Unions and Food Safety
First, a confession: I’m a pro-union guy. I believe unions were instrumental in securing many of the health and safety rights we take for granted. I believe unions continue to have relevance and remain necessary for a just and benevolent society.
The essence of that society is balance through strength. It is the logic that underpins all of our democratic institutions. For justice, we need government authority tempered by individual rights. For democracy, we need co-equal branches of government each to check the power of the others. For international diplomacy, we need military strength to prevent over reaching by expansionist nations.
How then can we, as a just society, ever accept a lack of balance when it comes to workers’ rights? History and our own experience shows that corporatism unchecked is a threat to us all (and not just the workers most directly affected).
A good example of this is playing out in a battle over organizing rights involving a Twin Cities Jimmy John’s franchisee that fired six employees after they publically protested the restaurants’ sick leave policy. See http://www.startribune.com/business/148530485.html.
Like many fast food restaurants, these Jimmy John’s shops don’t pay employees on days when they’re too sick to work. It doesn’t take a food scientist or an economist to figure out that such policies create a strong incentive for employees to continue working when they have infectious and highly contagious illnesses likely to result in contamination of work surfaces, utensils and food sold to the public.
This is not a hypothetical threat. Our firm, one of only a handful in the United States that specializes in food safety law, has represented hundreds of people harmed in foodborne illness outbreaks caused by infected food handlers. Many of those cases involved workers sickened by hepatitis A, Salmonella, norovirus or Shigella who continued working despite their illnesses.
The mode of transmission is as unpleasant as the illnesses are dangerous: fecal matter or aerosolized vomit in food. This pathogenic chain reaction is the direct result of employment policies and sanitation violations that are so often inextricably linked. Put another way, restaurants that are unwilling to pay their employees for sick time may have the same laissez-faire attitude toward restaurant hygiene.
Not all workers are saints and not all restaurant owners are villains. Personal responsibility applies to food safety as it does to every other human action. However, when we know by direct experience and common sense that certain policies ineluctably lead to foodborne illness, those policies must change.
A federal administrative law judge has ruled that a Twin Cities Jimmy John’s franchisee violated the union organizing rights of six employees by firing them last year after they publicly protested the restaurants’ sick leave policy.
The workers, who were all active in an attempt to unionize 10 local Jimmy John’s, must be reinstated to their jobs and given back pay, according to an order late Friday by the Washington, D.C.,-based judge, Arthur Amchan
Encouraging Consumers to Hold Restaurants Accountable For Food Poisoning
Already this year we’ve seen two serious outbreaks of foodborne illness at restaurants, including a Subway Shigella outbreak in Lombard, Illinois, where we are representing many of the victims. Here’s a press release from our office reminding consumers of the strict liability that restaurants face for the good of public health.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
MINNEAPOLIS — April 10, 2010 — National food safety law firm Pritzker Olsen is reminding consumers that restaurants are liable for any injuries resulting from consumption of the food served to customers.
A pair of recent outbreaks involving E. coli O157:H7 and Shigella have highlighted the issue by making people seriously ill in areas around Honolulu, Hawaii, and Lombard, Illinois. Pritzker Olsen, a leading practitioner of foodborne illness litigation, is monitoring both outbreaks and has filed an Illinois Shigella lawsuit against the Subway restaurant at 1009 E. Roosevelt Road in Lombard.
In the Subway outbreak, health officials have associated improper hygiene by infected food handlers with an outbreak of shigellosis that has sickened at least 78 people, including at least 11 who were hospitalized. Pritzker Olsen is representing many of the victims in the Subway outbreak and continues to accept cases.
In Honolulu, state health department investigators recently closed Peppa’s II Korean BBQ restaurant on South King Street for one day as part of an investigation into an E. coli O157:H7 outbreak. Four of seven people sickened by the same strain of E. coli O157:H7 reported eating at Peppa’s before they became ill in March. Health investigators then observed improper food handling at the restaurant and closed it for one day for cleaning and training in E. coli prevention.
Anyone who contracts E. coli poisoning at a restaurant is entitled to damages from the restaurant. This is the case even when the specific food source is not determined by health investigators or when the restaurant unknowingly accepts food already contaminated with E. coli and serves it. Restaurants are an important filter in the U.S. food safety system, demanding food from hand-picked suppliers that is wholesome and unadulterated.
Pritzker Olsen represents E. coli HUS, Shigella, Salmonella, Listeria and other food poisoning victims throughout the U.S., including Hawaii.
In a recent case in Moultrie, Georgia, our lawyers filed suit against The Barbecue Pit, Inc. restaurant, Nebraska Beef, Ltd. and H & L Distributors on behalf of a woman who contracted an E. coli infection after eating contaminated beef later recalled by Nebraska Beef.
Our client suffered bloody diarrhea with intense and painful stomach cramping. Shortly after she was hospitalized, she began suffering from TTP-HUS, a complication of an E. coli O157:H7 infection that causes kidney failure and can affect other organs such as the brain and the heart. Our client was hospitalized for two months and almost died several times. Following her hospitalization, she was transferred to an inpatient rehabilitation unit at the hospital for approximately two weeks. She required several more hospitalizations in the following months.
As a result of this incident, our client sustained severe and permanent injuries involving her brain, heart, kidneys and other organs and bodily functions.
Food poisoning of any kind is not to be taken lightly. For gastrointestinal symptoms such as painful cramping, diarrhea, fever, nausea and vomitting, see a physician immediately. It most cases, a doctor’s offhand diagnosis that your symptoms are “food related” is not enough for legal purposes. It is critically important that your doctor runs the appropriate stool or blood test to determine the particular type of food poisoning you suffered.
Restaurant outbreaks of foodborne illness are preventable and often stem from lax training in safe food handling and preparation. When restaurant owners are held accountable for making people sick, our food safety system is strengthened for the good of everyone.
For more information, contact Pritzker Olsen at 1-888-377-8900 (TOLL FREE) or 612-338-0202, email Fred at fhp@pritzkerlaw.com or visit our website, www.pritzkerlaw.com. The firm represents food poisoning victims nationwide and has offices at Plaza VII, Suite 2950, 45 South Seventh Street, Minneapolis, MN 55401.
Fred Pritzker On Newsmakers
