I work at a private school, and while HISD closed for today the school owner decided to stay open. The children had to bring their own water for drinking and hand washing, but us employees were not told to bring anything. This morning we asked the office about it, and they said if we didn't bring any water we could clock out and go buy some.
Obviously I was not okay with this, and went to the office directly to tell them that according to OSHA the employer must provide potable water, so if we have to go buy some we shouldn't have to clock out. They quickly backpedaled and said “Oh yeah, we won't force anyone to clock out.” But I doubt they'll reimburse us for the water, and I bet some people did clock out because the office did not correct themselves over the intercom after I went back to my classroom.
Why would the owner choose to stay open today, when almost all other schools are closed? Well, I have a hypothesis that she's trying to save on payroll, because a lot of her teachers have kids in HISD and they'd have to stay home today. The thing is, if they do stay home today they'll lose out on last week's holiday pay, because the school has a rule that if we are absent the day before or the day after a holiday we don't get paid for it, which in this case is the entirety of last week for Thanksgiving. So she probably won't have to pay several teachers a week of wages because of today.
Anyways, I'm going to call OSHA when I get on my break and have a chat 🙂 Employers who think they can get away with this stuff should be penalized.