Corporate Quarantine

I work at a large company in the US and recently the following was discussed in a monthly management safety meeting. I have **** out all the location specific info to protect myself, as I probably should not be re-posting info from this corporate memo.

Also be aware that fall is here, which means prime cold and flu season. With the threat of an H1N1 pandemic looming, ****, along with our management, have been discussing contingency plans if we have a building-wide outbreak of H1N1. At the moment, this may involve a near-complete lockdown of the corporate campus.

This means that all non-**** personnel would likely work remotely, while whomever was working in **** would be locked-in. *** would provide food at the cafeteria, showers at either ***, **** or ****, and cots for sleeping at ****.

NOTE: these arrangements are not finalized, but are the likely course of action, and it is especially important for us to get regular updates on this H1N1 plan as we will never know when it may hit.

I was very disturbed to read and hear about this. Is this even legal? How can my employer legally keep me at work? Are all employees going to be tested to see if they have H1N1 or are they just going to quarantine everyone, if one person falls ill. I was actually more concerned as to whether or not I would be paid for every hour I was required to stay in my building under quarantine.(which in the event of a 5 day quarantine, I would expect to be paid for 120hrs, 80 of which being OT. Cant say that I wouldnt mind that pay check). Nonetheless this info is a little scary to me and I dont really feel like it would accomplish very much in the way of protecting others from contracting H1N1.

We would still need food deliveries from the outside and there are just a lot of logistical problems with this plan that I feel management has not considered. What if co-workers need medications or prescription drugs? How will any diabetics receive their much needed insulin? Am I being paid? What about single parents and their children, who will watch them while they are in quarantine?

Has anyone else heard about anything like this at their place of business?

Things have already been set in place for this to happen.

School classes will probably be continued by internet....a program like secondlife.com

They need to enact something like this so they can take out the masses who have been marked to "disappear".

Nobody will have a way to know who is really missing until it's all over.

Some people may be taken off by the white coats instead of militia.

Good way to get the "troublemakers" and "truthers" out of the way.

This ain't about swine flu.

I agree, this is not about the swine flu. It just is NOT that bad. I mean, yeah, it's rough and an awful flu, but in it's current form, it is just NOT the kind of disease that calls for work place lock-ins and quarantines.

Either they have seriously overreacted or something bigger is brewing.

Where I work we have food stores, cots and sleeping bags. Sometimes the roads get really bad and the out of towners who come in for meetings can get stuck at the facility in sudden winter storm season. So the bosses set it up so there is a place to stay until the storm passes. This shows an honest consern for employees and good planning.

What you describe sounds like the pay Czar is going to make you stay at your desk until you drop, or possibley a concentration camp or something.

If swine flu gets that bad then being trapped in a typical office building with there notoriously poor ventilation will get you killed.