Is Station Management Trying to Restrict Personal Travel?

A source tells FTVLive that management at WPLG (Miami) are requiring staff to get personal travel approved by the station.

A source tells FTVLive that the station is “telling employees if they decide to travel on their days off to certain US cities, they may be required to use PTO to quarantine themselves, even if there is not a specific reason.”

The source added, “there is at least one current dispute between management and an employee who recently traveled.”

While TV stations try to stop the spread of the virus into their buildings, do they have the right to tell employees where they can and can’t go on their own personal time?

The other problem, as stations put policies into place, many say that if the employee has to self quarantine themselves and use their PTO days to do it.

First off, the recommended self quarantine time in dealing with the coronavirus is 14 days. Most people do not have 14 days built up in their PTO and that means for at least part of those days, the employee will be forgoing a paycheck.

Now, this might be fine for management, who is making a decent wage, but many in TV news are living paycheck to paycheck and can’t afford unpaid time off.

Companies need to figure this out when telling an employee to stay home. If you going to keep them out of work, don’t you think you should pay them?

At the least offer them no interest loans that they can pay back over time.

TV stations are raking in millions of dollars and the 2020 campaigns is going to line their bank accounts at record numbers. And yet, TV stations are hiring people at low wages and often cutting their pay when contracts come up.

Now, you’re going to tell the employee they MUST take days off and not be paid?

Come on! Be Better.

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