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[THREAD] Lads, the conversation most people have been having about workplace transmission is so off the mark it's really frustrating. People think front-line workers are the only people forced to go into work because they happen to be the most visible, e.g. nurses, shop workers. https://twitter.com/rtenews/status/1356305734707904517
My dad is a manual labourer in a factory making non-essential goods, and he's been forced to continue working as normal for the majority of the lockdown periods. Why? Because the govt has no auditing system for employers to prove their workplaces are essential.
The business owners simply declare themselves essential and then issue letters to their employees to that effect. Literally zero auditing of any kind is going on. We've had a year to create an online system to monitor this, and the govt has done nothing.
Just a quick google will show you plenty of examples of states and countries implementing systems to monitor essential services. In Connecticut, businesses have to apply for essential status. In Ireland, business owners get to self police. https://portal.ct.gov/DECD/Content/Coronavirus-Business-Recovery/Essential-Business-Designation-Form
As usual, Irish govt frames these problems as inevitable when in reality they are policy choices. Workers have no choice: if my dad refuses to go into work and put himself at risk, he'll be fired. He's in his mid-60s and I worry about him every day.
It is incredible that the govt could pay EY and other private consulting firms millions of taxpayer euros to make up comical 'trilemma' diagrams and bad excel spreadsheets. But they couldn't set up a simple online registration system to monitor essential work.
There's a huge class component to this as salaried administrative workers, senior managers etc. can do a lot of work remotely. Manual workers like my dad simply have no choice but to obey and go in, and nobody ever even acknowledges that any of this has been going on.
I want him to be at home getting PUP and safe. That's what should happen. If we had a government that actually cared about the welfare of its citizens, non-essential employers wouldn't be allowed to dictate terms like this. In the meantime, the virus will spread.
