Need a bailout? Ask the Liberians.
Similarly, these companies should be asking for bailouts from the tax havens in which they are registered. Surely all those "registration fees" they've been paying to avoid taxes are being kept safely for just such an occasion.
None of this is making me feel super patriotic/moral/righteous duty for them.
[1] https://www.businessinsider.com/cruise-line-workers-reveal-g...
Why wouldn't you expect them to ask for free money? It doesn't cost them anything. They didn't receive the bailouts for the reasons you mentioned.
They only exist because they are funded by taxing economic activity. If governments could just will them into being without restriction than every country in the world could have European level social safety nets.
If economic activity declines, so does the money faucet funding the social safety nets.
Sounds like an abusive relationship. Again, if a company wants to be bailed out by the tax payer, I don't think it's a stretch to ask that they pay taxes.
Otherwise it's like me, a foreigner with no connection to Denmark other than that I've 'helped the economy' when I went on vacation there last year asking for a bailout.
> But if the answer is "to help workers keep their jobs", then the distinction might not be relevant.
In many European countries, social safety nets exist so you don't have to reward cancerous businesses for terrible business practices, while still ensuring individuals are looked after in the event things go sideways.