Sean Penn spoke to employees of his nonprofit organization that helps administer COVID-19 vaccines in Los Angeles after two of them complained online about their working conditions.
The Oscar-winning actor wrote a serious 2,200-word email to staff members Friday in which he accused the nameless couple of “obscene criticism” and said they should stop, reports The Los Angeles Times.
“Whoever wrote this understands that in every cell of my body is a vitriol for the way your actions reflect so damagingly on your siblings,” Penn wrote in the letter leaked to the Times .
The mission comes after two people who said they worked for Penn’s organization, Community Organized Relief Effort, commented on a January 28 story by the New York Times describing a day at the Dodger Stadium mass vaccination site has.
According to a member of the CORE staff who described himself, the employees were overworked after Eric Garcetti, mayor of LA, switched the stadium from a virus test site to a vaccination center.
The staff members work 18 hours, six days a week, without the opportunity to take breaks, the person wrote.
The other anonymous scribe complained that the persons in the yard were getting ‘Krispy Kreme for breakfast and Subway for lunch’.
“We usually do not get breakfast, only coffee,” the person wrote, adding that the lunch was “NOT” with the subway, but the same old lettuce every day. It’s free lunch for staff / volunteers, so I’m not complaining, but still … not Subway. ‘
In his seething email, Penn, 60, described his “serious concern” over the comments, which he saw as a “broad betrayal of all,” the LA Times reported.
He said the “disgraceful entries” are “very visible”, although they are part of at least 150 reader reactions to the NY Times article.
Penn said CORE – which he put together after the 2010 earthquake in Haiti – had ‘strong complaint procedures and endless other internal possibilities for productive criticism’ of staff members.
Anyone who is “prone to a culture of complaints” and a broad cyber-whining just needs to stop, he added.
“It’s called quitting,” Penn wrote. Stop for CORE. Stop for your colleagues who do not want to quit. Visit your fellow human beings who deeply realize that this is a moment in time. A moment of service that we all sometimes have to bring to a halt. ”