Mike Bloomberg’s shuttered presidential campaign alerted staffers on Thursday night that two floors of its New York headquarters were exposed to the novel coronavirus.
On Friday morning, the campaign then laid off hundreds of staffers across the country, including at least several dozen in the New York office who are potentially at risk and are now being asked to finish their employment working from home. While staffers in battleground states have health coverage until the end of April, the dismissed Bloomberg employees in the New York City headquarters will lose health insurance after March 31.
In an email sent at 11:03 pm Thursday, with the mundane subject line “Building Update – 229 West 43rd Street,” the campaign’s human resources department wrote: “We’ve just become aware of a confirmed case of COVID-19 in the office at 229 West 43rd Street impacting the 5th and 8th floor.” The campaign wrote that the individual was last in the office on Monday, March 16.
The campaign recommended employees work from home for the next two weeks, spurring panic among some staffers given their health insurance will end in just 11 days.
“Think about the potential of someone getting hospitalized on April 1, without coverage, fighting for their life and now being strapped with massive medical debt,” said a staffer in headquarters who fears they were exposed and shared the email with POLITICO. “The campaign’s refusal to extend health care benefits is unconscionable and putting people at grave risk. This is not how you treat people who sacrificed a lot to work for you.”
The Bloomberg campaign declined to say whether the individual who tested positive was a campaign employee or someone outside the campaign who had access to the building.
Bloomberg, whose estimated worth is more than $50 billion, rapidly assembled the largest campaign staff in the Democratic field after his late entry last fall. He offered large salaries along with promises those who signed on they would be paid through November regardless of whether Bloomberg became the nominee.
But after his presidential campaign fizzled, Bloomberg signaled that many of those staffers would only be paid through March 31st but would also potentially be able to work for a well-funded Super PAC. But on Friday, Bloomberg announced that he was abandoning those plans as well and informed hundreds of employees that they would no longer have a job.
The moves infuriated Bloomberg staffers who felt cheated and afraid to be without a job as the economy likely heads toward a severe recession and the pandemic makes health care coverage essential.
“I guess it’s cheaper to give the DNC $18 million than keep promises because @MikeBloomberg just fired his whole campaign staff — including those of us promised jobs though November on his IE,” Amol Jethwani, a former aide, wrote in a tweet. “Disappointed I don’t have a job. Not surprised that a billionaire is cheating scum.”
