The same way any other employer is able to offer PTO? It should just be a cost of doing business (and is in much of Europe).

... which is limited; often pro-rated in the first year of employment; and has to be scheduled in agreement with your employer so that not all critical staff go out on vacation at once.

How are these things the same?

My take on the linked demand list was the included terms were broad and generic for public consumption, not the actual demands submitted to WF. Maybe they are the actual demands, in which case, it's like they are just be the employee's first ask, fully expecting to negotiate back to something more reasonable. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anchoring#In_negotiations

Either way, PTO that allows workers to take enough time off to clear a quarantine order isn't unreasonable. All this chit-chat about all the workers staying home and grocers shutting down is missing the forest for the tress.

it's hard to assess whether the demand is reasonable when it doesn't specify a max number of days or accrual rate.

also PTO is usually subject to approval, not just choosing to stay home whenever.

How would one go about obtaining prior permission for sick leave? You don't know you're going to get COVID, or break an arm, or whatever.

It doesn't seem unreasonable to me for an employee to be able to call in and say "Hey, [I have | my kid has] [condition], I need some time off" (and get that time off without fearing for their job, house, and food supply).

this is part of my point. sick leave isn't equivalent to PTO.

That's how it's offered in much of the US. Vacation and sick are rolled into a single block of time (which is usually too little for any major health issue).

I'd love for everybody to get 3 (or more) weeks of vacation and 2 weeks of sick leave. But, the chances of American employers jumping from literally nothing (in many cases) to anything resembling a reasonable policy is next to zero. Because stock market. Or profits. Or reasons.

Its not going to work, if you pay people to not work, who is going to work then ? Money will become useless.

Paying people to not (come into) work is pretty much critical to not getting a huge number of people (not necessarily the same people!) killed in a pandemic.

Surely you agree there are some workers to whom that does not apply? I'm fairly sure we can't send all the utility workers home, can we?

If it's pandemic, the infected workers have to be sent home to avoid infecting others. This is actually even more important for the essential workers. Otherwise you end up with them all off sick at once.

There's literally no-one here disputing that sick workers should get to stay home. What's being discussed is the proposition that healthy workers who decide to self-isolate should be paid to do so.

If you don't pay them to stay home they'll come back to work sick and infect others. Not everyone can rely on a hefty savings to pay their rent.

Then who is going to work if you can get paid for not working ?

Certainly Jeff Bezos could spare a billion or two.

While I am sure he can, I personally like to see reasons that are more general than picking on particular people.

Amazon can spare a billion or two.

What would be even better is a country-wide system for essential workers, but I imagine that negotiating that at the political level won't be timely.

EDIT: Even a recommended essential worker policy from the top would be helpful guidance for both companies and workers trying to quickly resolve these critical nation-wide issues.