Originally published at: People Over Prime: TikTok Creators take on Amazon | Boing Boing
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I had to fight so hard for paid breaks at my last non-consulting job. It’s mind-boggling to me that employers feel that it’s ok to demand a worker be at work, yet not pay them. Thankfully NY state mandates breaks depending upon the length of the shift, so that part wasn’t controversial.
That being said, an hour is a hell of a lunch break. Of course, part of labor negotiations is bargaining against future employer demands, so always start big.
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Rather than more and longer paid breaks at work, I wonder when/if labor (if it hasn’t already) will start to consider having commuting workers’ on-site shifts shortened by an hour on either end to allow for the reality that commuting time is work time, and should fit in the work day.
I personally don’t like more breaks at work*, and used to try to convince my boss (for the 12 years we were 100% onsite) to let me take a 15 minute lunch and leave 45 mins early. She never budged, even though lunch was unpaid. I’m almost 100% remote now. With the growing divide between commuting versus remote workers, I think there needs to be some acknowledgement and benefit given back to workers who HAVE to show up onsite.
*my work does not involve manual labor, so I may be completely off base here, though I imagine a shorter workday might address that somewhat.
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Yeah, it’s a little hairy in my line of work, too even though the state mandates the minimum number and duration of breaks. For the crews working in bottling, breaks are easy to manage, but have to be taken as a group so that the machinery can go completely offline. On the other hand, distillers can’t really take breaks because the duration of distillation has to overlap lunch and I demand that there always be two operators (one distiller and one assistant) present at all times (even pee breaks). It’s just too dangerous to leave unattended and can’t be paused once started. I would just have the distillation crew grab breaks when they could and overlapped shifts as much as possible to accommodate this.
Or longer workdays in some cases. A 4x10 schedule works really well to reduce commute time and reflect the reality of certain types of shift work (a vodka run can easily run over 8 hrs).
The main point is that work schedules and facilities should be created in as humane a way as possible that reflects the reality of human labor. There’s no way I’m going to step on someone’s neck because their kid needs to go to the dentist or they have to get to the bank before it closes. I find that by being clear and gracious upfront I have little to no issues covering shifts because their priority isn’t clocking in on time or completing all tasks due to fear of reprimand, but because it will put their coworkers out. When I do have issues it usually means that employee isn’t a good fit, anyway.
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Fixed, thank you!
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