Illinois to join California, orders citizens to stay at home. Senators miss aid package deadline, and New York airport workers lose jobs in midst of Coronavirus pandemic
On Friday, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker followed in California’s footsteps and ordered his citizens to remain home. Fox News reports that the order will take effect Saturday at 5 p.m. and last through April 7.
Like in California, all non-essential businesses will close, and those who can work from home will be encouraged to do so. Businesses like banks, grocery stores and pharmacies will remain open.
The state of Illinois has reported 500 cases of the Coronavirus, with a total of five deaths. This order is the state’s attempt at containing the virus and keeping its citizens safe.
Other states to issue the same order include New York, New Jersey and Connecticut.
As reported by the New York Times, Senators in Washington came close to agreeing upon the $1 trillion aid package, but fell short of the Friday deadline set by Sen. Mitch McConnell. The Senate plans to work through the weekend on their “bipartisan economic stabilization package.”
As also reported by the New York Times, 1,200 airport workers in New York City were laid off without severance.
The majority of the employees who were laid off worked in the restaurants and stores owned by OTG in La Guardia, Kennedy International and Newark Liberty International airports.
OTG cites that the company is unable to pay its vast amount of employees due to the large hit the airlines are seeing in response to the coronavirus.
In an interview with the Times, Lawrence Schwarts, a senior executive with OTG, said: “‘You can’t pay people’ when the company is taking in very little revenue. ‘The airports are dead. No one’s flying.’”
Employees reported to the Times that they were told to surrender their badges, and that their health insurance would “lapse on March 31.”
Though the former employees understand the predicament, many were unhappy with the way the company handled the layoffs.
Other concession companies in the airports, like Hudson Group, were more generous to their laid-off employees and provided them with a 2-3 month extension of their health insurance, to protect them in uncertain times.
(Photo by Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images)
