I would love to get some opinions here.
My spouse works for a large government contractor whom most of us have heard of. The company itself is conservative. They are deemed essential and are continuing manufacturing. This is fine, we have no problem with that. The company is very old fashioned and working from home doesn't happen. In fact, my spouse was the first person on her team to get a laptop even.
What is concerning is the following:
-My spouses direct manager has allowed work from home as a result of the COVID-19 situation, however he makes fun of her for it, as do her coworkers.
-The manager has created a macho culture where people think you're a wimp if you work from home during the pandemic
-The manager openly expresses disbelief in the severity of the pandemic and ridicules the social distancing efforts
-Recently, the workplace had an employee test positive fro COVID-19. The person came in to work symptomatic!!! The company quarantined the persons group, but did not quarantine all individuals that interacted with the person.
-The company does not provide any sort of PPE or sterilization procedures for the work place.
-Although employees are interacting much less, they are not strictly social distancing.
-to be clear, there are plenty of situations where work can be performed from home. However, the technologists (hourly) employees do not have this option because they have 100% lab/production work. The boss and techs feel that it's not fair if everyone else comes in.
How would you handle this? My spouse is between a rock and a hard place. To protect herself and society, she should work from home and avoid her coworkers like the plague, since they are acting like idiots and as a result of their actions are at high risk. However, her boss is in a position of power and is more or less bullying her.
There have been other situations with my spouse's boss, unrelated to COVID-19, that I wont even describe here. She could try becoming a whistleblower on multiple levels, but that would bring her tremendous stress/etc...
So, I'm just trying to hear opinions on what people would considering doing. thank you!
*******UPDATE 6/30/2020**********
Information piece one:
Someone in my wife's group came in with COVID, gave it to my wife and another person. He wasn't wearing a mask, had 'allergies'. Her boss took no responsibility for the situation. My wife was sick for about 2 weeks and is now fully recovered. In other words, exactly what you would expect to happen based on the above post, did in fact happen. Her work place has had multiple outbreaks. Some relatives of employees have died.
Information piece two:
The harassment of my wife by her boss has continued, but somehow even got worse. I'm reluctant to give details, as this is a public forum. HR has been contacted. Investigation is in progress. Hopefully HR will be helpful, though we are aware that it will be his word against hers. Without giving details, it has gotten to a point where she is starting to feel threatened, so action had to be taken.