It’s clear the federal administration (even the compromised scientific agencies, CDC, FDA) wants to please the master, Trump, whose approach has been to tamp down, or explicitly deny, the numbers associated with the American COVID experience. It’s all bad news. The U.S. is the laughingstock of the world as it continues to fail to contain the virus by means recommended by scientists.

But my point here is that corporations are copying Trump’s approach — denial through suppressing employee reports. American workers compelled to return to worksites faced threats of COVID contamination of unknown probabilities.

Employer approaches are disgusting. Rather than test everyone, then isolate those who test positive with no paycheck penalty, companies have rushed to restore “normalcy,” callously ignoring virus mitigation rules and procedures. During the early fights between workers and Midwest meat packing plant employers, employers threatened job loss if workers did not return to unsafe properties where distancing and PPE precautions had not been taken. Employers balked, contracted the virus and died in large numbers.

The young, black Amazon distribution center supervisor made national headlines when he walked off work decrying the unsafe conditions. In marked contrast to the reality described by those on the ground, Amazon TV advertising boasts of all the care it has provided its workers.  [Note: Jeff Bezos, Amazon CEO, is now worth $200 billion. Since the pandemic began, his worth increased tens of billions. This is not irony. It is unfettered capitalism that allows him to skimp on worker safety costs while growing even more obscenely richer.]

Now comes reporting from Bloomberg that

Workers at Amazon.com, Cargill, McDonald’s, and Target say they were told to keep Covid cases quiet. The same sort of gagging has been alleged in OSHA complaints against Smithfield Foods, Urban Outfitters, and General Electric. In an email viewed by Bloomberg Businessweek, Delta Air Lines told its 25,000 flight attendants to “please refrain from notifying other crew members on your own” about any Covid symptoms or diagnoses. At Recreational Equipment Inc., an employee texted colleagues to say he’d tested positive and that “I was told not to tell anybody” and “to not post or say anything on social media.”

So, let’s be clear. Go back to work, despite community spread of the virus of an unknown size, and do NOT bother to ask about COVID’s prevalence at work — who is infected and who is not. And if you contract the virus, do NOT tell your brethren so that they can be safe and make the proper decisions knowing this.

Is the suppression bullying? Certainly! It is not only abusive and humiliating to be silenced on something as important as life and death decisions, the employer actions trigger stress-related health consequences. The conditions satisfy the WBI definition of bullying.

Remember the corporate tactic whenever you hear or read about these corporations touting their “corporate social responsibility” (CSR) as good stewards of the environment or some other type of bullshit. They don’t give a damn about the risks they impose on their workers’ health.