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Amazon refused to give pregnant workers bathroom breaks

arstechnica.com

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Re: Amazon refused to give pregnant workers bathroom breaks

#41

Post by devindotcom »

xyzelement wrote: post #3
AndrewDucker wrote: post #2

The idea that non-pregnant people shouldn't also get to use the toilet seems baffling to me. Maybe just let people use it when they need it.

Sounds right. On the flip side there are jobs where random bathroom breaks don't really work. EG: bus driver. So I am actually not sure how that works for a pregnat bus driver. Letting her randomly stop the bus at rush hour to pee doesn't seem fair to the commuters. Probably in practice pregnant bus drivers get assigned to a short route or something like that. I don't know the nature of Amazon warehouse work. It's po…

look man you might just consider not commenting about stuff you know absolutely nothing about. it's totally ok to just not speak up and use it as an opportunity to learn.

Re: Amazon refused to give pregnant workers bathroom breaks

#42

Post by EarlKing »

xyzelement wrote: post #3
AndrewDucker wrote: post #2

The idea that non-pregnant people shouldn't also get to use the toilet seems baffling to me. Maybe just let people use it when they need it.

Sounds right. On the flip side there are jobs where random bathroom breaks don't really work. EG: bus driver. So I am actually not sure how that works for a pregnat bus driver. Letting her randomly stop the bus at rush hour to pee doesn't seem fair to the commuters. Probably in practice pregnant bus drivers get assigned to a short route or something like that. I don't know the nature of Amazon warehouse work. It's po…

Whether you're stowing, picking, diverting, or working the dock... you literally just grab someone to cover your position for a few minutes. That's it. There are process assistants present who can literally do that if they have to. There's no reason to deny a pregnant worker this except "This is making my day harder because I can't run my aisles at an absolute minimum head count and still stand around with my cart pretending to do useful work".

The only real case I could see where grabbing someone to cover you while you take a bathroom break might not work is, for example, someone working as a yard marshal... since that's not something everyone gets trained for, so the pool of replacements is smaller (including among process assistants).

So unless this worker was working the yard... there's not a lot of reason to deny them bathroom breaks... and that goes whether they're pregnant or not honestly.

Re: Amazon refused to give pregnant workers bathroom breaks

#43

Post by ajuc »

00ze wrote: post #6
AndrewDucker wrote: post #2

The idea that non-pregnant people shouldn't also get to use the toilet seems baffling to me. Maybe just let people use it when they need it.

No where is it written here they shouldn't Not everything needs to be a panacea to cover all edge cases Legally a specific situation is often required Imo it is a phony obligation to fragment people via feigned ignorance and willful ignorance, create liquidity of a sort in the litigation market making everyone fight the same fires over and over but that is currently how it works

1. they shouldn't even have to work, they should be on a paid leave

2. if they want to work - they should have preferential treatment

3. even if they are not pregnant - their bathroom breaks or the ability to sit down shouldn't be limited by their employer

Reading about American work culture is uncanny. It's like people arguing about css-styling the NPE error stacktrace, and everybody just assumes the null dateOfBirth in the database and 5 levels of backend code without null checks is just how it has to be.

Re: Amazon refused to give pregnant workers bathroom breaks

#45

Post by trhway »

embedding-shape wrote: post #11
bastard_op wrote: post #7

At this point is anyone surprised at what Amazon will do to the plebeian workers that fuel them?

Lets wait and see why the pilot who overshot the runway didn't do a go-around instead of attempting to land, pressuring airplane pilots would certainly take them to another level in my eyes.

The pilots have union supposedly. I wonder if AMZN was able to break through here. May be it was "positive" pressure - i.e. bonuses for saving fuel/time/etc.

Re: Amazon refused to give pregnant workers bathroom breaks

#46

Post by EA-3167 »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #15
bastard_op wrote: post #7

At this point is anyone surprised at what Amazon will do to the plebeian workers that fuel them?

At this point, do people prefer to accept a claim in a lawsuit as the truth if it happens to conform to their model of reality?

So much of social media (low voted submissions here too) boils down to people fighting over ideological symbols or trying to hear a series of appropriate echoes. If you support the suit you probably "hate Amazon" and if you don't "You're a bootlicker".

The idea that you could not support Amazon or their practices, but also not take this lawsuit as some grand symbol of everything wrong with Amazon and the world is nuance most find repellent online, and increasingly offline.

Re: Amazon refused to give pregnant workers bathroom breaks

#47

Post by EA-3167 »

soniczentropy wrote: post #32
lotsofpulp wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At this point, do people prefer to accept a claim in a lawsuit as the truth if it happens to conform to their model of reality?

[flagged]

If you take the time to really think through the implications of that viewpoint, you might be horrified by the outputs you get.

Re: Amazon refused to give pregnant workers bathroom breaks

#48

Post by Aurornis »

devindotcom wrote: post #39
Aurornis wrote: post #22

I skimmed the lawsuit. As far as I can tell, the complaint is about getting 4 x 15 minute extra breaks during the day and lighter work. Amazon did grant them, but the complaint is that they didn't do it fast enough. There's also something of a disagreement where she expected to be paid for the extra hour of break time every day, but Amazon was counting it as unpaid. She was reassigned to lighter work at her request,…

headline is factual: Lawsuit: Amazon refused to give pregnant workers bathroom breaks and chairs all the info you point out is in the first few paragraphs, much more context also provided as well as responses from amazon and context from the women

I'm talking about the actual lawsuit, which is linked in the article. That's what I was reading.

Amazon did grant extra breaks. The dispute is that they didn't grant them fast enough and that she expected to be paid for them, among other things.

Obviously nothing will ever satisfy people who are out for blood and would never give a corporation the benefit of the doubt, but I'm trying to point out that the headline's implication that pregnant workers weren't allowed any bathroom breaks is false.

Re: Amazon refused to give pregnant workers bathroom breaks

#49

Post by [deleted] »

Aurornis wrote: post #22

I skimmed the lawsuit. As far as I can tell, the complaint is about getting 4 x 15 minute extra breaks during the day and lighter work. Amazon did grant them, but the complaint is that they didn't do it fast enough. There's also something of a disagreement where she expected to be paid for the extra hour of break time every day, but Amazon was counting it as unpaid. She was reassigned to lighter work at her request,…

[deleted]

Re: Amazon refused to give pregnant workers bathroom breaks

#50

Post by selcuka »

Aurornis wrote: post #48
devindotcom wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

headline is factual: Lawsuit: Amazon refused to give pregnant workers bathroom breaks and chairs all the info you point out is in the first few paragraphs, much more context also provided as well as responses from amazon and context from the women

I'm talking about the actual lawsuit, which is linked in the article. That's what I was reading. Amazon did grant extra breaks. The dispute is that they didn't grant them fast enough and that she expected to be paid for them, among other things. Obviously nothing will ever satisfy people who are out for blood and would never give a corporation the benefit of the doubt, but I'm trying to point out that the headline's…

It's not that "they didn't grant them fast enough". They made it unreasonably hard to request them.

> Despite the PWFA’s requirements, Amazon’s policy is to unlawfully demand medical documentation prior to granting predictable assessment requests and unreasonably does not provide predictable assessments to qualified employees pending such documentation.

I'm not "out for blood" but I would call this "refusing to give bathroom breaks" as well.

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