Nice, always exciting when academia produces immediate impact.
A Drop of 4 Degrees Made a Big Difference for a Garment Maker's Bottom Line
31–40 of 72 posts
Re: A Drop of 4 Degrees Made a Big Difference for a Garment Maker's Bottom Line
#32> Decline and visit plaintext site This doesn't count as opt-out by default behavour for tracking. Have any complaints been made in the EU toward NPR? EDIT: Glad this is getting some attention, whether it be upvoting or downvoting.
GDPR is criminalizing all websites because compliance is impossible. It puts european officials in exactly the possition they want to be in, everyone is breaking the law an enforcement is a matter of who their friends are. Majors websites are taking steps to remove access from eu. This will only get worse. Be prepared to live in the environmet your politicians have created, or be prepared to come back to planet reali…
If compliance is impossible, it's probably because your business model is incompatible even with the spirit of GDPR - the notion that a person should have control over their data and other entities should handle it with care.
If compliance is expensive, it's probably because your business profitted somehow from handling personal data (or you let someone else reap the profits, e.g. tracking ad networks).
I find your situation similar to the one of an engineer in a chemical plant who got the task to make the whole place completely ecofriendly due to new regulations. The solution to just block the EU and resume business elsewhere is the best course of action if complying is indeed impossible or infeasible for your business. If your organization decides to gamble because there is still profit to be made in the EU, it's on them when enforcement comes around someday.
In any case, competitors will find a way to offer GDPR-compliant services and there might be enough demand for data protection laws in the US, changing how businesses have to deal with personal data. Time will tell.
Re: A Drop of 4 Degrees Made a Big Difference for a Garment Maker's Bottom Line
#33An alternative way at looking at this is that, if you are pushing your employees to their physical limits, you can squeeze more out of them if you can prevent them from becoming overheated. This is a negative way of looking at it, but I think, unfortunately, that it is realistic. Beyond the short term, the only way this will benefit the workers is if there is something external to limit the ways it can be exploited s…
Not working in 85+ degree temperatures is a benefit on it's own.
Back when i was in high school, i did a summer job in a building without A/C. We got to do nothing if the temp hit 97, or whatever was the local regulation. small “pleasures”.
Re: A Drop of 4 Degrees Made a Big Difference for a Garment Maker's Bottom Line
#34Sometimes it's useful to remember just how privileged we are to be working in tech... ...many of us get microkitchens with as many La Croix and "delightful" snacks as we can consume. While for others, just a switch to lamps that produce less heat is a major life improvement.
speak for yourself, I work as a full time engine mechanic for a regional chain of repair shops.
- its a full time battle just to convince some management that OSHA is real. earplugs and gloves were a luxury item under my last boss.
- one of our managers stole tools all the time and fired a technician just to cover his ass. That technician burned his car to the ground with a road flare in a mcdonalds parking lot.
-our former owner was arrested for illegally dumping waste chemicals in a protected habitat, and instead of just paying the fine the madman elected to serve 4 years in prison.
- I was asked to testify against her.
- two words: angry boomer. The number of times I've had a child of the greatest generation grab me by the collar and scream obscenities at me for something stupid borders on the absurd. Ive had one of them corner me in a hallway and refuse to 'let me go' until I discounted the work on his daughters car.
- People shit on you for doing this job, or openly remark that you're incompetent. Fun fact, my coworker in paint and body has a doctorate in mathematics from Pepperdyne. My transmission tech team lead was a former Formula 1 race mechanic. I build my own Linux containers and run my own Kubernetes cluster. We arent all just sweat and wrenches.
Re: A Drop of 4 Degrees Made a Big Difference for a Garment Maker's Bottom Line
#35Sometimes it's useful to remember just how privileged we are to be working in tech... ...many of us get microkitchens with as many La Croix and "delightful" snacks as we can consume. While for others, just a switch to lamps that produce less heat is a major life improvement.
speak for yourself, I work as a full time engine mechanic for a regional chain of repair shops. - its a full time battle just to convince some management that OSHA is real. earplugs and gloves were a luxury item under my last boss. - one of our managers stole tools all the time and fired a technician just to cover his ass. That technician burned his car to the ground with a road flare in a mcdonalds parking lot. -our…
>> two words: angry boomer.
Yup. In my early 30s I had one challenge me to a fight after a lifeguard ejected him from the "fast lane" for swimming too slowly. I said I'd meet him in the parking lot, then left the back way. I still wonder whether he showed up. I assume something was wrong with his meds. While riding in a group of 20+ sportbikes we had another try to start a fight with us at a gas station. Twenty people on bikes dressed like power rangers and this old man starts throwing punches because he was stuck in line behind us. We laughed and rode away.
Re: A Drop of 4 Degrees Made a Big Difference for a Garment Maker's Bottom Line
#36Sometimes it's useful to remember just how privileged we are to be working in tech... ...many of us get microkitchens with as many La Croix and "delightful" snacks as we can consume. While for others, just a switch to lamps that produce less heat is a major life improvement.
speak for yourself, I work as a full time engine mechanic for a regional chain of repair shops. - its a full time battle just to convince some management that OSHA is real. earplugs and gloves were a luxury item under my last boss. - one of our managers stole tools all the time and fired a technician just to cover his ass. That technician burned his car to the ground with a road flare in a mcdonalds parking lot. -our…
I'm a tradesman in the steel construction industry. I worked for an ISP for ~4 years a few years ago before returning to the trade for the money.
After having worked for the ISP and come back to the tools, the culture of abuse in this industry kinda shocked me. Of the eight or so workshops I've worked in only two were well run by professionals.
Re: A Drop of 4 Degrees Made a Big Difference for a Garment Maker's Bottom Line
#37While I'm glad that this experiment was done, because it resulted in better conditions for the factory workers, it bothers me that experiments like this are necessary in the first place. I get that managers and owners, qua managers and owners, are concerned with maximizing productivity, but it should be obvious to anyone with a modicum of humanity and common sense that productivity will increase when labourers are treated as human beings, with basic needs being met for their general welfare, rather than as beasts of burden.
Color me unimpressed at the discovery that productivity increases when workers have something as luxurious as proper lighting and air circulation so that sweat isn't pouring down their faces while they're sewing blue jeans for H&M with the utmost concentration lest they break their finger or hand in a machine.
Re: A Drop of 4 Degrees Made a Big Difference for a Garment Maker's Bottom Line
#38> The company, Shahi Exports, has more than 50 factories, employs about 100,000 workers and supplies brands that include Gap, Uniqlo, Zara and H&M. Some of these brands had encouraged the company to be more environmentally responsible by switching out the fluorescent tube lights in its factories for LEDs that would consume about one-seventh the amount of energy.
Maybe Americans and European yuppies can pay a couple of extra bucks for their Gap t-shirts and Gap can insist that Indian factory owners install air conditioning instead?
Re: A Drop of 4 Degrees Made a Big Difference for a Garment Maker's Bottom Line
#39It's really great when a change like this aimed at improving workers' lives ends up helping company profits overall. It helps give credence to the idea that treating your employees well is not only a nice thing to do, but that it's better from a financial standpoint as well.
Re: A Drop of 4 Degrees Made a Big Difference for a Garment Maker's Bottom Line
#40An alternative way at looking at this is that, if you are pushing your employees to their physical limits, you can squeeze more out of them if you can prevent them from becoming overheated. This is a negative way of looking at it, but I think, unfortunately, that it is realistic. Beyond the short term, the only way this will benefit the workers is if there is something external to limit the ways it can be exploited s…
Negative? It's how the world works. Those in resource-driven countries enjoy very little comfort, because you don't need very comfortable/educated people to extract resources. Our economies are more based on knowledge, so we get better lives. CGPGrey's rules for rulers is a very good outline of this and other related topics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs
Just because it’s true doesn’t make it not “negative” — even pessimists are often over-optimistic for project planning, for example, despite being closest to reality.
Also, this article shows that people can be irrational about the economically optimal level of comfort.
CGP makes a similar point with the valley of revolution, between impoverished and wealthy nations, and why it’s hard to get from poor to rich even though it’s clearly an improvement.