Lavatory and Liberty

IN HIS NEVER-ENDING quest for control of the workplace, Henry Ford confronted many foes, but none as wily or rebellious as the human digestive tract. Hoping to tame what he called the body's ''disassembly line,'' Ford wheeled lunch wagons into his auto plant in Highland Park, Mich., and forced workers to wolf down a 10-minute sandwich on the job. So industrialized was ingestion at the plant that workers growled about their ''Ford stomach.'' But where Ford sought to speed up the meal's entrance into the body, his successors - from store managers in the Midwest to fashion moguls in New York - have concentrated on slowing down its exit.

All the factories I've known provided 2 10~15 minute paid rest breaks in addition to a ½ hour meal break. (Dependent of the operation of the facility, the meal break may or may not have been paid). Employees were reasonably expected to utilize the restrooms during these breaks.

This is the norm. I am uncertain to what degree it is covered by federal regulation -- the federal "standards" can be quite flexible to accomodate the differing situations of various businesses. Additionally, most states have their own health/labor standards to comply with.

Even in the absence of such standards, well-run companies are wise to adopt their own, similar policies. Those who abuse their employees in such matters deserve all the headaches associated with labor organization. They bring it on themselves.

For the most part, I think this commentary is one of the silliest I've seen here in a long time. I was surprised not to see a "barf alert" posted with it. I've never worked in a plant with an assembly line where every step in the process depended on the work of the preceding steps. If the entire productivity of the plant stopped whenever one person stopped to use the bathroom, I could understand employers wanting to put some controls on when people went to the bathroom. However, for most other plants, there are no scheduled "bathroom breaks" because employees can step away to take care of business whenever necessary.

I understand that there are and have always been bad employers. However, the picture that this person tries to paint is no more accurate than that of those who claim that everything has been just perfect for the American worker.

While I realize that unions had some purpose in the past and played a part in some positive changes, much of the positive change has also resulted from the increased mobility that the automobile has given us. We have more opportunities to leave a bad employer than we ever have in the past because we can just pack our stuff in a car and leave the area if necessary. In other cases, moving one's residence isn't even necessary. The car allows a worker to commute to a new job today while his great-grandfather had to work at whatever job was within walking distance.

WFTR
Bill

Do you have family, children, friends and social network? How many times you moved like that?

The fact is that there is a basic assymetry between employer laying off/firing a worker and a worker leaving his job. Employer does not need to move and start a new business and usually has much more resources. Workers need unions to balance this unequality. In a society based on pursuit of individual interests weeker/poorer side need organisation.

Do you have family, children, friends and social network? How many times you moved like that?

In 1994, I was laid off from my job when my employer closed an entire division of the company. At that time, I lived in Oklahoma City. I was out of work for seven months before finding a job in Louisiville, Kentucky. I hadn't been at that job more than two or three months before I realized that there was no future there.

The company owner had the maturity of a five-year-old. He blamed us for things that were beyond anyone's control or in some cases were his fault. He rarely made direct threats that I could document, but he made it clear in every situation that my job was endangered. He insulted us and put us down as a matter of standard practice. The work itself was not career-enhancing. The safety practices were substandard.

At the time, I knew no one in Louisiville outside a few co-workers. My family lived six hours away, and I don't have a big family. I was still making house payments in Oklahoma City because the real estate market there was horrible. Of course, I also had rent payments and the usual living expenses of Louisville.

I had worked there for four months before I began the job hunt again. I knew it would look bad to leave a job within a year of starting, but I just wanted to find something else. After nine months, my house finally sold at only a $10,000 loss. Continuing to live frugally, I then began saving for a change. I found one company willing to interview me, but they didn't make an offer. After seven more months, I accepted an offer to return to graduate school. I worked two more months while planning another move by myself. Some guys from work helped me load the heaviest stuff into a Ryder truck. I hired a guy through the university to help me unload the heaviest items at my new place. Otherwise, I made the entire move by myself. In going back to grad school, I was losing 85% of my income. That's a sacrifice that hurts, but it allowed me to escape.

Any of us can have a run of bad luck and end up with poor prospects for making a living. Sometimes, we'll have to take a bad job to tide us over. However, we can still choose whether to be victims or not.

In pretending that you have no power without a union, you are simply choosing to be a victim. Once you put yourself under the power of the union, you are simply the victim of a different band of thugs. If a union worker decides that his situation is good and wants to continue working towards his individual goals when the union calls a strike, who is there to protect him from the union? A century ago when transportation was so much less available, the worker may not have had any options. Today, the options are there for those who choose not to be a victim. The choice isn't easy, and workers who run into bad luck will never do as well as workers who have good luck. However, no one needs to submit to a union and its thugs in order to make a decent living.

WFTR
Bill

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.