The Workers Who Bring You Black Friday • Hacker News Board

Re: The Workers Who Bring You Black Friday

#71

Post by MediaSquirrel » Sun, Dec 01, 2013, 12:45 PM UTC

malandrew wrote: post #67

cynicalkane wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The power of labor unions for low-paid workers is not as strong as you think. Where I went to school (U Chicago), there was a very active mostly student-organized university workers' labor union, but workplace violations were still routine. The power to strike is no help when you depend on your paycheck to survive, and the union's legal clout was no help when the laws were hard to enforce and deep-pocketed employers…

I honestly don't know why we try to go after executives at all. It's proven ineffective since you can never mount enough evidence to get a real case and the fines are just seen as a cost of doing business for the company. Instead you need to create labor laws that are enforced in much the same was as moving violations are enforced for driving. For example, if you are hired as a driver for a delivery company, you, the…

Not so! I used to drive a 911 ambulance. We we're told to drive safe and not break various rules, but were punished when we didn't arrive in the allotted timeframe of 9min. The punishment was that workers on 24-hour shifts (who normally had a house to sleep in) were forced to post on street corners and not allowed into their quarters. This made the shift miserable and the lack of sleep was a real safety problem.

Re: The Workers Who Bring You Black Friday

#72

Post by ckoglmeier » Sun, Dec 01, 2013, 2:51 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #4

> After waiting twenty minutes, we are ushered into a room upstairs. A woman from the agency hands each of us a time sheet. For the sign-in, she tells us to write 8:30. “I know you were told to be here at 8:15,” she says, anticipating a protest that never comes, “but that was just to make sure you got here early.” And, like that, fifteen minutes are lopped from our paycheck. It’s a small but important lesson in what…

While I understand the sympathy here, I'm not sure I agree.

In 5(?) years these jobs will be replaced by robots. They will be safer, more efficient, and cheaper for companies. These workers will not be forced to work under these "horrible" conditions any longer. They will simply be discarded.

Question: Would you rather have this job, fully knowing its negatives, or have no job?

Re: The Workers Who Bring You Black Friday

#73

Post by malandrew » Sun, Dec 01, 2013, 7:15 PM UTC

MediaSquirrel wrote: post #71

malandrew wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I honestly don't know why we try to go after executives at all. It's proven ineffective since you can never mount enough evidence to get a real case and the fines are just seen as a cost of doing business for the company. Instead you need to create labor laws that are enforced in much the same was as moving violations are enforced for driving. For example, if you are hired as a driver for a delivery company, you, the…

Not so! I used to drive a 911 ambulance. We we're told to drive safe and not break various rules, but were punished when we didn't arrive in the allotted timeframe of 9min. The punishment was that workers on 24-hour shifts (who normally had a house to sleep in) were forced to post on street corners and not allowed into their quarters. This made the shift miserable and the lack of sleep was a real safety problem.

Ok, however I would imagine that ambulance driver's are in a class very different than most other types of drivers (take out food, FedEx/UPS, taxi, limo, etc.)