Running the grill, marinating the meat, and taking out the trash are just a few of Luis Torres’s responsibilities at the Chipotle Mexican Grill where he works in Midtown Manhattan—“I basically do everything,” he said. And, he added, every time he’s felt too ill to work during his 13 months at the fast-casual restaurant chain, his managers have discouraged him from calling in sick.

“Once, I had a fever and I wasn’t feeling good, and [supervisors] told me to work anyway,” said Torres. “They give you an attitude or tell you that they don’t have people to cover your shift.”

Even as he’s suffered from cold and flu symptoms, Torres said he’s cut peppers, onions, and prepared meat. “We’re told that that we have a role to play and that’s to work,” said the 22-year-old employee.

Chipotle told Civil Eats that company policy requires sick employees to stay home and that it communicates with all employees about how to properly request sick time. In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic that’s claimed the lives of more than 100 people in the United States and more than 7,800 worldwide, food workers across the country have staged walkouts and raised concerns about their health and safety at restaurant chains they say dissuade them from calling in sick and deny them paid sick leave.

With new federal recommendations to cancel gatherings of almost any size to halt the spread of the coronavirus, multiple states have recently placed restrictions on restaurants, limiting the number of diners who can be in an establishment at once and ordering restaurants to transition to drive-through and delivery service only. But those efforts don’t address the fact that just 25 percent of food workers receive paid sick leave, increasing the likelihood that these laborers may continue to show up to work ill and spread infectious diseases to colleagues and customers. The coronavirus cannot be transmitted through food, but the virus can live on high-touch surfaces found in restaurants, such as tables, countertops, cardboard, and plastic.

A Waffle House employee in Georgia has already tested positive for coronavirus, and the restaurant chain granted him and his quarantined coworkers paid sick leave. Waffle House, however, stopped short of committing to pay sick leave for other employees who may contract COVID-19 in the future.

Additionally, McDonald’s announced last week that it would provide two weeks of paid sick leave to employees who contract coronavirus, but that offer applies only to workers at its corporate-owned U.S. restaurants. Franchisees reportedly operate more than 90 percent of the 14,000 McDonald’s restaurants in the country. Hence, McDonald’s workers are asking the company, the world’s second-largest employer, to ensure that all workers receive paid sick leave, be it for coronavirus or any other medical condition.

The federal government hasn’t offered much help on this front. The bipartisan Families First Coronavirus Act, which the U.S. House of Representatives passed early last Saturday, was largely billed as providing paid sick leave to U.S. workers impacted by the virus. Instead, it extends this benefit to only about 20 percent of the workers who need it, giving corporations such as McDonald’s and Chipotle the option not to offer paid sick leave and small businesses the opportunity to obtain hardship exemptions. This lack of paid sick leave is a major problem now, and it could exacerbate predicted future pandemics.

Shutterstock

Part of A Guide to Coronavirus and the Food World

As local and state governments demand restaurant closures and transitions to takeout amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the nation’s chain restaurants, grocery stores, and delivery services are on the frontline of providing the country with food. These also happen to be the businesses with some of the worst paid sick leave policies (if they have paid sick leave at all); an emergency coronavirus relief bill recently passed by Congress only extends guaranteed sick leave to those working for companies that employ under 500 people, ruling out employees of large chains. Some national chains have implemented paid sick leave policies voluntarily, while others — well — have not, doing what the New York Times bluntly called out as “putting profits ahead of public health.”

Here, Eater will keep a running list of which chain restaurants, grocers, and delivery services are putting public health first by instituting paid sick leave amid the novel coronavirus pandemic, and the nuances (good and bad) therein. We will also list which chains are still refusing paid sick leave for their employees, despite it being a moral and ethical imperative.

Chains with paid sick leave during COVID-19

McDonald’s: The fast food behemoth announced it would be providing 14 paid-leave days to employees that require quarantine, but only those who work at the company’s corporate-owned stores. McDonald’s says over 90 percent of its stores worldwide are operated by franchisees, and notes that franchisees, while required to adhere to state and local sick leave laws, are considered independent business owners. The McDonald’s Corporation can recommend sick leave policies to its franchisees, but — according to the company — the franchisees do not have to implement them.