him.

"We only had a limited amount of hours to use," her manager replied. "The priority was full time at 40 then our core staff at at least 12. after that there really wasn't much to use."







When Slack lamented to him about needing the money, the manager told her, "It's something new none of us have gone through."

Slack said she will look for another second job soon. She said that American Eagle should have paid all their store associates for the two weeks.

"They have more than enough money to do it," she said. "It's a billion-dollar brand."

In a message to her direct manager, Slack complained about the company's misleading statement.

"It's shady," Slack said in the message. "Feels like a dirty trick after what they said cuz I could have started working on another job somewhere else 3 weeks ago."

Her manager replied, "I understand how frustrating it can be, just know that you are not alone."

A 21-year-old store associate for American Eagle in Oregon told BuzzFeed News that the company's statement about paying store associates was “misleading."

On March 16, the associate — who did not wish to be identified for fear of losing her job — said she got a call from her manager after the company shortened their store hours. She was scheduled to work for three shifts that week, but due to the reduced hours, the manager had to cut two of the shifts.

The next day, she found out — through an American Eagle mass email sent to all customers on their subscription list — that it was closing all its stores.

Only after that email did her store manager tell associates via group text that their store was closing.

“So before the decision to close the store was made, associates were called and asked to reschedule or cut their shifts, that they otherwise would have been compensated for,” the associate told BuzzFeed News.

She said that if her scheduled shifts had not been cut she would have made $135 (before taxes) for the week. After two of her three shifts were cut, she made only $45 for the week after stores closed.

“While I am thankful for the time I was compensated for, it’s upsetting that what I would have normally been paid was cut over half for my last check until further notice,” the associate said. “This has affected me greatly financially. Like many store employees, I do not know when I will be making an income again, and am having trouble applying for unemployment since American Eagle has not laid off their employees yet.”

The company did not reopen its stores on March 27 as previously announced, and associates have not heard from the company about when the stores will likely reopen or if they will be paid during this time.

She doesn't know of any associate who had shifts scheduled this far out, which means they wouldn't be compensated.

She added that there has been “minimal communication” from American Eagle.

The assistant store manager sent associates a group text March 27 informing them about how they could send photos to be posted to the store’s Instagram account during the closure.

The manager “casually mentioned, ‘While we don’t have a date for when we return…’ but did not expand on that,” the associate said.

On Monday, the store assistant manager contacted the associates on group text to tell them the company had given associates a coupon code for 25% off.

“Not exactly the compensation some of us were hoping for,” the associate said.

She said that associates still haven’t received a company email about what the continued store closures mean for store employees.

“I unfortunately do feel the company could be handling this situation better,” she said. “I feel at the very least, clear and consistent communication directly with the employees would make a positive difference.”

American Eagle Outfitters did not return multiple requests for comment.

Gado Images / Sipa USA via AP An Anthropologie store in California in 2019.

URBN, which includes brands like Anthropologie, Urban Outfitters, Free People, BHLDN, and Terrain, publicly announced it was closing all its global stores on March 14 and that it would continue to pay store employees.

But Anthropologie "said they'd pay employees publicly but have so far made no attempt to give employees any actual information about what's going on and after announcing they'd pay for scheduled hours, promptly took everyone off the schedule. Workers with 30+ hours a week are getting only 8 hours ‘quarantine pay,’” one person commented on BuzzFeed.

When asked about the commenter's claims, URBN said in a statement to BuzzFeed News that it was “standard business practice for retailers to adjust store associate schedules according to traffic and demand trends.”

The statement said that, "due to the impact of COVID-19 and the rapidly declining retail store environment during the week of March 9th," store employees' schedules "had been adjusted downward.”


“We understand employees may question the timing of this change, but these two decisions were 100% mutually exclusive as we continued to react quickly and ever changing conditions,” the statement said. “Notwithstanding deteriorating conditions in the market, we chose to honor those scheduled hours.”

On Tuesday, March 31, URBN announced that it was furloughing “a number of store, wholesale and home office employees” for 60 days as store closures "continued for the foreseeable future."

The company said that impacted employees will continue to receive enrolled benefits during their furlough and be able to collect unemployment compensation.

“We will make every effort to assist those furloughed in receiving all benefits available to them,” URBN said.

In the meantime, store associates are struggling to make ends meet.


The 21-year-old American Eagle store associate said she was having trouble qualifying for unemployment.

"I normally have two jobs that I am financially dependent on (as well as providing child care), and my other job laid me off, so I have been filing for unemployment since I was laid off from that job on [March 20],” she said. She said unemployment representatives had advised her to continue applying weekly even though she was still employed by American Eagle.

“I still have not heard anything back from the unemployment office, however,” she said.


MORE ON THIS
Starbucks Employees Got Sick. Starbucks Stores Stayed Open.Albert Samaha · March 26, 2020
These Retailers Have Been Staying Open. Employees Say They’re Afraid For Themselves And Others.Albert Samaha · March 18, 2020
Costco Employees Are Testing Positive For The Coronavirus And Their Coworkers Say Managers Aren't Being TransparentBrianna Sacks · March 25, 2020



Tasneem Nashrulla is a reporter for BuzzFeed News and is based in New York.
Contact Tasneem Nashrulla at tasneem.nashrulla@buzzfeed.com.

Workers at Bezos-owned companies plan MORE protests: Staff at second Amazon warehouse walkout as Whole Foods 'sick out' organizers slam the billionaire and execs for criticizing their demonstration 'while they work safely from home'

Amazon workers in Michigan are said to have gone on strike Wednesday at noon 

Whole Workers vowed to continue strike action after staging the 'successful' nationwide protest, warning 'this is only the beginning' in a statement

'We are the team members who continue to put our lives at risk', they wrote

Whole Foods had called workers who staged a 'sick out' protest at working conditions 'disappointing' while hailing their 'heroic' colleagues for showing up

Instacart contractors have shown on Twitter how their members are refusing to take deliveries over conditions after launching strike action Monday 

They have confirmed they will strike 'until their demands are met'

By LAUREN FRUEN FOR DAILYMAIL.COM 1 April 2020 

Staff at an Amazon warehouse in Michigan staged a walkout Wednesday days after their colleagues in New York also protested against coronavirus working conditions.

Workers at the plant in Romulus are said to gone on strike at midday, The Verge reports. Employee Tonya Ramsay said: 'I get we’re essential, but our lives are essential as well.'

Those working at the facility say management has been slow in telling them of the three positive cases at the site. They also say better cleaning and more space between workers is needed.

An Amazon spokesman told DailyMail.com: 'Of the over 4,000 employees at our Romulus, MI fulfillment center, less than 15 people, participated in today’s demonstration. Our employees are heroes fighting for their communities and helping people get critical items they need in this crisis.'

It comes as the organizers behind Tuesday's Whole Foods 'sick out' slammed Jeff Bezos and his corporate staff for 'dismissing our actions while working from the safety of their homes'.

Whole Workers vowed to continue strike action after staging the 'successful' nationwide protest, warning 'this is only the beginning'. In a statement Tuesday evening they pledged: 'We will be following this sickout with further action.'

As millions of people stay at home in the United States and non-essential businesses are shuttered to slow the spread of the virus, grocery stores and pharmacies are staying open.

A number of those working across the industry, including Instacart contractors, have confirmed they will strike 'until their demands are met'.

Unemployment in the United States hit a record high last week with 3.28million people - four times the previous record of 695,000 in October 1982 - making claims. Dow Jones say a further 2.65 million may join them this week.

One in three Americans report someone living in their household has lost their job or been forced to take a pay cut.

Employee Tonya Ramsay, right, holds a sign outside the Amazon DTW1 fulfillment center in Romulus, Mich., Wednesday. Employees and family members are protesting in response to what they say is the company's failure to protect the health of its employees

Staff at an Amazon warehouse in Michigan staged a walkout Wednesday days after their colleagues in New York also protested against coronavirus working conditions

A Whole Foods store near Colombus Circle, New York on Tuesday. The organizers behind Tuesday's Whole Foods 'sick out' have slammed Jeff Bezos and his corporate staff for 'dismissing our actions while working from the safety of their homes'
Customers stand on lines outside Whole Foods in Harlem

Whole Workers on Tuesday slammed the response from their employer, adding: 'Essential workers in all fields need to be protected and compensated for the increasingly dangerous work that we do.'

They added: 'It is disappointing to hear Whole Foods corporate dismisses our actions and our intentions in media statements.

Costco unveils new social distancing rules for shoppers who will now only be able to enter in twos

Costco on Wednesday unveiled new social distancing rules for shoppers who will now only be able to enter in twos

In a statement the company said: 'Effective Friday, April 3, Costco will allow no more than two people to enter the warehouse with each membership card.

'This temporary change is for your safety and the safety of our employees and other members, and to further assist with our social distancing efforts. Thank you for your cooperation and understanding. '

'We are the team members who continue to put our lives at risk while our corporate leadership and our company spokespeople continue to work from home in safety.'

Whole Foods had on Tuesday called workers who staged a 'sick out' protest at working conditions 'disappointing' while their 'heroic colleagues showed up to provide essential services' during the corona virus outbreak.

A spokesman for the Jeff Bezos owned grocery store told DailyMail.com they 'have seen no operational impact'.

But they added: 'It is disappointing that a small but vocal group, many of whom are not employed by Whole Foods Market, have been given a platform to inaccurately portray the collective voice of our 95,000+ Team Members who are heroically showing up every day to provide our communities with an essential service.'

As millions of people stay at home in the United States and non-essential businesses are shuttered to slow the spread of the virus, grocery stores and pharmacies are staying open.

There are now more than 200,000 confirmed coronavirus cases across the nation; the death toll stands at 4,391.

A new poll released Wednesday shows that 28 per cent of Americans have already lost wages as a result of the pandemic. A further 16 percent have been laid off or furloughed from work, the Grinnell College poll shows.

Whole Workers, an independent group say there is a lack of adequate compensation and protections from the coronavirus.

The organization has about 300 members and describes itself as a grassroots movement of employees at Amazon.com Inc-owned Whole Foods who are working to unionize.

RELATED ARTICLES

Whole Foods slams workers who staged 'sick out' while their...

AS AMAZON AND WHOLE FOODS WORKERS STRIKE OWNER JEFF BEZOS POCKETS $3.4 BILLION BY SELLING STOCK


Jeff Bezos made $3.4billion selling shares of the company in February

Amazon staff say they are struggling to access sick pay and fear colleagues are coming to work ill - as they paint a grim picture of coronavirus protections inside warehouses where 'everything has been touched by 1,000 hands.'

The online retail giant has increased pay and offered sick leave to anyone who has tested positive for coronavirus, but critics accuse the $1trillion company and owner Jeff Bezos of failing to do enough - just weeks after he pocketed $3.4billion by selling stock.

Bezos, the world's richest man, made $3.4billion selling shares of the company in February, just before the market tanked as coronavirus infections soared.

The sale saved Bezos a staggering $317million, compared to him keeping the stock through to March 20.

It also meant the billionaire sold as much stock in that one week as he has in the last year, the Wall Street Journal reported.

The sale accounted for around 3% of Bezos's total Amazon shares, and made up over a third of all stock exchange sales during this timeframe.

Bezos has also suggested that Amazon may be the solution to getting 'easy-to-access' COVID-19 test kits to people across the world after conversations he had with administrators in the World Health Organization.

In an Instagram post last week, the Amazon CEO shared that he had had a good call with WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom.

The announcement comes as workers from facilities across the US have tested positive for coronavirus.

'This isn't business as usual, and it's a time for great stress and uncertainty. It's also a moment in time when the work we're doing is its most critical,' the billionaire wrote in the memo shared on his Instagram.

Bezos said: 'Across the world, people are feeling the economic effects of this crisis, and I'm sad to tell you I predict things are going to get worse before they get better.'

The Whole Worker group is demanding, among other things, hazard pay and the immediate shutdown of any location where a worker tests positive for COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus.

If a store is closed, all workers should receive full pay until the store can safely reopen, the group said on its Twitter account.

It comes amid reports that worker at a Whole Foods in San Francisco were warned not to tell customers an employee there had tested positive for coronavirus as the store remained open.

One told KQED: 'They don't want us to tell customers. They want us to direct customers to our store team leader.'

The call for action at Whole Foods won the endorsement of the United Food and Commercial Workers union, which has 1.3 million members in the grocery industry.

Instacart workers pledge to strike 'until their demands are met'

It comes as Instacart contractors have shown on Twitter how their members are refusing to take deliveries over conditions after launching strike action Monday.

They have confirmed they will strike 'until their demands are met'.

Demands include hazard pay, expanding coronavirus sick pay and changing the default tip to 10 per cent.

Instacart contractors have shown on Twitter how their members are refusing to take deliveries over conditions after launching strike action Monday.

UNIONS AND WORKERS TAKING ACTION ACROSS U.S. AS CORONAVIRUS CASES RISE

The United Auto Workers union

Nurses demanding more personal protective equipment

The Association of Flight Attendants union

Whole Workers

GE workers staged a silent protest to build ventilators

Amazon in Staten Island

Instacart workers

Source: Axios

One Instacart shopper wrote Monday: 'Please stop telling customers it's just today. As per our original statement - we are striking until demands are met and a history of instacart abuse and lack of communication with us makes clear that won't be in 24 hours.'

Another worker showed a stream of requests from customers that were not being picked up by Instacart 'shoppers'.

They added: 'There are a lot alerts for orders and nobody fighting to take them! #INSTACARTSTRIKE is working!

A spokesman for Instacart said the strikes resulted in 'absolutely no impact to Instacart's operations', adding: 'The health and safety of our entire community — shoppers, customers, and employees — is our first priority. Our goal is to offer a safe and flexible earnings opportunity to shoppers, while also proactively taking the appropriate precautionary measures to operate safely.

'We're focused on serving as an essential service for millions of families, while providing immediate earnings opportunities for hundreds of thousands of people across North America.'

NYC Mayor orders investigation into firing of Amazon worker

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said on Tuesday he had ordered the city's human rights commissioner to investigate the dismissal of a worker at a Bezos owned Amazon.com warehouse who had participated in a walkout.

He said: 'I've ordered the city's commission on human rights to investigate Amazon immediately to determine if that's true. If so, that would be a violation of our city's human rights law and we would act on it immediately.'

The New York state attorney general Letitia James had earlier called Chris Smalls' dismissal 'disgraceful' and pointed out that the law protects employees' right to protest.
Amazon workers stage walkout in NY amid coronavirus


Jordan Flowers holds a sign at Amazon building during the outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in the Staten Island borough of New York City on Monday

'At a time when so many New Yorkers are struggling and are deeply concerned about their safety, this action was also immoral and inhumane,' she said in a statement.

Amazon said fired Smalls made 'misleading' statements about conditions and that he was supposed to be in quarantine and had no choice but to fire him after he came to the facility.

Rachael Lighty, Amazon Spokesperson told DailyMail.com: 'We did not terminate Mr. Smalls employment for organizing a 15-person protest.

'We terminated his employment for putting the health and safety of others at risk and violations of his terms of his employment.

'Mr. Smalls received multiple warnings for violating social distancing guidelines. He was also found to have had close contact with a diagnosed associate with a confirmed case of COVID-19 and was asked to remain home with pay for 14-days, which is a measure we're taking at sites around the world.

'Despite that instruction to stay home with pay, he came onsite further putting the teams at risk.'

DailyMail.com has contacted Whole Worker, Whole Foods and for comment.

Nearly a third of Americans say they've already lost wages, 16% have been fired or furloughed and almost HALF of all millennials fear they'll lose their jobs as coronavirus threatens to tip the world into a recession

More than a quarter of Americans say they've lost wages due to the coronavirus pandemic, according to a new Grinnell College poll released Wednesday.

1,009 Americans from across the country were surveyed March 27 -30 about changes to their finances amid COVID-19, with 28% saying they have lost some form of income, due to sickness, reduced hours or business closures.

Meanwhile, 16 precent of all respondents revealed that they have been laid off or furloughed from their jobs due to the evolving health crisis.

The numbers are even more dire for young Americans, with 25 percent of those aged under 35 saying that they have already been fired or furloughed. A further 20 percent expect to lose their jobs at some stage in the near future.

Disturbingly, a quarter of Americans aged 35 and under are currently going hungry, or expect to go hungry soon.

The poll gives a grim snapshot of America's current economic situation - which is only expected to worsen as coronavirus cases skyrocket across the country and stay-at-home orders are extended in many places until the end of April.


Several economists have estimated that 3.5 million people across the country will file an unemployment claim this week, up from the previous record of 3.1 million last week. Gap furloughed thousands of workers Tuesday. One of their stores is pictured

However, the Grinnell College poll also uncovers a surprising optimism among the American people, with 88% of all respondents saying they are 'confident Americans will get through this'.

72 percent say they are remaining calm, while only two in every 10 claimed they are feeling lonely.

Respondents also claimed the be following guidelines put out by the CDC and local governments.


More than a quarter of Americans say they've lost wages due to the coronavirus pandemic, according to a new Grinnell College poll released Wednesday. Pictured: a closed business in Detroit, Michigan

98 percent of Americans are washing their hands on a more frequent basis, while 84% have stayed mostly inside without any physical contact.

7 in 10 responders say they are willing to stay inside and social distance for 'as long as asked'.

The poll was conducted between last Friday and this Monday, when the number of COVID-19 cases in the US skyrocketed.

On Monday, Trump extended the country's effective economic shutdown through April 30, after having earlier claimed he wanted people back to work.



'Where can I file for unemployment': The stunning Google search chart that underlines the collapse the US economy

A stunning Google search chart has underlined the grim collapse of the United States economy, showing searches for 'file for unemployment' spiking dramatically in recent days.

Goldman Sachs now predicts the United States economy will shrink a staggering 34 percent in the second quarter, more than three times the biggest plunge in history.

The investment banking giant has also warned unemployment could hit 15 percent as the country reels from the coronavirus outbreak.

Google trends show searches for 'file for unemployment' have spiked in recent days

High end stores in Manhattan board up their windows amid the coronavirus outbreak in NYC

Economists at Goldman Sachs had warned then that U.S. gross domestic product will plummet by 24 percent in a post earlier this month.

Revising their figures they said Tuesday they now expect the U.S. economy to shrink 34 percent in the second quarter, but they expect growth to rebound in the third quarter.

They said decline would be deeper than it had previously forecast and unemployment would be higher, citing anecdotal evidence and 'sky-high jobless claims numbers.'

It would mark the largest quarterly drop in GDP on record, which is currently held by a 10 percent decline in the first quarter of 1958 during the 'Eisenhower Recession.'

There are now more than 180,000 confirmed coronavirus cases across the nation; the death toll stands at 3,699, surpassing China which has recorded 3,309 deaths.

Private sector employees feel the pain of coronavirus cuts as 3.5million are expected to file for unemployment and as many as 47million could be laid off

Private sector employees are enduring the worst of job cuts resulting from the coronavirus outbreak as a record 3.5 million Americans are expected to file for unemployment this week and predictions say tens of millions more could be laid off.

Retailers including Macy's, the Gap, JCPenney, and Neiman Marcus, as well as mall owner Simon Properties, among others from the private sector are enacting furloughs because of the outbreak.

Private companies enacting employee furloughs due to the coronavirus outbreak

Macy's (operates Macy's, Bloomingdale's and BlueMercury stores): Most of 125,000 employees to be furloughed with health benefits

J.C. Penney (employs 95,000 associates globally): Retailer will furlough the majority of its hourly store employees

Gap (total workforce was 129,000 as of Feb. 1): About 80,000 employees to be furloughed with health benefits, plus an undisclosed number of corporate employees to be laid off

Nieman Marcus: Luxury retailer says it will furlough the majority of its 14,000 workers or temporarily cut salaries

Companies like iHeart Media representing 800 stations, outdoor recreational craft maker Polaris, hospital operators and large law firms also are sending employees home.

Meanwhile, government employees, including in the Transportation Security Administration, or TSA, have remained employed full time, amid slow downs in work.

Southwest Airlines airplanes, for example, are flying at about 20 per cent full, which means Jasmine and other TSA workers no longer have long security lines to contend with at LAX.

As no one working security has been laid off, TSAs no longer face thousands of passengers squeezing through airport checkpoints.

'Things have been really slow for about two weeks now,' Jasmine confesses.

'Our numbers have just been slowly decreasing. It’s super weird because we’re so used to constant rush. Now it’s literally, like, 10 people an hour, it’s crazy.'

‘I’m just hanging out with my friends at this point,’ a TSA worker at Los Angeles International Airport tells

.The crisis has caused private payrolls to drop for the first time since 2017, likely as businesses shut down in compliance with strict measures by authorities to contain the global pandemic, supporting economists' views that the longest employment boom in history ended in March.

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Whole Foods 'sick out' organizers slam Bezos for 'dismissing our actions while working from homes'

A Revolt Over Safety and Pay

An Instacart worker filling an order in a Chicago grocery store.

Credit...Laura McDermott for The New York Times March 31, 2020

On strike

Workers for the grocery delivery service Instacart and an Amazon warehouse in New York City walked off the job yesterday, while some Whole Foods employees have called for a “sick out” today. They want more safety measures and better pay to compensate for risk.

Instacart workers had several demands, including more disinfecting material, bigger tips and shares of delivery fees, and an expansion of sick pay, the NYT reports. It’s not clear how many workers participated — the company contends that it saw “absolutely no impact” to operations — but it was notable that salaried employees joined independent contractors.

The Amazon walkout was led by a worker who was alarmed that the company did not close the center after a colleague fell ill. Organizers say several dozen workers took part, while the company said fewer than 15 did. But the protest highlighted concerns about steps Amazon has taken to protect workers, including its inability to provide enough masks.

• The worker who helped organize the protest, Chris Smalls, was subsequently fired for what Amazon said were repeated violations of distancing guidelines.

Can this sort of organizing succeed? Jake Rosenfeld, a sociologist at Washington University in St. Louis, told the NYT that such actions were unusual in bad economic times. But he added that he was skeptical that these kinds of protests would achieve much without help from legislation or unions.

 Market patriotism returns — and asks workers for a blood sacrifice
Just like after 9/11, the Right is telling Americans that patriotism and economic activity are synonymous
    MOLOCH

TIMOTHY RECUBER
APRIL 1, 2020

In the days after the September 11th attacks, President Bush, Mayor Giuliani and a variety of other politicians sought to soothe the ailing American psyche. They spoke publicly with a mixture of mourning and resolve. "Even grief recedes with time and grace," Bush told the nation in his State of the Union speech.

Shortly thereafter, the nation's leaders turned their efforts toward soothing the ailing American stock market. In a September 23, 2001 Washington Post column, former US Secretary of Labor Robert Reich noted the peculiarity of Vice President Dick Cheney's plea for Americans to "stick their thumb in the eye of the terrorists and… not let what's happened here in any way throw off their normal level of economic activity." Reich dubbed this ideology "market patriotism": the notion that "we demonstrate our resolve to the rest of the world by investing and consuming at least as much as we did before." He noted the irony that during World War II, Americans had been asked to curb their consumption habits, but in 2001, "our patriotic duty seems to be to buy more and save less."

Today, with the stock market once again devastated by a disaster, market patriotism is back. The social distancing rules prompted by the coronavirus pandemic have brought our economy to a standstill for two weeks now, and so the American consumer is once again being drafted into a rescue mission. President Trump briefly wanted the country "opened up and just raring to go by Easter," despite the fact that lifting shelter-in-place and other social distancing measures would almost certainly contribute to hundreds of thousands of otherwise preventable deaths. Though Trump has more recently come to grips with the need to continue social distancing through April, it remains clear that the Right is still gearing up to send workers and consumers back into the fray before it is safe to do so.

Lloyd Blankfein, senior chairman of Goldman Sachs, tweeted that although efforts to flatten the curve are sensible "for a time," "crushing the economy, jobs, and morale is also a health issue." Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick said on FOX News that "as a senior citizen," he was "willing to take a chance" on his own survival in exchange for getting Americans back to work and saving the economy for his children and grandchildren. And Glen Beck said that he "would rather die than kill the country."

It is worth noting, of course, that Trump on his own cannot order anyone back to work—state governments, civil society, and business owners are the ones making most of these decisions. Nonetheless, if Trump and his ilk have their way, we'll all go back to work — and back to shopping and spending and pumping dollars into an economy that badly needs the revenue, or at least, badly needs enough revenue to convince investors to pump up stock prices again. If that happens, millions of Americans will die, and the GOP appears increasingly to be okay with that.

The September 11th attacks killed 2,605 Americans. Since that day, we've been told again and again that avoiding another 9/11 justifies almost any expense. No military misadventure or domestic security scheme has been too extreme or too costly. One study from Brown University put the cost of our wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Pakistan at over $6 trillion since 2001. All of this has been enacted in the name of 2,605 lives lost, and to resounding cries of "never again."

As of April 1st, more Americans have already been lost to COVID-19 than died in the September 11th attacks. Yet many on the right Right have been cavalierly suggesting that the coronavirus has been overhyped because only two percent of those infected die from it. This was the claim made recently by Rush Limbaugh, though he did not acknowledge that such fatality rates would leave millions of Americans dead. After months of downplaying the threat posed by the virus, Trump himself is now saying that keeping the death toll below 100,000 would be "a very good job." It seems unfathomable that the same country that so radically revamped its domestic security systems and that embarked on a doctrine of "preemptive war" around the world as a response to 2,605 American deaths could suddenly fail to care about the prospect of hundreds of thousands of American deaths (or more).

The simple answer is that our wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere were never about protecting Americans, as millions of protestors knew from the start. They were about oil. They were about a wounded sense of American innocence. They were about a kind of vengeance for America's failure in Vietnam. They were about profiteering — disaster capitalism, as Naomi Klein has aptly diagnosed it. But they were not about protecting anyone.

The enormous stimulus bill, signed into law last week with the near-unanimous support of Republicans and Democrats in Congress, further illustrated these principles. Despite the fact that most reporting lists its price tag at a whopping $2 trillion, the real cost is likely to be closer to 6 trillion — the Federal Reserve is going to be able to lend an additional $4 trillion to major corporations, on top of the $500 billion or so in direct bailout funds that has been more widely reported on.

The effects of the bill will be devastating for workers, the middle class, and small businesses. According to critics like Matthew Stoller, this bill gives Wall Street the ability "to go shopping for businesses in trouble. We could see the mother of all roll-ups, as small and medium sized businesses desperately try to get whatever they can from deep-pocketed private equity investors and monopolists. If that happens, America could look like a very different country after this pandemic is over."

And as David Dayen put it in The American Prospect, "this is a rubber-stamp on an unequal system that has brought terrible hardship to the majority of America. The people get a $1,200 means-tested payment and a little wage insurance for four months. Corporations get a transformative amount of play money to sustain their system and wipe out the competition."

                   MOLOCH

Market patriotism used to mean that average citizens were urged to keep spending during periods of uncertainty. Now it demands blood sacrifice. Our leaders want us back to work, getting sick, and if need be, dying to please the market. They want to throw us crumbs while further enabling the consolidation of the economy in the hands of an ever-smaller group of ever-larger corporations. Though the outsized influence of billionaires and big corporations was a source of heated discussion during the Democratic primaries, this bill would be a triumph for the ultra-wealthy financiers who already control so much of American life.

In the end, Americans all know that we have suffered and sacrificed too much for the market already. It doesn't have to be this way. Those who can continue to stay home must do so. But we must also stand in solidarity with those who don't have a choice — we must refuse to order from Instacart and Amazon, whose workers are now on strike for better wages and working conditions, and support other labor actions in the future. We must do what we can to help each other, and to protect ourselves. Our leaders, and the market they serve, will certainly not protect us now. They never really have.

Timothy Recuber is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Smith College, and the author of the book "Consuming Catastrophe: Mass Culture in America’s Decade of Disaster." His work focuses on the mass media's representation of death and disaster, and his research has been published in journals such as New Media & Society, the American Behavioral Scientist, Research Ethics, and Contexts.

Who's coming to the aid of undocumented workers amid restaurant closures and lay-offs

The hospitality industry relies on over 1 million undocumented workers, who are operating without a safety net

Kitchen workers wear surgical masks and gloves as they prepare food (AP Photo/John Minchillo)

ASHLIE D. STEVENS MARCH 31, 2020

The American restaurant industry depends on the work of millions of undocumented immigrants — from farmers to food suppliers to kitchen staff to stay running. But as many states have mandated the closure of or reduction of services provided by restaurants as a way to limit the spread of the novel coronavirus, many undocumented employees are facing layoffs and uncertain futures without any form of social safety net.

Ricardo Rodriguez is the chef and owner of WHISK in Chicago. Rodriguez was born in Mexico City and was brought to the U.S. without papers when he was 7 years old.


"I'm 35 now, so all my life, I grew up here," Rodriguez said. "The first year that DACA was passed, I applied and got approval because I met all the requirements. I was here before I was 15 and have no criminal records."

DACA, or Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, was a policy approved by President Barack Obama in 2012 that allowed some undocumented individuals who had been brought into the country as children to receive a two-year period of deferred action from deportion and become eligible for a work permit.

As a DACA recipient, Rodriguez would be eligible to file for unemployment insurance — like the over three million people who applied last week — and could be eligible for the $1,200 relief checks that are part of the COVID-19 stimulus package, but undocumented kitchen workers are not.


00:0301:48


"Unfortunately, they don't have any kind of safety net," Rodriguez said. "Everybody is telling restaurant owners, 'Oh, your workers should apply for this, and they can get this and that.' We can't be like, 'Oh, they can't because they don't have papers,' so that's the situation everybody's in right now."

The Pew Research Center estimates there are 7.5 million undocumented workers in the United States concentrated in construction, agriculture, and the hospitality industry. In 2014, about 1.1 million, or 10%, of restaurant workers were undocumented.

Though some are employed through under-the-table means — like falsified social security numbers or cash-only payments — they are an integral part of the industry. From the 2014 satirical cult film "A Day Without a Mexican" to the 2017 "A Day Without Immigrants" strikes, a lot of thought has been given, at least by some, to what the country would look like without their labor.


Some organizations are trying to step in to recognize their contributions and provide some kind of financial support.

On March 18, RAISE — Revolutionizing Asian American Immigrant Stories on the East Coast, an immigrant advocacy group based in New York City — and Sahra Nguyen, the founder of Nguyen Coffee Supply, launched the Undocu Worker's Fund.


The initiative supports undocumented workers in the service industry who will not have the ability to apply for unemployment benefits during the COVID-19 health crisis and mandated restaurant closures.

"The response so far has been incredible," said Audrey Pan, a community organizer with RAISE. "We've had over 150 people reach out needing assistance. We've also had many concerned community members step up to donate, reshare our posts, and some have been inspired to start their own community funds."

According to Pan, many of the restaurant workers who have submitted an eligibility form for the Undocu Workers Fund, have reported that they don't have savings and live paycheck to paycheck. Similar initiatives have sprouted up across the United States.


In Los Angeles, Va'La Hospitality has launched No Us Without You, a food pantry for undocumented workers who are provided enough food for a family of four to eat for a week. Trigg Brown and his partners at Brooklyn's Win Son and Win Son Bakery, Josh Wu and Jesse Shapell, have launched a fund specifically aimed at gathering money to help support their employees who are undocumented for the restaurant industry.

I spoke with the organizers of nearly a dozen other independently organized restaurant industry member relief funds and food banks who said that immigration status is not a factor in how they will award their small-scale grants or distribute essentials like food and toiletries; however, they did not advertise that fact — and asked that they not be specifically named — for fear of ICE raids.

"ICE agents are continuing to make arrests in some of the regions hardest hit by the virus like New York and California," said Pan.


As the Los Angeles Times reported on March 17, David Martin, the director of Enforcement and Removal Operations for ICE in Los Angeles, said the ICE would continue to operate as usual.

"We're out here trying to protect the public by getting these criminal aliens off the street and out of our communities," he told the paper. "Asking us to stop doing that basically gives those criminals another opportunity to maybe commit more crimes, to create more victims."

This statement highlights how food banks and small-scale grants — while deeply important in the short-term — are band-aid solutions for obvious systematic issues that leave undocumented workers particularly susceptible during this point in time.

Sanaa Abrar is the advocacy director of United We Dream, the largest youth-led immigrant advocacy organization in the United States. She says that in the immediate future, undocumented workers need access to healthcare in the midst of this global pandemic.


"At this point, because of the failure of Congress to include all immigrants in a federal package, now it's on governors, and it's on state leaders to take action," Abrar said. "So one example of this that we just saw was Governor Cuomo in New York, expanded the definition of emergency Medicaid to include COVID-19 testing and treatment. Undocumented immigrants have access to emergency Medicaid in all states, but not all states identify COVID-19 testing under the emergency provisions."

Pan agrees this is an important step, and suggests others.

"Right now, what we need to do is to demand our governments to extend emergency relief measures such as grants, free testing, and paid sick leave to all residents, regardless of immigration status," she said. "Cities also need to develop relief packets that include a moratorium on rent, mortgage, and utility payments to abate financial strains on households amid the growing economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic."

Undocumented workers, she said, need to be included in these bills.
"They are a vital part of our society and are our community members," she said.

Amazon worker who led N.Y. protest fired: Attorney general denounces "immoral and inhumane" move

"Taking action cost me my job," said Chris Smalls. N.Y. AG Letitia James may pursue legal action against Amazon

Amazon employees hold a protest and walkout over conditions at the company's Staten Island distribution facility on March 30, 2020 in New York City. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

JAKE JOHNSON APRIL 1, 2020 

This article originally appeared at Common Dreams. It is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License. Feel free to republish and share widely.

New York Attorney General Letitia James late Monday condemned as "immoral and inhumane" Amazon's firing of a Staten Island fulfillment center employee who organized a walkout protesting the retail giant's failure to provide workers with adequate protections against the coronavirus outbreak.

James said in a statement that her office is considering taking legal action against Amazon and called on the National Labor Relations Board to investigate the firing of Chris Smalls, who accused the company of retaliating against him for Monday's demonstration.


"It is disgraceful that Amazon would terminate an employee who bravely stood up to protect himself and his colleagues," said James. "At the height of a global pandemic, Chris Smalls and his colleagues publicly protested the lack of precautions that Amazon was taking to protect them from COVID-19. Today, Chris Smalls was fired."

Amazon, which is owned by Jeff Bezos, the world's richest man, said in a statement that it terminated Smalls for "violating social distancing guidelines" by returning to the Staten Island fulfillment center after he was asked to self-quarantine for 14 days following his exposure to a worker infected by COVID-19.

In an interview with Bloomberg Monday, Smalls called Amazon's claim "ridiculous."

"Taking action cost me my job," said Smalls, who was an assistant manager. "Because I tried to stand up for something that's right, the company decided to retaliate against me."

Thus far, only one worker at the Staten Island fulfillment center has officially tested positive for the novel coronavirus, but Smalls told Bloomberg he believes more employees have been infected and condemned the company's failure to take necessary precautions.

"The conditions there are horrific," said Smalls. "The items that we use to clean up the building are scarce. ... We don't have the proper masks, we don't have the latex gloves."

"It's all false, it's all sugarcoated," Smalls said of Amazon's insistence that it has put in place adequate safety procedures. "We have plenty of workers that haven't been to work for the entire month of March because they're scared for their lives... We have people that have lupus, we have people that have asthma, we have people that have infants at home, [we] have people that's pregnant."

As Common Dreams has reported, dozens of employees at Amazon's Staten Island warehouse walked off the job Monday afternoon to protest the facility's unsanitary conditions.

"We're not asking for much," Smalls told CNN ahead of the protest. "We're asking the building to be closed and sanitized, and for us to be paid [during that process]."

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