Many at restaurants say they've worked while sick

[marmar]

A cough. A sneeze. Perhaps a bead of sweat from a fevered brow.

They're not ingredients that are supposed to come with a food order, but a national survey of restaurant workers released last week served up an unsavory possibility.

Two-thirds of 4,323 food servers and preparers surveyed admitted they had worked while sick in the past year.

The "Serving While Sick" report, commissioned by Restaurant Opportunities Centers United, a labor coalition for restaurant workers, pinpoints two reasons the workers don't stay home:

Nearly nine in 10 food-service workers said they lacked paid sick days.

More than six in 10 said they had no health insurance from any source. ............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/business/7233482.html

[joeybee12]

1. I can't say I blame them...if I knew I wasn't going to get paid if I were

sick, I'd probably go in, especially if I had a service job that's probably low-paying.

[kirby]

2. It helps build your immune system, if you have one n/t

[muffin1]

3. This is really sad.

And it's only going to get worse, I'm sure. With the economy the way it is, most people are keeping their heads down and working as hard as possible - sick or not. A sick server will also not only possibly pass along that illness to customers, their co-workers also risk catching it, and it just snowballs from there.

My hubby has thousands of hours of sick leave where he works (accumulated over the years), but he's afraid to take off any time - for any reason. His company has been laying off people right and left. Most of their employees already have to take one unpaid day off every month.
So far, this hasn't happened to him, but if it did, we'd be screwed. So, nose to the grindstone...

:grr:

[ThomWV]

4. I have known many many people who work in Restaurants, and they all work sick

My wife managed restaurants for years and my son does to this day, we have known literally hundreds of young people who have worked waiting tables and as "cooks" and virtually all of them have worked when sick at one time or another. They work for miserable wages and tips, they have living expenses. If they don't work they don't get paid and if they don't get paid then someone else don't get paid. All they have for tomorrow is what they earned today that isn't already spoken for by someone they became indebted to yesterday. And so of course they go into work sick. They have no choice.

[hobbit709]

5. Not just in restaurants.

[Fire1]

7. You got that right! n/t

[pipi_k]

13. Yep...my last job the boss was an idiot

who would often come to the office sick and end up spreading his plague all over the place, then get annoyed when I would spray disinfectant on my phone or computer after he had used them.

[madrchsod]

6. where my wife works it`s sick workers who..

take care of people with weakened immune systems. they are prone to and have long term illness that are passed on to healthy workers. where she works 'cleanliness is next godliness' should be the policy...

[sharp_stick]

8. I'd say it's a lot more than many

I worked in kitchens for quite some time before I went back to school and nobody on the staff would refuse to come in unless you needed an ambulance.

Getting into a "good kitchen" was hard enough staying in there was just a brutal existence of long long days followed by a lot of long long nights.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

9. Every restaurant job I ever worked at would fire you for calling in sick

I can remember several occasions where I kept one of the garbage cans at my station so I could lean over and throw up while I was cooking -- and this was at a VERY fancy place.

Definitely convinced me to go back to school and finish up my degree...

[w8liftinglady]

10. you decribed my son to a "T"

"Nearly nine in 10 food-service workers said they lacked paid sick days.

More than six in 10 said they had no health insurance from any source"

Who wouldn't?If that is your sole source of income...

[sinkingfeeling]

11. My son spent over 20 years as a restaurant manager and went to work with every cold, flu, and

virus he had. He even went directly from an ER where he was treated for dehydration and flu back to the kitchen.

[hatrack]

12. Uh, yeah - no shit

nt

[donheld]

14. I'm a bus driver

There are days I know when many drivers should not be on the road driving, 10 hour shifts average 150 miles a day, due to infections illnesses.
Alas, we don't have enough sick leave so away we go driving down busy city highways with no other option.

[Terra Alta]

15. I worked at a restaurant for four years.

I worked sick a few times.. but I had no choice. We didn't have paid sick time, or health insurance, and if I called out I risked losing my job.