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I'm a Frito-Lay Factory Worker. I Work 12-Hour Days, 7 Days a Week

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Re: I'm a Frito-Lay Factory Worker. I Work 12-Hour Days, 7 Days a Week

#81
post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Working 7 days a week all the time is not legal in the EU, see [0]. Also, many EU countries have even stricter local regulations in that regard. https://europa.eu/youreurope/business/human-resources/workin...

But are the regulations enforced?

Yes, although workarounds exist, but not in a way that would make this sort of employment possible.

Re: I'm a Frito-Lay Factory Worker. I Work 12-Hour Days, 7 Days a Week

#82
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The best thing about moving to remote work is that it will enable people to live in these smaller communities while having the increased income of the city. I hope this will bring more money back to local economies and revitalize rural areas.

All this will do is drive up the cost of housing as remote workers compete for it, driving out the locals. Remote workers also don’t fully contribute to the economy of the rural area because their place of employment is not in that area. If the company the remote worker works for does well and grows, that won’t grow the rural community.

The opposite is true. They pay the same taxes, use the same stores and go to the same bars and attend tbe same cultural events. A lot of rural home owners work in a nearby town as well.

Re: I'm a Frito-Lay Factory Worker. I Work 12-Hour Days, 7 Days a Week

#83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it is also interesting why people agree to work for the fraction of value they create for the company. Somehow this kind of suffering and exploitation is socially acceptable. Companies make billions and workers struggle to put food on the table. I think governments should focus on companies avoiding tax rather than taxing them though workers (as workers suffer and yield is fraction of what companies should be…

I'm generally a libertarian but I think current corporate law is insane. This seems like a reasonable starting point, maybe along with a policy requiring giving each employee a stake in the company.

Does the employee have to buy into that stake? Do they surrender it, or sell it, or keep it when they leave? Do they get more over time? Why should minimum wage field hands that will work for a month own part of my farm?

We have had negative cash flow for the last decade, should our employees have made under minimum wage due to capital calls that were made by the business?

How does a bank do proper due diligence on a loan for a business with 47,000 owners, but isn’t publicly traded? What about the administrative overhead around decision making needing a timely signature from every owner?

It’s really simple to say employees should have equity, but get into the details and the idea falls apart.

Re: I'm a Frito-Lay Factory Worker. I Work 12-Hour Days, 7 Days a Week

#84
> I stay here because in two years, I'll be 62 and I have a union pension acquired over 37 years. I've spent so much time here that I might as well take that pension and social security and call it quits.

Had they not been locked in by the pension, I'd imagine most of them would've quit, and Frito-Lay would've been force to improve conditions.

I wonder if unions prefer pensions pretty much for the same reason--it allows businesses to abuse workers, forcing them to turn to unions to bargain for better conditions while also keeping them locked in to the business and thus the union.

Re: I'm a Frito-Lay Factory Worker. I Work 12-Hour Days, 7 Days a Week

#85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are not making that much as it’s unpaid overtime or “suicide” as they colloquially call it according to the article. Edit: sorry I’m wrong. I read “kills you over time” as “kills your overtime”

Unpaid overtime is highly illegal un the US for hourly workers. That's why tech loves salaried workers so much.

techie employees make far far more than hourly with overtime. ask your local conteactor/temp/vendor.

Re: I'm a Frito-Lay Factory Worker. I Work 12-Hour Days, 7 Days a Week

#86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are not making that much as it’s unpaid overtime or “suicide” as they colloquially call it according to the article. Edit: sorry I’m wrong. I read “kills you over time” as “kills your overtime”

The article does not claim that it is unpaid. If they were working unpaid hours that would be a serious legal issue and state and federal regulators would be getting involved.

Wage theft is the largest form of theft.

Re: I'm a Frito-Lay Factory Worker. I Work 12-Hour Days, 7 Days a Week

#87
post #77

I used to work as an equity analyst, so have come at this problem from totally the other end. The number one problem, that I have seen no-one talk about, are certain incentives from the market (not short-termism, if someone says that they don't understand what is happening). I buy PEP at 15x earnings...I don't need a lot of growth to make that price work. Even if they grow a 10-20% over five years, I will probably ma…

I feel like there is something interesting in here but the finance jargon and writing style is obscuring it for me.

It was unclear for me too. Though the gist of what I understood around the jargon:

Overvalued companies are driven by the stock market to have unsustainable growth, always more than before or at the very least always going up over time, even with complete market dominance.

Therefore once a company caps out a market only cutting quality or civic duty corners are left and it becomes a knife-fight to the death for all involved; with more literal impacts to the workers and customers (quality of output). Even if a company COULD just allow the profit to stabilize at a long term sustainable level that would benefit everyone most overall; they won't and will instead be driven for short term results.

Re: I'm a Frito-Lay Factory Worker. I Work 12-Hour Days, 7 Days a Week

#88
post #67
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No choices. This is in the Midwest in the middle of no-where. No you can't realistically move - every other location is far more expensive and would require significant relocation expense, and you'd have to leave your community, likely where you were born and raise(d) your family.

And yet during the Great Depression poor people moved by the thousands to find work in other states. Sure it was hard but they did what they had to in order to survive.

Except the large numbers that didn't survive.

Re: I'm a Frito-Lay Factory Worker. I Work 12-Hour Days, 7 Days a Week

#89
post #2

Anyone knows why people decide to do this kind of time consuming work? Is the world getting hard enough that there is no alternative? Whenever I see people working really hard in other parts of the world, especially when the country is filled with other opportunities, I always wonder is it just everyone else that is raising the bar and now the standard is very time consuming work. For example, there's year long touri…

In addition to the many insightful replies here add: Once you have a working class addicted to some combination of fast food, sugar, caffeine, alcohol, pot, opioids, and other drugs which cost money, they have a reduced capability to dig themselves out of a hole.

You skipped rent which dwarfs all that.

Fast food and sugar are cheap for what you get. Pot isn't addictive.

Re: I'm a Frito-Lay Factory Worker. I Work 12-Hour Days, 7 Days a Week

#90
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People running factories have been exploiting and overworking the people working in their factories since there have been factories. There's nothing new here.

I think there is always going to be a bit of a disconnect and lack of empathy about excessive work hours when an hourly worker gripes about forced overtime (where in the US they are legally required to be paid at least 1.5x their hourly rate for the overtime) is complaining to salaried management (that are generally working a similar number of hours…but unpaid beyond the 40). Kind of makes you wonder which side is be…

Management gets paid a lot more, and half their "work" time is goofing off.
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