Coronavirus: Olive Garden gives staff paid sick leave as food industry faces reckoning over outbreak

Food service industry has long been reluctant to provide paid sick leave

An Olive Garden restaurant in Danvers, Massachusetts (Anthony92931/Wikimedia Creative Commons )

The parent company of the Olive Garden restaurant chain announced it will provide paid sick leave to all its hourly employees amid fears over the coronavirus outbreak.

Darden Restaurants Inc., which operates the popular Italian restaurant brand and a number of other nationwide chains, said the outbreak had sped up plans that were already under consideration. Previously, hourly employees were not paid for time missed due to illness. Now they will now receive one hour of paid sick leave for every 30 hours they work.

The move comes amid growing concerns that a lack of paid sick leave in the US restaurant industry could contribute to the spread of the coronavirus.

Darden’s announcement came just hours after the company was singled out in a story by the Popular Information newsletter, which spoke to staff members who said they could not afford to stay home when they were sick.

The company employs more than 170,000 hourly restaurant employees nationwide.

The decision could increase pressure on other restaurant chains to do the same, and may lead to long-term changes in an industry that is renowned for being hostile to staff calling in sick.

Experts say a corporate culture of not providing paid sick leave in the US makes the country vulnerable to outbreaks like the coronavirus. The food service industry is one of the worst — some 69 percent of workers do not have access to paid sick leave, or around 7 million people.

Many workers cannot afford to miss work when they are ill, which can cause viruses to spread as they come into contact with food.

The Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says that around one in five food service workers have reported working while sick with vomiting or diarrhea. In a 2014 report, it said that infected food workers were “frequently” the source of norovirus outbreaks.

A lack of paid sick leave is not exclusive to the food service industry, and affects low wage workers in particular. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, only 30 percent of people in the lowest 10 percent of wages currently receive paid sick leave.

The Trump administration has called on companies to be flexible with their workers in order to prevent the spread of coronavirus.

Jerome Adams, the US Surgeon General, wrote on Twitter on Tuesday: “Employers: PLEASE understand giving your employees flexibility and (paid) sick leave will save you money in the long run- it’s much cheaper than shutting down because everyone else gets sick!”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer, the two top Democratic leaders in Congress have called on President Donald Trump to introduce paid sick leave for workers impacted by quarantine orders.