Commentary & Opinion – Page 12

June 22, 2020June 29, 2023

How to communicate when an employee tests positive for COVID-19

essential workers; workers' compensation, mask

Positive COVID-19 tests are sadly the reality of 2020 and likely at least part of 2021.

Nationally, 2.23 million of us have tested positive for coronavirus. If your employees have been fortunate enough so far to avoid the virus, the odds are good that before this pandemic is over one or more of your employees will test positive.

Before we discuss the right way to communicate a potential workplace exposure to your employees, let’s explore the wrong way, via one of my favorite punching bags, the WWE.

Via Deadspin:

As “Monday Night Raw” was wrapping up last night, reports started to leak out that a member of WWE’’s developmental program had tested positive for COVID-19.… It’s hard to pinpoint which is the more galling aspect: that the talent and crew of WWE found out about the positive test the same way the rest of us did, through social media and the internet last night, or that everyone showed up to work thinking they were safe, or however close to that word they felt by working for WWE, when in fact they weren’t.

If one of your employees tests positive for COVID-19, your other employees deserve to hear the news from you, not from a Facebook post, a tweet, a local news reporter or otherwise. You just have to make sure you are communicating the news legally.

The ADA’s confidentiality rules still apply to these communications, and an employee’s positive coronavirus test is still a confidential medical record. This means that you cannot divulge to anyone else the identity of the employee(s) who tested positive. It does not mean, however, that you can’t (and shouldn’t) communicate to employees that they might have been in contact with someone who has tested positive (or is displaying symptoms consistent with COVID-19) and that they should be diligent about monitoring their own health for potential symptoms.

Your only limit is disclosing the identity of the corona-positive employee. Otherwise, you are free to make any communication you want.

And you should. Your employees will resent you if they learn of the diagnosis of their potential exposure from anyone but you. Moreover, you can flip the story around into one focused on everything you are doing to protect the health and safety of your employees.

Dear Employees:

It saddens us to inform you that one of your co-workers has tested positive for COVID-19. The law prevents us from telling you the identity of that co-worker, but we want to assure you that we will continue to support this employee as your co-worker heals from this virus, and we will welcome them back to join you at work once it is safe to do so.

We are doing everything within our ability and resources to keep you as safe and healthy as possible at work. Still, with many cases of COVID-19 transmitted before anyone knows they have been exposed, and with you only being at work for a fraction of you day, we cannot 100 percent guarantee the virus won’t enter our workplace.

We continue to require that you self-assess daily for your own potential COVID-19 symptoms (fever or chills, cough, shortness of breath or difficulty breathing, fatigue, muscle or body aches, headache, new loss of taste or smell, sore throat, congestion or runny nose, nausea or vomiting, or diarrhea). If you have any of these symptoms, please let us know, and do not return to work until you have received a negative COVID-19 test, or you are symptom-free for at least 72 hours and at least seven days have passed since your first symptoms.

We are also continuing to take the following steps to help ensure, as best as possible, your health and safety here at work:

Employees are required to wear masks or other facial coverings at all times while at work, unless you granted a specific exception (such as for safety, a medical reason, or because you are working alone in a closed office).

employees are required to maintain six feet of social distance from others at all times.

Employees must diligently wash their hands and otherwise use hand sanitizer (which we are providing in intervals around the workplace).

Employee must self-assess their own health before reporting to work, and no employee is permitted to come to work if they have any of the known symptoms of COVID-19.

Lunch room and other common areas are closed until further notice.

Each employee is responsible for cleaning their own work station at the end of each shift.

We are deep cleaning the entire workplace on a weekly basis.

Additionally, because of the unfortunate positive test, we had the facility deep cleaned and sanitized prior to anyone being allowed to reenter after we learned of the positive test.

Our commitment to your health and safety is our top priority. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact ______________. Our door is always open.

June 17, 2020June 29, 2023

Does Title VII protect employees whose spouses are pregnant?

A male Disney employee has filed suit against his former employer, claiming that Disney unlawfully discriminated against him because of his wife’s pregnancy.

According to Steven Van Soeren’s complaint, Disney fired him after he took two weeks of paternity leave following the birth of his child, and after supervisors advised him during his wife’s pregnancy on the wisdom of having a child. (As an aside, Van Soeren claims that his supervisors learned of the pregnancy by hacking his computer.)

The Pregnancy Discrimination Act (enacted in 1978) amended Title VII’s definition of “sex” to make clear that it also includes “pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions.” Disney is now arguing that Van Soeren’s lawsuit should be dismissed because Title VII doesn’t protect a male employee because of his wife’s pregnancy. Yet, the statute does not say “a woman’s pregnancy”; the definition is gender-neutral. Thus, Disney has an uphill battle to establish that the Pregnancy Discrimination Act doesn’t equally cover dads as moms.

Further, consider the following passage from Justice Neil Gorsuch’s majority opinion in Bostock v. Clayton County—

It doesn’t matter if other factors besides the plaintiff’s sex contributed to the decision. And it doesn’t matter if the employer treated women as a group the same when compared to men as a group. If the employer intentionally relies in part on an individual employee’s sex when deciding to discharge the employee — put differently, if changing the employee’s sex would have yielded a different choice by the employer — a statutory violation has occurred.

Bostock says very clearly that an employer discriminates on the basis of sex if “changing the employee’s sex would have yielded a different choice by the employer.” Would Disney have made the same decision relating to a woman’s choice to have a child, or did it rely on outdated and illegal stereotypes about a man’s role as a provider instead of a caregiver? It’s doubtful, based on the comments Van Soeren claims his supervisors made after they learned of his wife’s pregnancy.

Bostock leaves open a lot of questions: Can religious employers claim an exemption from Title VII’s prohibition against LGBTQ discrimination, and if so, how broadly?

Does Title VII’s prohibition against LGBTQ discrimination moot the Trump Administration’s plan to roll back protections for transgender people from discrimination in health care and insurance coverage? Add to this list the question of just how broadly Bostock’s causation standard will apply, and if it applies to other forms of sex discrimination such as pregnancy discrimination?

I believe it does, and I believe Disney will lose its effort to have Van Soeren’s lawsuit dismissed.

June 15, 2020June 29, 2023

COVID-19 is not an excuse for age discrimination

Consider these headlines:

While there’s still a lot we don’t know about COVID-19, one of the things we do know for sure is that is much more greatly impacts people age 65 and above.

Indeed, according to the CDC, 80.6 percent of all coronavirus deaths are in that age bracket. These fatality rates might explain why you might want to protect your older workers by forbidding them to come into work or by placing them on leaves absence.

Here’s the thing, however. Employment discrimination laws hate paternalism. While you might be acting from a place of good intentions to protect your older workers from a potentially deadly exposure of COVID-19 by keeping them away from the workplace, that’s not your choice to make. Only the employee can make that choice.

The EEOC confirmed this guidance in an updated FAQ on COVID-19 and antidiscrimination laws it published late last week.

The ADEA would prohibit a covered employer from involuntarily excluding an individual from the workplace based on his or her being 65 or older, even if the employer acted for benevolent reasons such as protecting the employee due to higher risk of severe illness from COVID-19.

Unlike the ADA, the ADEA does not include a right to reasonable accommodation for older workers due to age. However, employers are free to provide flexibility to workers age 65 and older; the ADEA does not prohibit this, even if it results in younger workers ages 40-64 being treated less favorably based on age in comparison.

If you force older workers to stay away (even if it’s for their own protection), you are almost certainly committing age discrimination. Their health, their choice. Don’t make it for them.

June 10, 2020June 29, 2023

President extends PPP loan forgiveness, signs Paycheck Protection Program Flexibility Act of 2020

The Paycheck Protection Program Flexibility Act of 2020, which President Trump signed into law on June 5, makes several key business-friendly changes to the small business loans made under the CARES Act’s Paycheck Protection Program.

Specifically, this Act:

Extends the “covered period” borrowers have to use PPP loans and qualify for loan forgiveness from the original eight weeks to the earlier of 24 weeks from loan disbursement or Dec. 31, 2020.

Extends until Dec. 31, 2020, the CARES Act’s June 30, 2020, deadline to rehire employees and reverse salary cuts of more than 25 percent.

Exempts borrowers from the reduction in loan fordeadline to rehire employees and reverse salary cuts of more than 25 percent. giveness because of a reduction in employee headcount if the borrower is able to document in good faith that from Feb. 15 through Dec. 31, 2020, the borrower: (a) was unable to rehire employees who had been employed on Feb. 15 or hire similarly qualiﬁed employees for unﬁlled positions by December 31, 2020; (b) was unable to return to the same level of business activity at which the borrower was operating pre-Feb. 15 as the result of compliance with requirements, guidelines, standards for sanitation, social distancing, or other COVID-19 employee or customer safety issues.

Lowers the threshold for the use of PPP loan funds for payroll purposes from 75 percent to 60 percent.

Allows for an agreed-upon extension of PPP loan repayment from two years to five years.

Eliminates the CARES Act’s restriction on the deferral of payroll taxes for employers who receive PPP loan forgiveness.

As Suzanne Lucas (aka the Evil HR Lady) points out, this Act’s biggest benefit might be the gift of time it gives to employers to staff up. “Hiring is always a difficult part of running a business, and the terms of the original PPP put pressure on companies to act quickly.” She added, “If you don’t need someone working yet, you can wait until you do need someone in the position.”

Suzanne is correct. Even in the best of circumstances, hiring is time-consuming and difficult.

The current circumstances are far from best, and businesses that took PPP money felt tremendous pressure to hire by June 30 to qualify for loan forgiveness. Employees hired in haste often lead to mistakes. These amendments offer significant relief through the benefit of added time.

June 8, 2020

‘I was terminated for refusing to wear a Trump 2020 face mask.’

Ohio requires that all employees wear face masks or other face coverings as a condition to any business reopening that (subject to a few limited exceptions). The only rules are that the mask cover the employee’s nose, mouth, and chin. There are no other requirements about the nature of the mask or face covering, including its design or style.

One southern Ohio business, The Village Inn restaurant in Farmersville, is testing the mask-requirement waters by requiring its employees to wear “Trump 2020” masks.

Worse, it’s firing employee who refuse.

Or at least that’s what Kris Hauser, a former waitress of the restaurant, claimed happened to her in her viral Facebook post describing her termination.

The owner then approached me again and stated I needed to wear my Trump 2020 mask. I responded and told him I would wear it, but I would wear it inside out (which a majority of employees had been doing already for the days prior).

The owner, Scott, told me “No, you will wear it with Trump 2020 facing out for people to see.”

I told him I would not do this and he said that I needed to leave.

Your first inclination might be to say, “Jon, Ohio, like every other state besides Montana, is an at-will state, meaning that an employer can fire any employee for any reason, good or bad. And just last Thursday you told us that there are only a few states that ban political opinion discrimination, and Ohio isn’t one of them. So while many will feel that Kris Hauser’s termination is morally and ethically reprehensible, I don’t see anything unlawful about it.”

While Ohio is an at-will state, it recognizes several key exceptions to employment-at-will, including a tort claim for wrongful discharge in violation of public policy. What does this mean? I’ll let the Ohio Supreme Court explain:

In order for a plaintiff to succeed on a wrongful-termination-in-violation-of-public-policy claim, a plaintiff must establish four elements: (1) that a clear public policy existed and was manifested either in a state or federal constitution, statute or administrative regulation or in the common law (“the clarity element”), (2) that dismissing employees under circumstances like those involved in the plaintiff’s dismissal would jeopardize the public policy (“the jeopardy element”), (3) the plaintiff’s dismissal was motivated by conduct related to the public policy (“the causation element”), and (4) the employer lacked an overriding legitimate business justification for the dismissal (“the overriding-justification element”).

In other words, if a termination offends a clear public policy of the state, and the employee does not have any other remedy to redress the termination, the employee can sue in tort for the wrongful discharge.

In this case, Ohio has a clear public policy against employers influencing employees’ political opinions—Ohio Revised Code section 3599.05, which criminalizes employers that make expressed or implied threats “intended to influence the political opinions or votes of his or its employees.”

That’s exactly what The Village Inn did in imposing its “Trump 2020” mask requirement under threat of termination. And it’s not too far off the mark from Kunkle v. Q-Mark, Inc. (S.D. Ohio 6/28/13), which refused to dismiss a public policy claim based on section 3599.05, after the employer allegedly threatened employees with termination if President Obama won re-election, and allegedly fired the plaintiff after she stated she voted a “straight Democratic ticket.”

I’ve never been shy about calling out an employer that has wronged an employee. The Village Inn has wronged Kris Hauser. The internet has already spoken. I hope Ms. Hauser finds a lawyer to take her case and the courts have their say as well.

June 4, 2020June 29, 2023

Can you force employees who participate in George Floyd protests to quarantine without pay?

Yesterday I discussed the legalities of placing on an unpaid leave of absence employees who engaging in leisure mass gatherings outside of work.

What about employees who you discover gathered in mass to protest George Floyd’s murder and racial injustice? There are legitimate concerns that the mass protests taking place in cities around the country will cause an acceleration of COVID-19 spread and a spike in cases. Can you place protesting employees on an unpaid leave of absence to quarantine before they return to work?

The TL;DR answer is “yes.”

The longer answer has a couple of key exceptions and other nuances.

1/ Public employees enjoy some First Amendment protections work. In the private sector, Connecticut prohibits employers from disciplining or firing employees for exercising their First Amendment rights. California, New York, and the District of Columbia ban political affiliation and activity discrimination. New Mexico and South Carolina ban discrimination based on political opinions. And Colorado and North Dakota more broadly limit an employer from restricting any lawful off-duty activities by employees. In any of these cases, I’d have concerns about taking an adverse action against an employee for participating in a peaceful political gathering. (For rioters and looters, all bets are off no matter what.)

2/ Title VII might offer additional protections for protesters, but only if an employer treats employees of one race (say, for example, its African-American employees) more harshly than employees of another race. If an employer treats all employees the same by requiring anyone protesting to take a mandatory two-week unpaid leave of absence, then Title VII won’t offer much help.

3/ The National Labor Relations Act’s protections for employees who engage in “protected concerted activity” likely have zero application, for the reasons I discuss here.

This issue, however, is a lot more nuanced than, “The law says I can send employees home without pay while they quarantine, so I will do so for anyone engaging in behavior outside of work that placed them at risk for COVID-19.” There is no easy answer to this question. I believe that you are taking a risk of injecting COVID-19 into your workplace if you allow these employees to return to work on the heels of protesting (no differently than returning a weekend mass-gathering partier). The question is whether you pay them for their time off. You have two options, which depend on where you come down on the safety vs. racism spectrum:

1/ Treat George Floyd protesters no differently than any other person who gathers in a large group outside of work by sending them home for two weeks without pay. The safety issues are identical. Mass protesters could turn into super-spreaders of the virus, including in your workplace. We are still in the midst of a pandemic, and no matter how large of a problem system racism is, and no matter how awful George Floyd’s murder was, we cannot lose sight of the big coronavirus picture, lest we have another spike in cases and lose even more lives.

2/ Pay George Floyd protesters for their mandatory leaves of absence. These employees were not getting their weekend jollies on, but were exercising their political dissent over a vitally important issue. You can take a stand as an employer against the racism over which they were protesting by paying them for their mandatory LOA quarantine. It also prevents your company from being painted as pro-racism by a viral online mob based on a perception (accurate or not) that you are punishing these employees for protesting this important issue.

Me? I’m longing for a day when we don’t need to even have this discussion because both the pandemic and racism are history.

June 3, 2020June 29, 2023

Do Lake of the Ozarks employees sent home from work qualify for paid sick leave under FFCRA?

Last week I discussed how to handle employees who are not social distancing outside of work.

My thoughts were spurred by videos of employees partying over the Memorial Day weekend at Lake of the Ozarks and elsewhere around the country.

I said the following:

I would also place any employee who violated social distancing rules outside of work (whether the information is volunteered on a self-assessment or discovered through a viral video) on a mandatory two-week unpaid leave of absence and require a quarantine as a condition of continued employment.

It looks like I might have a reader in Lincoln County, Missouri.

According to KSDK, employers are mandating unpaid leaves of absence and quarantines for employees who spent their holiday weekend amid the throngs at Lake of the Ozarks, The story also quotes an attorney who says that placing an employee on an unpaid leave of absence, under those circumstances, might violate the FFCRA’s requirements for paid sick leave for an employee “advised by a health care provider to self-quarantine due to concerns related to COVID-19.”

I completely disagree, and the Department of Labor has my back.

Take a look at Question 77 to the DOL’s FFCRA Questions and Answers:

May I take paid sick leave or expanded family and medical leave under the FFCRA if I am on an employer-approved leave of absence?

It depends on whether your leave of absence is voluntary or mandatory. If your leave of absence is voluntary, you may end your leave of absence and begin taking paid sick leave or expanded family and medical leave under the FFCRA if a qualifying reason prevents you from being able to work (or telework). However, you may not take paid sick leave or expanded family and medical leave under the FFCRA if your leave of absence is mandatory. This is because it is the mandatory leave of absence—and not a qualifying reason for leave—that prevents you from being able to work (or telework).

In other words, if an employee’s leave of absence is the employer’s choice, as is the case in the Lake of Ozarks example, then the employee does not qualify for FFCRA paid sick leave, because it’s not a COVID-19 medical recommendation or quarantine that’s preventing the employee from working but the leave of absence.

It’s no different from a furlough, for which employees also do not qualify for FFCRA paid leave. As long as you place an employee on leave before they tell you they’ve been advised by a health care provider to self-quarantine because of COVID-19 concerns, you shouldn’t have to worry about paying the employee for that leave under the FFCRA.

June 2, 2020June 29, 2023

Justice Department indicts employee for COVID-19 workplace fraud

COVID-19, coronavirus, public health crisis

In mid-April the FBI warned employers to be on the lookout for fake COVID-19 diagnoses, doctors’ notes, and other coronavirus-related documents from employees.

The Justice Department has now indicted the first employee for committing this new breed of fraud.

The Justice Department provides the details:

Santwon Antonio Davis has been charged with defrauding his employer by allegedly faking a positive COVID-19 medical excuse letter, causing the employer to stop business and sanitize the workplace. Davis has since admitted that he did not have COVID-19. …

According to the … charges and other information presented in court: The defendant, who was employed by a Fortune 500 company with a facility located in the Atlanta, Georgia area, falsely claimed to have contracted COVID-19 and submitted a falsified medical record to his employer. In concern for its employees and customers, the corporation closed its facility for cleaning and paid its employees during the shutdown. This caused a loss in excess of $100,000 to the corporation and the unnecessary quarantine of several of the defendant’s coworkers.

You can read the full affidavit submitted by the U.S. attorney in support of the criminal complaint here. (Disclaimer: Mr. David is presumed innocent until proven guilty.)

This is as good as time as any to remind you of the steps can you take if you think an employee is faking a coronavirus diagnosis.

Pay attention to inconsistencies on notes and other documents in fonts and spacing, or grammatical or spelling errors.
Look for computer-generated, versus hand signatures.
Compare legitimate medical excuse letters from health care providers to be aware of their typical format and structure.
Contact the medical provider to authenticate the document (after first providing the employee the opportunity to authenticate).

Be alert, because it’s fair to assume that as more employees return to work, more employees will try to take advantage.

May 28, 2020June 29, 2023

Is your business ready for the COVID-19 golden age of union organizing?

“Among the many lessons we will learn from the COVID-19 pandemic is its demonstration of the importance of union membership for essential workers.

“Of all the injustices exposed by the pandemic, the risks faced by non-union workers have become the most apparent. Non-union workers are being asked to risk their safety with little or no protections of their own.”

— Gary Perinar (executive secretary-treasurer of the Chicago Regional Council of Carpenters), The importance of unions is more obvious than ever during the COVID-19 pandemic, Chicago Sun-Times, Apr. 30, 2020

One of the unexpected byproducts of the COVID-19 pandemic is a corresponding rise in union organizing.

This crisis has magnified attention on key labor union agenda items and talking points such as worker safety and higher pay. Unions have been pressing these issues not only for current members but also more importantly for potential members.

The Teamsters is backing Amazon warehouse workers.
The UFCW is helping organize Instacart shoppers.
The SEIU is funding fast-food activists and Uber/Lyft drivers.

Indeed, according to Richard Berman, the founder of the Center for Union Facts, this union activity is part of a much larger trend:

This is the first time since the early 1980s where I sense significant interest by employees in “collective action” and “3rd party representation”.
Gallup polling in 2019 shows the 18-34 demographic has a 69% approval of unions. In 2017, 76% of those joining unions were younger than 35.
Employees who feel they will be exposed to co-workers or customers who have the virus are communicating on Facebook and other platforms about their jointly held concerns. Union organizers have access to these conversations and are making themselves available to help.
Most current HR professionals have no history in dealing with a partial workforce rebellion. This will most likely happen in individual companies or it could be a wider industry movement in a city or region.

That last point might be the one most important to your business. “Most current HR professionals have no history in dealing with a partial workforce rebellion.” What should your business be doing right now to best prepare itself in the event a union starts talking to your employees? The best defense is a good offense. I recommend that employers adopt the T.E.A.M. approach to union avoidance:

Train supervisors.
Educate employees.
Affirm the open door.
Modernize policies.

1. Train supervisors. If a union is organizing, supervisors are likely to be the first people to know. They will also be the people who rank-and-file employees will come to with questions or concerns. Thus, supervisors need to know how to report, monitor and legally respond to union activity.
2. Educate employees. Employees should not be told that the company is anti-union, but why it is anti-union – competitive wages and benefits; a strong commitment to worker safety and health; positive communication between management and employees; a history of peaceful employee/management relations; management’s openness to listen to employees and handle their concerns without an intermediary; and an unwillingness to permit a third-party to tell the company and employees how to do their jobs. Of course, if this is just lip service, you might as well not say it at all.
3. Affirm the open door. Management should routinely round its employees up to learn what is happening within the rank-and-file and what they are thinking about. Management should walk the floor on a daily basis. It should also hold regular meetings with employees, whether in small sessions with HR or large town hall-style meetings. And management’s door should always be open to listen to employees’ concerns, offer feedback and adopt positive change when feasible and practical.
4. Modernize policies. In an ideal world, employee handbooks and other corporate policies should be reviewed and updated annually. I’ve yet to come across a company that does so this frequently. Issues to consider and review? Do you have a written statement on unionization? An open-door policy? An issue resolution procedure? Peer review? An employee bulletin board? An electronic communications policy? Most importantly, do you have a no-solicitation policy? It is the single most important policy to help fight labor unions.

No avoidance program is foolproof. No matter what steps are taken and no matter the quality of employee relations, every company is at some risk for a union organizing campaign. Some, however, are more at risk than others.

All businesses should strive to be an employer of choice for employees and not an employer of opportunity for labor unions. The steps you take before that representation petition ever arrives will help define whether you remain a non-union employer.

May 26, 2020June 29, 2023

When an employee isn’t social distancing outside of work

How did you spend your Memorial Day weekend? Mine was way more mundane than years past.

I watched my nephew receive his high school diploma and pre-record his valedictory address in an individual, family-only ceremony. We walked the dogs a bunch. We went to Lowe’s, masks on faces (the first store in which I’ve been inside other than a grocery store in over two months). I barbecued for my wife and kids.

Other people chose less COVID-appropriate holiday weekend activities.

Scenes like this one were repeated all over the country. Will you be surprised when COVID-19 cells spring up in two weeks linked to these mass gatherings? Because they will.

Here’s my question. What do you do if you see one of your employees in one of these social-gathering viral videos? Do you welcome him or her back into the workplace today with open arms?

I would not. I’d screen employees for risky behaviors during the holiday weekend or otherwise. Ohio already requires all businesses, as a condition to reopening, to “conduct daily health assessments by employers and employees (self-evaluation) to determine if ‘fit for duty.’” With the country reopen and summer upon us, I’d recommend adding two questions to this self-assessment

Did you take part in a social gathering in which you were within 6 feet of others? Being within 6 feet of others who do increases your chances of getting infected and infecting others.
If you attended a social gathering, was everyone around you wearing a mask or facial covering? Others within six feet of you not wearing masks increases your chances of becoming infected.

I would also place any employee who violated social distancing rules outside of work on a mandatory two-week unpaid leave of absence and require a quarantine as a condition of continued employment. (According to NBC News, the Kansas City health director has called for self-quarantine of all Lake of the Ozarks partiers.)

If an employee returns after being at one of these weekend parties and then tests positive, there is a really good chance that you will have to shut down your entire business (or at least a sizable part of it). Is this a risk you want to take? I wouldn’t, which is why I’d ask the questions and place anyone on an unpaid quarantine leave who answers “yes” or who I otherwise discover violated social distancing rules (such as if I see them on a viral video or photo.

We all have a social responsibility to help stop the spread of coronavirus. If an employee fails to play his or her part and chooses to act irresponsibly, I am not going to lose any sleep by sending them home for two weeks to protect the rest of my employees and their families, and my business and its continuing operations.