We were sent home the 23rd and paid for the duration of the week. Were off the weeks of March 30 and April 6 on a Lack of Work Status and filed for unemployment . Got a call Good Friday afternoon that the company lawyers had gotten qualification as an essential business as a third party supplier to health care and governmental agencies and if we made the choice not to return Monday our status would be reported as voluntary layoff--- work was available and the countdown to losing benefits would start.
Went to the MESC site to confirm that we were off both weeks on Monday and payment hit on Wednesday.
It was not certain people--it was everbody that works on the production floor or in the distribution center.

isnt that funny how the people who are considered "essential" are the people in society that are looked at as the
'little people" while the upper class can run home and hide while still keep getting paid full salary?????

I'm a "little people" keeping and getting people into their houses. During the week I look like your heros standing on the capital building steps. The upper class running and hiding and getting a full salary are paying my contracts. Guess what, they're keeping a lot of other "little people" and businesses going in this horrible time. We're all in this together, not sure why you're posting bull****.

Oh...BTW, my wife who is a corporate worker has "run home and hide", who is also putting in 60-65 hour weeks working her ass off under a lot of pressure. My sister and nephew who both work in NYC have run and hidden too...or should they go in to the hotspot where 10,000+ have died so far? Both are working their asses off under difficult situations also. Nothing's changed, they just work at different locations now. They're also respectful of the little people by wearing masks wherever they go and maintaining distance, and not going out unnecessarily to expose themselves and others to this horrible disease.

my point was that its funny how the people who are paid the least and looked down on in society (say a garbage truck driver or a cabbie, etc.) suddenly become essential and valuable when there is a unsafe job to do. but yet they are treated and paid like they are unneeded when things are normal. hopefully that explains it but if not we will just disagree.

Good for you, have a nice summer.

Quick check on stats as of today:
Fl pop. 21.5M
27k known cases/ 800 deaths.

Mich pop 10M
32k known cases/ 2400 deaths.

This despite Fl’s elderly pop., lots of recent NYC escapees, spring break, Super Bowl and a gov who doesn’t subscribe to the “ let no crisis go waste” mantra of the dems.

“My business is essential because it’s essential for me to stay in business”

So you went political, brilliant. Maybe, just maybe she did things different because Michigan has THREE times the deaths. I hope the recent numbers are correct, Michigan may have peaked, the numbers are going down. Some day in the future science not politicians will solve how the virus spread the way it has and why it effected different people in different ways.

It is and has been political for some time now.

Please don’t take me the wrong way, you have good points, but to me it would make more sense to lock down the most at risk and let the general population get to work. They say it’s not going away anytime soon and we are on the cusp of doing devastating long term economic damage that will bring on a different brand of misery.

We are still on lockdown and everyone possible at our site is working from home. Those essential workers that were recalled are receiving hazard pay.
Got an email yesterday inviting about 400 people to crowd into a conference room for a retirement party next month.

The governor of Georgia is allowing hair salons, tattoo parlors, and massage therapists to reopen as long as they maintain strict social distancing--????

I'm beginning to think human beings are too stupid to survive