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Why do employers deny their employees toilet breaks? Do they actually believe it makes the employees more productive, or are they just cruel people?
Why do employers deny their employees toilet breaks? Do they actually believe it makes the employees more productive, or are they just cruel people?
You'd be amazed what is legal or at least normalized/tolerated when regulations are weak.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Employers are not always very smart. It took humanity half a millennium to realise slavery is inefficient and ditch it. Go figure.
Slavery is unfortunately still a thing in too many parts of the world.
And 68% of American adults don't even know it [0]. Not to mention all the foreign slavery in the supply chain, or all the slavery we've directly enabled by 'toppling dictators' who wouldn't give us their shit.
0 - https://www.merkley.senate.gov/is-slavery-still-legal-in-the...
Why do employers deny their employees toilet breaks? Do they actually believe it makes the employees more productive, or are they just cruel people?
In many cases it's an intentional dehumanisation of the workers - they're seen as assets or numbers, as a type of machines that should be worked to their maximum physical and mental capacity and that are not owed any dignity [x], as if work is nothing more than mechanics. Foucault (in his "Discipline and Punish") speak about how disciplinary power produces "docile bodies" by making bodies more useful and easier to control, breaking functions and movements into optimised segments. [1] This is consistent with how the capitalist workplace normally operates, where employers want to control workers' time and actions, not just the finished product. We could see the toilet restriction just as an extreme, contemporary expression of the same thing. [2] For example, dodgy Amazon does that by making bathroom use hard and uses strict worker monitoring mainly as control/discipline thing, a sort of integrated control architecture (crazy pace + surveillance + comparison + dystopian ranking and whatnot) [3][6]
For all his faults, Heidegger's point (especially in his writing on technology) is relevant here, as he claims that modern systems tend to treat everything as a resource to be ordered, measured, and used. He says that things and people get turned into "standing-reserve" (basically stock to be managed) [4]
Many employers believe that loo breaks should happen in a workers' own time [5], which is both ridiculous and an shirking of responsibility towards society from businesses (which has always been the case).
What is certain is that this is certainly not as a serious productivity argument, despite what predatory companies like Amazon claim [z], because this kind of treatment can have (and often does, like the article shared above shows as well) severe consequences for health, dignity, and productivity. [7]
The fact that regulatory bodies like OSHA in the US, and especially in the EU, recognise the abuse pattern shows it's not just anecdote or rhetoric (like the Economist and similar papers often suggest), or that it applies to countries that aren't as developed as we like to think we are in the US and the UK, but a real issue that's rather common.
Also relevant: https://www.un.org/en/observances/toilet-day
[0] https://academic.oup.com/cpe/article/43/1/61/7684997
[1] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/foucault/
[2] https://academic.oup.com/past/article-abstract/38/1/56/14546...?
[3] https://cued.uic.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/219/2023/10/Pa...
[4] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/heidegger/
[5] https://www.tuc.org.uk/research-analysis/reports/give-us-loo...
[6] https://tribunemag.co.uk/2023/09/they-treat-us-worse-than-an...
[7] https://sif.org.uk/why-workplace-toilet-access-matters/
[x] https://www.theguardian.com/money/2018/nov/19/thousands-uk-w...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's a demonstration of power. Which is exactly why it needs fighting against, because these people (i.e. Dyson) must not have power.
But why only demonstrate power over 12 people and not the alleged 1200+ that work there?
Why do employers deny their employees toilet breaks? Do they actually believe it makes the employees more productive, or are they just cruel people?
It's a demonstration of power. Which is exactly why it needs fighting against, because these people (i.e. Dyson) must not have power.
The significance of this ruling is that a British company can be held liable for its suppliers' treatment of workers in anther country.
Why is Dyson being sued for actions taken by their suppliers? This is setting a bizarre precedent.
Why do employers deny their employees toilet breaks? Do they actually believe it makes the employees more productive, or are they just cruel people?
James Dyson advocated for Brexit on the basis of supporting British industry, and shortly afterwards migrated the company HQ to Singapore.
And to prove it is possible to have a profitable vacuum cleaner manufacturing business that makes its machines in the UK - long live Henry! https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2021/jul/24/how-hen... And unlike Dyson they are almost indestructible!