While Mystic River star Sean Penn has been working hard to provide a safe form of COVID-19 testing and vaccines to the public, a few staff members of his have been speaking poorly of his site. Now Sean is letting them have it.
Sean Penn Furious With Critical Staff Members
The famously philanthropic actor has taken measures into his own hands to bring COVID-19 testing and vaccines to the public faster and more efficiently than the Los Angeles government has. His efforts have been growing and inspiring other cities to follow suit.
But now negative attention has been brought to his coronavirus fighting efforts. Two people who claimed to be staff members of his Community Organized Relief Effort (CORE) have complained about their working conditions. According to the Los Angeles Times, the staffers commented on a New York Times article alleging the staff members worked 18-hour days, 6 days a week, "without the opportunity to take breaks."
Another alleged CORE staff member claimed, "We usually DON'T get breakfast, just coffee," and they are not served Subway as the article stated but, "the same old lettuce wraps every day. It's free lunch for staff/volunteers so I'm not complaining but still... not Subway."
The same day Sean penned an over 2,000-word furious email to his entire CORE staff that was leaked to the Los Angeles Times immediately. The Fast Times at Ridgemont High actor pulled out all the stops for this email. He commended the brave workers while venting about his own stress that pushes him into "pulling at my hair and pounding pavement."
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Then of course came his anger towards the staff members who commented on the New York Times article putting CORE in a bad light. "And to whoever authored these, understand that in every cell of my body is a vitriol for the way your actions reflect so harmfully upon your brothers and sisters in arms. I have taken counsel and here will refrain from using the words with which I would otherwise choose to describe the character of your actions."
Sean Penn's Email To Complaining Staff
The Los Angeles Times pointed out Sean's email made the situation much more "highly visible" than the "150 reader responses" would have.
Sean's foundation CORE has done quite a bit of good for communities all over the world including work helping Haiti recover from the devastating earthquake and creating organized emergency response efforts in the face of disaster. Now, these un-proven complaints of these staffers and Penn's subsequent email are distracting attention away from the work fighting the coronavirus pandemic.
After beautifully building up the staff who made him feel "a human pride in experiencing that people like you exist," he begged the "broad-based cyber-whining" staff to "Quit for CORE. Quit for your colleagues who won’t quit. Quit for your fellow human beings who deeply recognize that this is a moment in time. A moment of service that we must all embody sometimes to the point of collapse."
