WASHINGTON — When Jonathan Corpina, a senior managing partner at Meridian Equity Partners, returned to work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange in late May, he was met with temperature screenings, hand sanitizer stations, plexiglass barriers — and a liability waiver.
But that idea has engendered stiff opposition, particularly among congressional Democrats and labor unions, who say some businesses are doing too little to protect vulnerable workers and that such a liability shield would only encourage reckless behavior. The debate is coming to a head in Washington as Congress considers its next round of coronavirus legislation. Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., the majority leader, has singled out liability protection as his conference’s top priority, with White House officials echoing that sentiment. Lawmakers expect some version of coronavirus relief to pass through both chambers before the end of the summer.
“You’ve got to give the businesses some confidence here that if something happens, and it may not be their fault — the disease is an infectious disease — if something happens, you can’t take them out of business,” the White House economic adviser, Larry Kudlow, said in April on CNBC. “You can’t throw big lawsuits at them.
But trial lawyers — as well as some legal experts — say the risk of lawsuits from workers or customers may be overstated. “Immunity signals to workers and consumers that they go back to work or they go to the grocery store at their peril,” Vladeck said.According to data collected by the law firm Hunton Andrews Kurth, 2,645 coronavirus-related lawsuits have been filed in the United States this year as of June 11. But the majority of those disputes relate to insurance coverage, prisoner and detainee petitions, and civil right cases, including challenges to stay-at-home orders.
Unions including the United Steelworkers, the United Farm Workers, the Teamsters and the American Federation of Teachers have also protested expanded liability protections, fearing that they would lead to laxer safety standards for workers. Many essential workers are already being forced to choose between their safety and a paycheck, union leaders say, and those risks are falling disproportionately on workers of color.
The White House has so far fought against issuing detailed standards for businesses, arguing they would infringe on religious rights and risk damaging the economy by making it too onerous for businesses to reopen. In negotiations over past relief packages, Democrats have pushed for more federal protections for workers under OSHA, and Republicans have repeatedly rejected those provisions.
Some workers have signaled that they would be willing to pursue litigation against their employers if they fell ill at work. In a survey of more than 500 workers conducted in May by the Sports and Leisure Research Group, Engagious and ROKK Solutions, 36% said they would most likely take legal action against their employers if they returned to work and contracted the coronavirus after learning that a co-worker had been infected.
Well, have them tell their senators in Washington...Period...it's on the books!!
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