The latest installment of “Name That Right”:
Twenty-nine workers at Nike warehouses in Memphis have tested positive of coronavirus, and one has died. Days later, Nike refused entry to a Shelby County Health Department inspector seeking to check whether the warehouse was complying with pandemic restrictions. The department was following up on anonymous complaints left by workers.
How–in the middle of a pandemic–could Nike employees do this? What right does the company have?
Our guess is it would claim Right of Privacy / Search and Seizure.
From the May 23, 2020 Propublica article:
On April 17, a day after the security guard turned away the environmental health worker, whose formal title is environmentalist, a Nike administrator spoke to her by phone. The administrator said that, to protect workers, the company had installed markers on the floor spaced 6 feet apart and the facility closed every Tuesday for cleaning.
With that explanation, the Health Department was satisfied. The department did not return to the distribution center to verify that what Nike said was true.
The environmentalist “felt at that time there was nothing else that needed to be done,” said Kasia Alexander, environmental health administrator for the department.
The department has the authority to summon police to access a business immediately, and has exercised that authority in the past, said Dr. Bruce Randolph, the department’s health director.
But he defended the decision not to escalate matters. “We don’t just automatically get law enforcement involved simply because the first time we show up, some security and management person refuses to allow us access.”