“The employers in these cases assume that individuals will make supreme sacrifices in the course of employment. And they do make significant sacrifices, but if it’s life or flight, many workers choose flight,” says Michael LeRoy, a professor of labor and employment relations at the University of Illinois.
This week, two US nurses were diagnosed with Ebola in Dallas after having been part of the 77-member team that took care of Thomas Eric Duncan, the first person in America to die in the recent Ebola outbreak.
Officially, US leaders including President Barack Obama and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) chief Tom Frieden have gone to lengths to reassure the American public that their risk of contracting the disease is low. Obama said he “shook hands with, hugged and kissed” nurses working with Ebola patients at Emory University hospital in Atlanta.
Yet even Frieden appeared to concede the fears about Ebola are not entirely unfounded. “It’s scary and getting it right is really important because the stakes are so high,” Frieden said at a press conferenceabout Nina Pham, the first nurse to contract the disease in the US.
The law is thin on protecting people from workplace hazards having to do with infectious diseases. Workers’ rights are limited outside of demanding more training and better equipment.
With files from the Guardian
