In his press conference this afternoon, Vice President Mike Pence claimed that no worker would miss a paycheck if he or she falls ill to coronavirus. But of course that isn’t true since the paid leave bill that Trump will be signing exempts the largest corporations from having to pay sick leave.
A reporter asked Pence about that exemption and the answer was about as you’d predict:
The answer to the question was so clearly unsatisfactory that even libertarian congressman Justin Amash criticized Pence for not giving adequate explanation for why large corporations were exempted from paying paid sick leave and family leave.
When even a libertarian like Amash is up in arms about why large corporations are not compelled to pay sick and family leave, you know just how outrageous this exemption was. As Amash noted yesterday:
That’s right, when Wall Street companies are exempt but not small business, it is clear which side the Trump Administration is on.
But no matter, the Trump campaign is already pushing out this lie and thus misleading many workers who will miss work due to coronavirus over the next weeks and months, only to find out that they will not in fact be guaranteed paid sick leave.
We must spread the truth about this to as many as possible lest workers for these large corporations be tricked into being reassured about not missing a paycheck due to coronavirus, only to later find out they have again been hung out to dry by their government. And hopefully this will open the eyes of many workers to the fact that the Trump Administration, which purports to be on the side of working Americans, is just the latest Republican Administration to put the interests of corporate America ahead of working Americans.