The Washington Post - USA (2022-03-06)

SUNDAY, MARCH 6 , 2022. THE WASHINGTON POST EZ EE G5

In addition to considering the

laws mentioned above, says

Epstein Gluck, employers should

“be consistent, follow reasonable

accommodation, request

appropriate documentation and

engage in an interactive process”

with employees to determine

what their condition is, what their

challenges and capabilities are,

and what accommodations might

allow them to perform their jobs.

Everyone’s anxious for economic

recovery, but human recovery is a

vital part of that goal.

Reader query: Are you

returning to work after an

extended leave of absence due to

covid-19 or pandemic-related

causes? What has your reception

been from your employer? If you

are an employer, what are your

challenges in reinstating workers

who have been on extended leave

and may require

accommodations? Write me at

[email protected].

you through your next job search.

Check your state’s bar association

or visit the National Employment

Lawyers Association (nela.org) to

find a lawyer and schedule a

consultation.

To be fair, I have to believe most

employers are more humane than

yours and are tryi ng to do right by

their returning workers. The

pandemic has left a l ot of business

owners struggling with severe

workforce losses — some due to

covid, some to the “Great

Resignation” — r equiring them to

change their operational

structures or make painful cuts.

For some workers returning

from covid leave, their old jobs

may have changed significantly or

may no longer exist. Workers

suffering from mental and

physical aftereffects and long-

haul covid may now need

accommodations that are

difficult to implement given their

employers’ reduced resources.

Unfortunately, FMLA applies

only to employees who have been

at the employer at least one year,

so you don’t have th at protection.

But other laws — such as the

Americans With Disabilities Act,

state and local leave and

disability laws, and new laws

enacted specifically to protect

covid victims — may come into

play, according to Amy Epstein

Gluck, employment law partner

with FisherBroyles.

My layperson’s guess is that

your employer knows all this and

has assigned you a degrading

position with no future, hoping it

will encourage you to leave

voluntarily.

But you have options other

than submitting to abuse or

slinking off into the night. An

employment lawyer can

determine what non-FMLA

protections you’re entitled to and

possibly help you negotiate a

good severance package to carry

those challenges.

I want to believe that by “bad

timing,” your boss merely meant

your illness occurred at a t ime

that was especially unfortunate

for the business as well as for you

— not that you personally

exercised bad judgment in getting

sick. But assuming your account

is accurate, the only reasonable

interpretation is that you’re being

punished for taking time off to

survive a virus that is on the verge

of killing 1 million people in the

United States.

The Family and Medical Leave

Act allows eligible workers 12

weeks of unpaid leave to be

treated for and recover from a

serious health condition that

renders them unable to work.

And as discussed in a previous

column, workers returning from

FMLA leave must be restored to a

position that is the same as or

equivalent to the job they held

before.

company was “off the table.” I

have over 15 years of leadership

experience and an MBA from a

top university, and there was no

hint that I w asn’t excelling in my

new role before my illness.

Hoping to win back my

manager’s trust, I’ve kept my

head down, executed my work,

and gone above and beyond

what’s asked of me for the past

seve ral months. My manager

insults, berates, humiliates and

criticizes me at every turn.

I love my job but loath going to

work. I hesitate to quit and lose

my insurance. Is there any advice

on how to deal with this situation,

or is it time to meet with HR and

move on?

Karla: Judging by other letters

I’ve received, yours isn’t the only

employer contending with the

challenges of reintegrating

workers returning from covid-

related leave. But it is a prime

example of how not to handle

Reader: L ast

summer I became

very ill with covid-

19. I was a f ew
    months into a new
    dream job at a
    global company
    that emphasizes
    its progressive
    culture. After I
    was diagnosed, I
    continued to work
    from home until I became unable.
    I was hospitalized, spending a
    week in a medically induced
    coma and two weeks in the ICU.
    Less than two weeks after my
    hospital stay, I received the
    doctor’s approval to return to
    work. On my first day back, my
    manager called me into his office
    and explained that my absence
    was “very bad timing” and my
    leadership role within the team
    had “come to an end.” I was also
    told to “act like an intern” and
    that my advancement within the

I survived c ovid, but my c areer is a iling a fter boss calls i llness ‘ very bad timing’

Work
Advice

KARLA L.
MILLER

YURI KOCHETKOV/EPA-EFE/SHUTTERSTOCK

Muscovites traverse an underpass last week. Worry over high prices for staples and a weakening currency are familiar to Russians, but how the current sanctions will affect ordinary citizens remains uncertain.

adopted in 2010 and updated in

2020, seeks to increase Russia’s

self-sufficiency in grains, meat,

dairy and other staples.

The Putin government has de-

ployed other measures to keep

food prices low on occasions when

political concerns appeared more

important than letting markets de-

termine prices. During the run-up

to the 2021 parliamentary elec-

tions, the Russian government im-

posed steep export duties on

wheat, effectively diverting grain

from global markets to domestic

markets to cap food prices at home.

Why do these competing eco-

nomic forces matter? They matter

because they will affect how eco-

nomic sanctions that limit the

Russian economy’s ties to global

markets are felt by Russian citi-

zens. Even though Russia is an

authoritarian state, and sanctions

are meant to primarily target

elites, the West is also counting on

ordinary Russians who are feeling

the fallout from sanctions to act as

catalysts for change.

The Russian opposition has

been almost entirely suppressed

by the state, with antiwar protest-

ers arrested a nd the opposition

leader, Alexei Navalny, in jail.

Meanwhile, a large share of the

population is influenced by state-

owned media outlets that portr ay

the war as a liberation and do not

report on casualties.

But if the cost of the war be-

comes increasingly painful and

obvious to see for everyone via the

price of food, the silent and patri-

otic majority might be more likely

to join the small minority who call

for an end to the war. Or at least

that is the West’s hope.

Susanne Wengle is the author of

“Black Earth, White Bread” and “Post-

Soviet Power” and N.R. Dreux

Associate Professor at the University

of Notre Dame.

to import cutting-edge technol-

ogies from abroad. Yeltsin was un-

prepared to react to the economic

pain that an open economy can

inflict on regular citizens during

times of crisis.

The Putin government, by con-

trast, took steps to insulate Rus-

sia’s economy from the ups and

downs of commodity and finan-

cial markets. These mechanisms

might now help cushion the ef-

fects of Western sanctions.

The stability fund that has

helped shore up the ruble is the

most well-known of these policies.

But there are others aimed specifi-

cally at keeping food prices low.

The “Food Security Agenda,” first

prices and above all, bread.

As a commentator for Argu-

menty i Fakty, one of Russia’s most

widely read newsmagazines, not-

ed during the ruble crisis of 1998,

the low point of the economic

crisis of the Yeltsin years: “Bread

seems to be just a regular product.

In actual fact, it is a s pecial, politi-

cal one. Insufficient bread in the

city immediately affects every

family. A price increase is a hit on

every wallet.”

Over the past 30 years, the Rus-

sian economy has become more

integrated with global markets,

with Moscow liberalizing capital

markets to attract foreign invest-

ments and reducing trade barriers

Asian financial crisis of the late

’90s, the collapse of the U.S. sub-

prime mortgage sector in 2008,

the pandemic — have led to global

recessions that reduce demand for

energy, which in turn drives down

energy prices.

The value of the Russian ruble

reflects these crises. It has general-

ly lost value as demand for oil and

natural gas dwindles, and

strengthened during periods of

global economic growth when de-

mand for energy is high. While

that might seem like an obscure

dynamic, Russian citizens are inti-

mately familiar with the impact of

global energy markets on house-

hold finances — especially food

unpredictable is how sanctions

will affect ordinary Russians as

the situation unfolds.

This is the case because of two

competing economic facts. On the

one hand, the Russian economy

and Russian citizens’ daily eco-

nomic realities are closely tied to

global financial markets — leaving

them vulnerable to pain inflicted

by sanctions.

On the other hand, the Russian

government under Putin has been

acutely aware of the political dan-

ger of inflation and has worked

hard to insulate the Russian econ-

omy and Russian people from

global economic shocks.

Whether the severity of the eco-

nomic hardship or the cushioning

from policy measures prevail is

anyone’s guess. Putin is banking

on the latter. Citizens are bracing

for the former.

Here is the logic of why Russia’s

integration into the world ec ono-

my has the potential to make sanc-

tions hurt. Although sanctions are

currently focused on Russia’s ties

to global markets, for regular Rus-

sians the effects of sanctions look

similar to price shocks in global

energy markets.

Russian firms produce a variety

of goods and services, but the

economy is overwhelmingly de-

pendent on hydrocarbon revenue.

Russia is a petro-state in the sense

that its gross domestic product,

export earnings, tax income and

government’s ability to spend de-

pend to a large extent on the pro-

ceeds of pri vate and state-owned

oil and gas companies.

Global markets for energy, how-

ever, are extremely volatile. The

price of Brent crude is generally

seen as the benchmark for energy

prices, and it has varied from over

$140 (in 2008, just before the glob-

al financial crisis) to under $20

(some years in the 1980s and ’90s).

Upheavals of all kinds — the

tions about how long their savings
will last to buy basic staples.
The situation is reminiscent of
the hyperinflation of the early
1990s, when President Boris
Yeltsin liberalized prices as a pre-
requisite for the creation of a m ar-
ket economy after the collapse of
the Soviet Union. As a worried
Muscovite confided in 1992 in a
journal that is now preserved in an
archive of diaries by ordinary Rus-
sians: “Prices are outrageous!
From 2 to 11 rubles [in one year]
for a l oaf of black bread.”
Rising food prices and food inse-
curity were the most obvious signs
that something was going wrong
on the path toward democracy and
prosperity charted by Yeltsin.
In Vladimir Putin’s Russia,
high-quality food staples became
more widely available and rela-
tively affordable for the first sev-
eral years. After 2015, though, in-
flation began creeping back be-
cause o f low oil prices and Western
sanctions for Russia’s annexation
of Crimea. Prices rose further dur-
ing the pandemic because of glob-
al supply chain disruptions.
By the time the war started,
Russians were already vulnerable
to food price inflation. In a July
2021 survey, 60.4 percent of re-
spondents said they spend about
half of their monthly income on
food. And the cost of food was a
concern for nearly every family.
The survey said 96.3 percent of
respondents drew attention to the
rise in food prices. “In their opin-
ion, vegetables, fruits, dairy prod-
ucts, meat, and vegetable oils have
risen most of all,” the survey found.
The concern about the cost of
basic staples and the frenzied ef-
forts to convert cash or virtual
savings into commodities with
lasting value are thus familiar to
Russian citizens. What remains

RUBLE FROM G1

Some Putin measures could blunt impact of new sanctions

DMITRI LOVETSKY/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Russians line up late last month to withdraw U.S. dollars and euros from an ATM in St. Petersburg.

Rumors of where foreign currency might be available are spreading quickly as the ruble plunges.