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 possible that unscheduled bathroom breaks affect multiple people (eg, I am peeing and you are idle because you depend on me to do your task) - that's the only condition where this feels at all conscionable.
Many bus routes are designed with stopping/break points, including limiting route lengths so that operators aren't stuck in these conditions.
Yes, at 5pm in a major city, a bus driver might pull up next to a convenience stop, stop the bus, go pee, and come back. Does it happen often? Not that often, because of the aforementioned "we design routes so people aren't trapped for multiple hours" concept.
If you really wanted to optimize something involving living consciousness beings like a machine, at least you should consider things like the need to take a piss as a hard constraint and design the system around it.
Don't get me wrong I love factorio like the next guy and understand the idea behind your thinking, but there should be limits to that thinking in the real world. And if that doesn't convince you consider the efficiency loss of a depressed worker with a urinary tract infection.
Honestly - and I don't mean that as an insult - I hope for you to experience (just once) the loss of dignity that not being able to visit the restroom on your own decision will give you. Might make you realize the hell this kind of thinking leads to.
// Honestly - and I don't mean that as an insult - I hope for you to experience (just once) the loss of dignity that not being able to visit the restroom on your own decision will give you. Might make you realize the hell this kind of thinking leads to.
I am not insulated and I think my post was received stronger than I intended, with my point being simply that there are jobs where physical presence at a given moment is more significant than in knowledge work for example (say whatever you want, bus drivers and others defacto hold it in if possible to avoid disruptions at least here in NYC)
And to be frank even at my job which is very removed from bus driving or warehouse work there are moments where I would feel self-pressure to hold it in short of a dire emergency.
(Eg, I am on stage at a speaker panel or something like that where my absence would be visible and disruptive)
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
This is the company that literally hired the Pinkertons and has been repeatedly fined millions for labor related violations, up to and including union busting. Consider me not even an iota of surprised.
Yeah, I followed this link specifically to see how many folks are surprised that Amazon may have did yet another vile thing to their employees, and I'm not one bit surprised to find nobody surprised by it. LOL!
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, but the complaint is that she still had to lift heavy things and they didn't give her a job where she could sit down.
The word "bathroom" shows up a lot but that doesn't appear core to the lawsuit. I think an editor was engineering the headline for maximum clickbait to link back to the previous Amazon bathroom break stories.
Regardless of what you think about Amazon, this reporting could use a little less clickbait and little more details from the actual lawsuit.
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.
> 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
That was exactly the point, or the worker would have requested vacation.
> Amazon discriminated against pregnant warehouse employees by denying accommodations like bathroom breaks and the option to sit while working [...]
>
> “All four became pregnant. All four asked Amazon for basic pregnancy-related accommodations so they could keep doing their jobs. Amazon denied them basic modifications the law recognizes pregnant workers regularly need, even in uncomplicated pregnancies: Bathroom breaks. An extra 15-minute break. Sitting instead of standing.”
This is the opposite of discrimination: Amazon treated them the same as every other worker. In other words, they are suing because Amazon gave them equal treatment instead of being discriminating (towards other non-pregnant employees).
Once a day I see a comment somewhere on the internet and go "Yes, perfect, this is the dumbest thing I'll read today. Great, that's out of the way". This is the one today!
I'm honestly baffled. Is there something factually incorrect about what I wrote? Ad hominem doesn't help. Also, why so hostile? I meant nothing malicious by it. This is Reddit-level outrage.
It amuses me when adults need permission to perform basic human needs because a small group will always take advantage of common courtesy and ruin it for everyone else.
When I was in grade school I pissed my pants in the library because the librarian wouldn't let me go to the bathroom. We both learned a lesson that day. I learned to seek forgiveness over permission, and she learned that sometimes kids aren't bullshitting when they say they need to use the bathroom.
The warehouse manager has quotas very hard to meet without using illegal tactics like this, and the suits above picked someone psychopathic enough to fill that role, to ensure they would actually break the law to meet said quotas.
HN has a sizable contingent of commenters who reliably show up to defend billion and trillion dollar corporations and reprehensible corporate behavior. I honestly can't explain it without alleging astroturf.
They see themselves as the future Musks and Bezos' of the world, or at the very least are either employed by, or have vested interests into their companies
I'm going to say its bad, but especially bad for low paid blue collar workers. When I worked at McDonalds as a kid, a lot of crew would get pregnant and work until 8 months, and be gone for a couple of months, I don't know how they did it, and I don't know why it had to be like that.
Richer white collar workers have it better (much much much better), still not great. Our nation is just failing at this, I don't see Amazon being especially bad beyond the typical bad (which is already too bad). Best case is they just outsource their problem to the lowest bidder and the same or worse behavior happens.
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[ 0.19 ms ] story [ 3.6 ms ] threadMaybe just let people use it when they need it.
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 possible that unscheduled bathroom breaks affect multiple people (eg, I am peeing and you are idle because you depend on me to do your task) - that's the only condition where this feels at all conscionable.
Yes, at 5pm in a major city, a bus driver might pull up next to a convenience stop, stop the bus, go pee, and come back. Does it happen often? Not that often, because of the aforementioned "we design routes so people aren't trapped for multiple hours" concept.
Don't get me wrong I love factorio like the next guy and understand the idea behind your thinking, but there should be limits to that thinking in the real world. And if that doesn't convince you consider the efficiency loss of a depressed worker with a urinary tract infection.
Honestly - and I don't mean that as an insult - I hope for you to experience (just once) the loss of dignity that not being able to visit the restroom on your own decision will give you. Might make you realize the hell this kind of thinking leads to.
I am not insulated and I think my post was received stronger than I intended, with my point being simply that there are jobs where physical presence at a given moment is more significant than in knowledge work for example (say whatever you want, bus drivers and others defacto hold it in if possible to avoid disruptions at least here in NYC)
And to be frank even at my job which is very removed from bus driving or warehouse work there are moments where I would feel self-pressure to hold it in short of a dire emergency.
(Eg, I am on stage at a speaker panel or something like that where my absence would be visible and disruptive)
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.
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
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.
See most retail workers, and anyone behind a cash register.
Yes, but only the people at the "coal face"
The managers in the background toilet at will.
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.
Yeah, I followed this link specifically to see how many folks are surprised that Amazon may have did yet another vile thing to their employees, and I'm not one bit surprised to find nobody surprised by it. LOL!
I've gotta take the wind out of your sails a little bit on the "Pinkerton" name.
The word "bathroom" shows up a lot but that doesn't appear core to the lawsuit. I think an editor was engineering the headline for maximum clickbait to link back to the previous Amazon bathroom break stories.
Regardless of what you think about Amazon, this reporting could use a little less clickbait and little more details from the actual lawsuit.
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
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.
talking about the article
That was exactly the point, or the worker would have requested vacation.
Stop kissing corporate's ass.
This is the opposite of discrimination: Amazon treated them the same as every other worker. In other words, they are suing because Amazon gave them equal treatment instead of being discriminating (towards other non-pregnant employees).
When I was in grade school I pissed my pants in the library because the librarian wouldn't let me go to the bathroom. We both learned a lesson that day. I learned to seek forgiveness over permission, and she learned that sometimes kids aren't bullshitting when they say they need to use the bathroom.
We are all at the mercy of the bottom quintile.
Richer white collar workers have it better (much much much better), still not great. Our nation is just failing at this, I don't see Amazon being especially bad beyond the typical bad (which is already too bad). Best case is they just outsource their problem to the lowest bidder and the same or worse behavior happens.