fuckyeahmarxismleninism:

At a Target store in Michigan, an employee in the electronics department has stopped greeting his favorite customers with handshakes and hugs amid the growing threat of coronavirus, and he’s started to worry about what would happen if he got sick.

“You don’t get paid if you call out,” the employee, Robert O'Banner, said in an interview with Business Insider. “I don’t have the money to call off a day.”

On the other side of the country, in Oregon, Robert Davis is growing concerned about the likelihood of exposure to the virus through his job stocking shelves at a Walmart store.

“We’re in contact with hundreds of people every week,” Davis said, noting that he also handles hundreds of products during his shifts. He said he’s worried about what his family would do if he died.

“It weighs a lot on me,” he said.

As the number of coronavirus cases in the US grows, some shoppers are stampeding stores and panic-buying goods including masks, hand sanitizer, and household staples.

Retail employees are meanwhile frantically working to restock shelves and help panicked customers. At the same time, many privately grapple with their own anxieties about exposure to the virus at work and whether they could face punishment if they call out sick due to attendance policies, according to interviews with 20 retail workers from 13 states across the US. Eleven work at Target, nine at Walmart, and one at CVS.