Articles Tagged with corona virus

Published on:

Many employees lost their jobs due to the COVID-19/Coronavirus pandemic and economic fallout. Many others became “remote” employees overnight. However, there is a large subset of individuals who are still continuing to work at physical locations. Initially, this was limited to “essential” workers, however, at present a large percentage of the labor pool is working at a

physical job site on a daily basis. This creates a lot of concerns for employers in the State of Florida, but also, places enormous pressure on the entire work force. Concerns over health and economics and attempting to balance these two essential tenets, can be a high-stress, anxiety-provoking matter.

Florida issued emergency legislation on federal, state and local levels to increase paid and unpaid sick leave and unemployment insurance benefits for COVID-19-related absences. The true gray area that exists is with regards to employees who contract COVID-19 while working – especially now that the work “place” is a fluid term.

Published on:

As most Floridians are aware as of the date of this blog, the Ron DeSantis, Governor of Florida has issued a “Stay at Home” Order for all of Florida as a result of the global pandemic, COVID-19 (Coronavirus). However, while many individuals have lost their jobs and unemployment is at a historic high, there are still any people who are members of the work force because their jobs are considered “essential.”

Essential employees per the Governor’s executive Order 20-89 are defined, generally as: Healthcare providers, grocery, food banks, and other established engaged in sale of food, food cultivators, businesses that provide food/shelter for homeless, media, gas stations and auto repair, banks, hardware stores, contractors, repair workers, mail and shipping companies, schools (only for online learning), laundry and dry cleaners, restaurants and food preparation, suppliers of essential business needs, airlines and transportation, home-based care for seniors and children, professional services, landscape and pool care, child care centers, telecommunications, architectural services, factories, waste management, and generally businesses that interact with customers through electronic or telephonic means.

Currently, Workers’ Compensation law in the State of Florida, does not extend Workers’ Compensation coverage to all essential workers defined above, however, the State is beginning to take steps in the right direction to extend coverage to some workers.

Contact Information