Cartoon

The Campaign

Written by SK Ashby

(Cartoonist - Clay Bennett)

In other news, the United States has crossed 180,000 coronavirus deaths. Projections from earlier in the summer said we would hit that number by October, but it's not even September yet.

Meanwhile, a federal judge has temporarily blocked federal executions while the legal case against lethal injection drugs proceeds.

Finally, Bloomberg reports that employees at many large companies have been told to hide their coronavirus symptoms or positive test results.

Hundreds of U.S. employers across a wide range of industries have told workers not to share information about Covid-19 cases or even raise concerns about the virus, or have retaliated against workers for doing those things, according to workplace complaints filed with the NLRB and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).

Workers at Amazon.com, Cargill, McDonald’s, and Target say they were told to keep Covid cases quiet. The same sort of gagging has been alleged in OSHA complaints against Smithfield Foods, Urban Outfitters, and General Electric. In an email viewed by Bloomberg Businessweek, Delta Air Lines told its 25,000 flight attendants to “please refrain from notifying other crew members on your own” about any Covid symptoms or diagnoses. At Recreational Equipment Inc., an employee texted colleagues to say he’d tested positive and that “I was told not to tell anybody” and “to not post or say anything on social media.”

Some of these companies are straight up denying the report, but I'm skeptical. It may not be their official company policy, but it's probably happening at the local level with local managers doing the silencing.

Programming note... I'm signing off early today because I had a breakdown last night and I need a mental health break. Everything -- gestures wildly -- is just a bit much sometimes. I'm also having some work done in my apartment tomorrow so I may be offline. I don't know what's going to happen with that because property management is just straight up useless sometimes. If i don't make it on, have a good weekend.