Worried about safety of returning to job? What Missouri, Kansas workers should know
The reopening of stores and restaurants in Kansas and Missouri brings some hope of an economic recovery after weeks of mounting unemployment and plummeting consumer confidence.
But as some employers begin to call back furloughed workers, it raises a difficult question for workers: What if they don’t feel safe returning to work?
The answer is complex.
Missouri Gov. Mike Parson has said the state expects workers to return or forfeit their unemployment benefits.
“If your boss calls you and tells you to come back to work, you’ve got to fulfill that requirement,” Parson recently told reporters in Jefferson City.
But things aren’t so simple in Kansas, where Gov. Laura Kelly has said the state will consider each worker’s situation on a case-by-case basis.
“There will be no blanket rule. We really do feel it’s something we need to individualize because everybody’s circumstance will be different,” Kelly told The Star editorial board in a conference call Friday.
Guidance from the Kansas Department of Labor shows some workers considered at high risk for COVID-19 may be able to refuse to return to work while retaining their benefits. But for those not considered at high risk or caring for high-risk individuals, a refusal to return to work “without good cause” may disqualify them from the unemployment program.
Further complicating matters on the Missouri side, Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas enshrined some protections for workers in his order that laid out guidelines for a slow reopening of the economy. He said nonessential businesses must allow workers to continue working from home or allow those who are uncomfortable to stay home until at least May 15.
“The reason we’re doing this is very clear. There are a number of people who may be immunocompromised,” the mayor said.
The Missouri Department of Labor and Industrial Relations website says that “general fear of COVID-19 will not support continuation of unemployment benefits” under the state program or special federal assistance programs.
“If an employer provides the employee suitable work to return, and the employee chooses not to return to work, then unemployment benefits will cease,” Anna Hui, the department director, said late last month.
Terra Shields, a server at a local restaurant, was just about to return to work from maternity leave when the coronavirus forced the closures of restaurants and bars. The federal stimulus and unemployment benefits have kept her afloat since. But she said this will be her last week earning unemployment as restaurants begin to reopen next week across the metro.
Shields, 35, fears bringing the virus home to her infant daughter and has decided not to go back to work for now.
“I’ve been in tears over this. Making this decision is really tough,” she said.
Her employer, a local chain, has been great to employees, she said, feeding them free meals throughout the pandemic. And her boss will allow her to return when she feels comfortable.
But Shields, whose restaurant is on the Missouri side, said it’s particularly frustrating to see how Kansas and Missouri are approaching the situation in disparate ways. She said the state should be more flexible with workers’ individual situations.
“Each person’s different,” she said. “And I feel like they should look at that instead of just saying, ‘No, if you don’t go back this is how it is.’”
As the number of new coronavirus cases continues to rise across the state, the situation leaves some workers with an impossible choice, said Richard von Glahn, policy director with Missouri Jobs with Justice.
“At this point you’re sort of holding them hostage,” he said. “Because if they’re going to lose access to their safety net of unemployment, what choice do they have? That’s a real problem.
“You’re putting a gun to people’s heads to go back to work.”
The pandemic has complicated the employer-employee relationship, but Kansas City Attorney John Murphy said many moves during the outbreak have tended to favor employees over their employers.
“You’re going to have situations where I think there’s probably going to be almost a presumption in favor of the employee,” said Murphy, the former chairman of Kansas City’s Shook, Hardy & Bacon law firm.
Still, he said fear or discomfort of returning to work absent an underlying medical condition or a duty to care for an ill loved one is not a sufficient reason to stay home from work.
“That part is clear,” he said. “For an otherwise healthy individual to say I’m just not comfortable going back to work right now isn’t going to be enough.”
Employers can survey their workforce to ask if they are in a vulnerable class, such as having a chronic condition that would compromise their immune system. But they generally must avoid prying into private information about specific medical conditions, he said.
“That’s a yes or no question,” Murphy said. “You can then enter into a dialogue with the employee where if the employee wants to give you more information about that vulnerability, you can talk to them about it and hopefully reach an accommodation.”
Murphy suggests employers start having conversations with their teams long before they bring them back to their physical work site.
“At the end of the day, that’s the most important thing: for employers and employees to talk,” he said.
Scott Anderson said he’s seen a fairly even split among his restaurant employees. His Riley Drive Entertainment operates several restaurants in the Midwest, including Ignite Wood Fire Grill in Lenexa and Saints Pub + Patio in Independence and Lenexa.
“I think half of our staff is bored out of their minds and ready to get back to work, see their regulars and have some social interaction again,” he said. “And I think the other half is more than content to stay at home, draw unemployment and in their minds stay safe.”
With a federal boost of $600 per week for unemployed workers, many of those out of work are actually earning more on the sidelines, he said. For staff coming back, he said his company planned to pay consistent salaries that would be more than they made on unemployment.
“But the fact of the matter is, we’ve got a lot of employees in a lot of our restaurants that will never be called back,” Anderson said. “Because I don’t think we will have the demand for them this year. I don’t think the demand will return until 2021.”
Anderson hopes to reopen some of his local restaurants next week, but said specific plans are still in the works.
He said his company will work with employees who have chronic health conditions or other reasons to not return. An attorney, Anderson said workers who refuse to return may risk losing their unemployment benefits. But he doesn’t think that will be a problem for his company.
Anderson expects traffic to be slow for months to come. And with more than half a million workers filing new unemployment claims in Kansas and Missouri in recent weeks, he said other workers are ready and waiting.
“I am not a believer of asking somebody to work in my restaurant who does not want to be there. It’s not good for us, it’s not good for them and it’s not good for the customer,” he said. “The employees in my mind that don’t want to come back, that’s fine. And that’s the other thing: there are other people who want to work. There’s other unemployed people. We’ll hire them instead.”
The Star’s Jason Hancock, Allison Kite and Jonathan Shorman contributed to this report.
This story was originally published May 7, 2020 at 5:00 AM.
