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Many restaurant employees say they must work when they are ailing
A cough. A sneeze. Perhaps a bead of sweat from a fevered brow.
They're not ingredients that are supposed to come with a food order, but a national survey of restaurant workers released last week served up an unsavory possibility.
Two-thirds of 4,323 food servers and preparers surveyed admitted they had worked while sick in the past year.
The "Serving While Sick" report, commissioned by Restaurant Opportunities Centers United, a labor coalition for restaurant workers, pinpoints two reasons the workers don't stay home:
Nearly nine in 10 food-service workers said they lacked paid sick days.
More than six in 10 said they had no health insurance from any source.
The survey sponsors say those numbers heighten public health risks if the nation's 10 million restaurant industry employees, working in more than 568,000 food and drink establishments, spread disease.
Source: McClatchy Newspapers