Businesses dealing with workplace implications of the swine flu and possible pandemic should be aware without overreacting, said employment attorney Karl Lindegren in the Irvine office of Fisher & Phillips.
Photographer: George Frey/Bloomberg News
“You want your employees to know that you’re aware, you want to think through the contingencies, you need to be prepared to deal with your employees’ health concerns and leave issues,” said Lindegren, who is in the law firm’s workplace safety and catastrophe management practice.
“You have a duty to protect your employees.”
The World Health Organization raised its alert level for swine flu to phase 5 on a scale of 6 indicating that a flu pandemic is imminent. So far swine flu has reportedly killed more than 150 people in Mexico and one, a Mexican national toddler, in the U.S.
(Click on the map to see a larger view of where swine flu has been identified worldwide.)
As a consequence, Fisher & Phillips issued an alert for its offices and clients nationwide about the practical preparation and responses to the swine flu.
Lindegren said that every employers’ strategy in dealing with the swine flu and a potential pandemic should include:
- Following the guidance from the CDC and other public health services
Karl Lindegren
- Designating specific individuals to answer all questions involving the swine flu (after consultation with medical and legal counsel) so that the company will act in a consistent and thoughtful fashion
- Plan ahead for potential disruption, reassignment of employees and response to their concerns
Remain knowledgeable about swine flu, as well as inaccurate concerns which can fan public hysteria, Lindegren said.
Swine is a well known respiratory disease among pigs. People do not normally get swine flu, but swine flu viruses have been reported to spread from person-to-person on a limited basis.
“We’re getting some calls from clients,” he said.
One client is a retirement home that wanted to restrict employees’ travel to infected areas on their own time.
“Because the population they serve is vulnerable to the flu, they have a unique situation,” Lindegren said. “Every business should evaluate its unique circumstances.
“Also, if your employees travel for work, the State Department is saying nonessential travel to Mexico should be stopped,” Lindegren added.
The Fisher & Phillips’ alert states:
For most employers, protecting their employees during an influenza pandemic will depend on two basic approaches: emphasizing “common sense” hygiene (cleaning hands and decontaminating surfaces) and practicing “social distancing.” Social distancing means reducing the frequency, proximity, and duration of contact between people (both employees and customers) to reduce the chances of spreading pandemic influenza virus from person-to-person.
Employers may take additional protective measures, including engineering changes, procedure changes, and requiring the use of personal protective equipment, based upon the specific occupational exposure risk of their job tasks and work place. Use of respiratory protection (respirators) and barrier protection (facemasks) may be components of a comprehensive plan to prepare workplaces for an influenza pandemic, but employers must comply with applicable OSHA standards.
The federal government departments of Labor and Health and Human Services have set up a web site with information for healthcare employers, users of public transportion and others.
- Guidance on Preparing Workplaces for an Influenza Pandemic
- Pandemic Influenza Preparedness and Response Guidance for Healthcare Workers and Healthcare Employers
- www.pandemicflu.gov
Fisher & Phillips advises, “Critical employers, such as law enforcement, emergency response, or public utility employees should consider upgrading protective measures for their employees due to the urgent necessity of their services and their difficulty in replacing them due to extensive training or licensing requirements.”
Here are some of Fisher & Phillips’ suggested employer actions to prepare for a potential influenza pandemic.
1. Develop An Emergency Response Plan: A company’s emergency response plan should deal with both natural and man-made disasters. The primary goals of the plan are to protect the employees and ensure continued operations at the facility.
Part of the plan will identify business-essential positions and the people required to sustain business-necessary functions and operations. Establish ways to manage and control operations and communication in the event the Company is denied use of its main facility or corporate headquarters, or communications are disrupted.
2. Analyze Business Activities: Certain activities may require revised written guidelines including procedures for
- Employees who must travel to affected areas such as Mexico
- Response to employees returning from business or other travel to affected areas (During the SARS scare, some companies forced employees to stay away from the office after returning from business trips to China, Lindegren said.
- Meetings, trade shows, and events scheduled in affected areas
- Respond to employee concerns about traveling to affected areas
- A need to respond to co-workers who may worry about an individual who has traveled to affected areas or to individuals who may show symptoms associated with swine flu
3. Review Safety Policies and Practices: More than ever, employers should strive to develop “best practices” which go beyond legal requirements.
Immediate changes to prepare for a pandemic may include, education and communication programs, installation of additional hand-washing stations, eliminating or rescheduling meetings, or even spreading out employee workstations or other efforts to accomplish social distancing.
4. Maintain and Test a Disaster Communications Policy and System: An employer must maintain a plan for communicating with employees in the event of an emergency.
5. Revise Telecommuting Policies: Telecommuting will become a more attractive option. Employers should start to lay the foundation for telecommuting and teleconferencing by investing in hardware and software systems, as well as implementing necessary policies.
7. Revise Policies about Attendance, Leave, Vacation or Paid Time Off: Traditional attendance policies are designed to penalize employees who are absent or tardy. However, if there is a medical or biological crisis, employers may not want sick or infected employees reporting to work or they may not have the luxury of terminating employees who are absent, even for an extended period.
Employers will need to revise their policies to anticipate such crises and to provide practical solutions to these unique problems.
8. Revise “No Loans” and “No Pay Advances” Policies: Historically, employers had policies expressly prohibiting loans and pay advances to employees. Policies relaxing these prohibitions and setting specific limits and conditions on loans and pay advances may also be helpful.
9. Prepare for How to Handle Employees Who Refuse to Travel or Come to Work: Educate supervisors as to when such refusals may constitute a protected refusal to engage in an unsafe activity, or may be treated as protected concerned activity under the National Labor Relations Act.
10. Contact Vendors and Suppliers: It is important to know what your business partners are doing in the event of a pandemic. You need to know if they will be available. Maintain communications and be prepared to seek other suppliers. Similarly, communicate with your clients and ensure that they know that you are taking steps to maintain service.
11. Buy an Insurance Policy for Short-Term Disability and Salary Continuation Programs: Many employers maintain short-term disability or salary continuation programs that are funded completely out of current assets.
If 40% of the work force is absent for an extended period, the drain on these programs will be significant and companies may not be able to fund these benefits. Employers can transfer this risk by adopting insured short-term disability benefit programs.
12. Stockpile Essential Items, but do so Prudently and Lawfully: As an example, people will frantically buy dust masks and other items normally required for a host of company functions, so stock-up so as to avoid disruption.
Click here to read the entire list.
Other swine flu stories…
- Public can ask former Surgeon General about swine flu
- Swine flu closures in O.C.
- Travel in turmoil over flu outbreak
- Probable swine flu case reported at Cal State Long Beach
- Health official says swine flu likely to hit here
- Swine flu cases prompt calls for closing Mexican border
Just one more reason to close the border..
It’s not about the illegals you ignorant americans…the sick pig was imported from asia!!!
Bobby - why are Americans ignorant for wanting less illegal immigrants in our states? They’ve all but bankrupted CA’s economy, and now this. If we’re so ignorant, why do so many people want to live here ???
Stop hiring the illegal immigrants that carry the swine flu viruses and go back to hiring English speaking people that love and care about this country..
My spouse is concerned that his work gets shipments of computer products which they repair or build off of. Should they be concerned about possible spread of the flu through the handling of these items? If so, what precautions can they suggest to ther employer for their safety?
to the first two comments. You say that because you are a native american which family members who are all native americans and so on and so on. Racist ignorant people. I am assuming by English speaking you mean white people. The day “English speaking people” start to pick Oranges, Strawberries, clean offices at night, just to name a few examples, then there will be no need for anyone but “English Speaking” people in this country. And for your information ground zero, as they are calling it, they are saying the swine flu started there, supposedly by a Pig farm owened by, guess what, an American Company, AMERICANS!! Do your research!
This is not an immigration problem as much as a travel problem and there is very little anyone can do about that. Fortunatley we have an anti-virus and anti-bacteria product that will kill the swine virus as well as the staff viruses already developed and just coming onto the market. Anyone wanting this product should e-mail request to, bkehl3@sbcglobal.net, attention Bob Kehl.
WOW! what ignorance! You guys are bright that’s the answer to every problem.
Why is the border not being SHUT DOWN?
Im outraged that we did not close the border when we should have. Now its here and they are not going to do anything to stop the spread
of it. I think our goverment wanted it here for the sake of commerce and to thin the population. If your smart don’t wait for the goverment to
do what they should, we as (The People) must think and take care of our own safety. Mexico closed school, and just about everything but
hospitals,police, grocery stores to stop the spread, That wont here
because the old mighty dollar is more inportand then human life. We
need to take matters in our own hand. If its in your area PLEASE don’t
wait for (THEM) to close things down because they won’t. STAY HOME
Closet Racists back at it again, cant you get through your cabeza the flu is already in the states..its useless shuting down the borders you mensos!
Now will someone please close the stupid borders??? What the heck is it going to take?? This is just being blown off like its no big deal and that is SO aggravating!!!!
I say keep scaring everyone OCR. I want to be the only dude in Cabo this June. Tell everyone not to go to Cabo, especially if you have kids. Oh, I wont be wearing a mask, just board shorts.
this was bound to happen with the obama administration refusing to close the border. i guess this is his katrina
Donica — and others — you might want to ask your questions to a webcast 10 a.m. PDT by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Health and Human Services
Here’s the link: http://www.cdc.gov
Submit questions for the webcast by e-mailing hhsstudio@hhs.gov.
Jan Norman
Think about the movie the Ten Commandments and all of the plagues that hit Egypt because Pharoah wouldn’t let the Hebrews go. This is all happening because God is a jealous God and he is mad that so many of his children have turned their backs on him and on their fellow man and only care about themselves. Greed was the God of many and we are suffering the consequences now with the economic meltdown. I find it ironic that many exploited illegal aliens for cheap labor because of their own greed and now those same people who were brought here by the millions because of greed are now carrying a deadly virus.
Read the book of Revelation in the Bible and look around at the world with the wars, earthquakes, shattered economy and now disease. Famine will be next since we already are in a drought. We are in end times and Jesus will be returning soon for belivers in him. Repent from your sins and turn to Jesus. He is the only one who can save us from what we have all brought on ourselves.
I agree with Zacksmom. We are in a world of hurt and it doesn’t look like life on earth will get any better. Very scary for those of you who do not believe. As for me, I am ready for Jesus’s arrival!
kim and donna - did you hear obama’s position on the closing the border - he said “since the virus is already here, there is no reason to close the border” WTF!?
in other words, he is saying that adding a hundred thousand more infected mexicans per day (who cross the border illegally) is not going to have any influence on the progression of the outbreak.
of course the democrat media did not call him on this idiotic response.
Here’s what you do. I know for some of our more panic-prone friends, my suggestion is going to seem a little whacky, but stick with me. Here it is.
Go to work.
Whew.
Even if they had closed the border earlier the Swine Flu would still have made it into the US. Illegal immigrants and legal immigrants are not the only ones to have brought it over. People in Mexico for business reasons, tourists, etc. also brought it over. Therefore if the border had been closed then those Legal US citizens returning to the US would have brought it over. Definitely educate yourself and look up the swine flu online or talk to your doctor.
What will closing the border do? It is already here.
Closing the border means no travel to and from the US. Those coming to the US, via plane, car, or boat will not be allowed in. This also mean those trying to leave the US wont be able to.
One person is dead in the US and we have to shut down the US? 40,000 people died in 2008 in traffic accidents. How come we did not shut down all streets in the freeways in the US?
Some people need to think before they speak…
Very well said Jeff
If Mexico has the highest problem with this new flu thats going around, how is it racist to say “close the border”? There is a lot of travel between the two places, and illegals are crossing every day. Some of these illegals are probably sick. Shutting the border down and restricting travel to Mexico sounds like a smart thing to do to protect our nation from something that’s on the verge of becoming a pandemic.
Jeff. Probably because car crashes are not transmitted from human to human via the air we breathe? Who in the hell compares car crashes to a virus? That’s just moronic really.
Comparing Katrina to this is pretty pathetic too.
Think about it.It possibly could be a north korean conspiracy.
On the first offense employers should reprimand an employee for showing up to work with a contagious illness . Second offense is termination. How dare anyone to risk spreading their sickness to other people. How selfish is that? And all in the name of money? Shame.
So true, I agree! Most important step is to prevent people from coming to work sick. But this time with the pandemic, people should face more serious consequences (HR warnings, possible termination) for coming into work when they know they are sick.
Call me stupid or whatever you want but…
I totally believe this whole thing is a complete government conspiracy! Three days ago, there were 150 people dead in Mexico from the swine flu. Then yesterday, that number changed to 7.
This whole thing reminds me of the first days of AIDS and reefer madness.
Mr. Obama is just trying to make himself and his administration look like heros. The real heros are in Iraq and Afghanistan ~ NOT Washington DC!
I think people should use common sense when dealing with disease, of coarse I am told common sense is not that common (lol).
Good personal hygiene is first and foremost. Then comes isolation, or reverse isolation. You stay away from sick people or you keep sick people away from you.
I think that the 3 major cruise lines and the Cuban Government restricting travel to and from Mexico is a precaution. they have placed the health and well being of their citizens and guest above any “economic” backlash.
I think that many US Citizens want the same, to restrict free travel to and from Mexico in order to control the spread of this disease and I can’t blame someone for wanting to protect their loved ones.
I have come in contact with hundreds of people in the coarse of 24 yrs that did not care about infecting others, so maybe we have to protect ourselves.
I do not believe the “sky is falling” but I do see the potential and the solution, maybe it is because of my education and field of work that I feel the way I do, so be it.
All of you should do for yourselves and your families whatever you feel is right, don’t wait for someone else to do for you, i.e. Government.
Make a decision and stick to it, but don’t point your fingers at someone else for doing the same. You make the right decision for you and I will make the right decision for me.
Employers should be sending any sick employee home. There is simply no excuse for allowing an employee to spread their sickness. This is common sense.
There seems to be so much misinformation out there. Some media outlets are reporting 152 deaths in Mexico related to the Swine Flu, but the WHO site (http://www.who.int/csr/don/2009_04_29/en/index.html) says only 7, yes that’s only 7 deaths, are directly related to the Swine Flu, and that’s A/H1N1, not H1N1. They are different strains.
You may also want to read this article which makes some very interesting points about this Swine Flu, and as it compares to other past Flu outbreaks - http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2009/04/29/Swine-Flu.aspx .
What would it hurt to temporarily close our borders? Sure the virus is already here but why add fuel to the fire?
In addition is the reasons for keeping the borders open between the US and Mexico only for economic purposes? I would like to know the “essential” purposes for travel, how do they decide?
This is most likely get out of control.
We need to close ALL borders until this is under control.
I don’t want to die from the swine flu.
I agree with Zacksmom….not overreacting to the Swine Flu but several factors. First with the bad droughts that started last summer, the fires, increase in earthquakes, hurricanes.
The wars (and in the increase rate since 1948)….
Bird flu, swine flu, etc….
I believe it is coming and I’m ready. I sincerely hope that those who do not believe will open their hearts to Jesus Christ.
There is no sense in shutting the borders- the virus is here. We all know this. We know what we need to know to avoid the virus. I cannot believe the ignorant and racist comments on this website. Also, you know what it says in Revelations- YOU NEVER KNOW WHEN HE WILL COME. There no reason to bring religion into this. Just beware of your whereabouts and follow instructions. If they raise it to level 6 than you can panic and stock up on groceries and water.
another import from mexico other than drugs and gangs and welfare recipients