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Thursday, 13 March 2014
quote [ The suits allege that McDonald's has forced employees to work off the clock, not paid them overtime and struck hours off their time cards. "We've uncovered several unlawful schemes, but they all share a common purpose -- to drive labor costs down by stealing wages from McDonald's workers" ]
Being paid minimum wage is bad enough. Being paid minimum wage, being scheduled for short shifts which maximize travel time for time worked, being shorted on time, and then being hit with uniform expenses on top of all that? Not fair at all. I hope this lawsuit succeeds and results in more equitable working circumstances.
Being paid minimum wage is bad enough. Being paid minimum wage, being scheduled for short shifts which maximize travel time for time worked, being shorted on time, and then being hit with uniform expenses on top of all that? Not fair at all. I hope this lawsuit succeeds and results in more equitable working circumstances.
I never had these problems at McDonalds in Canada 25 years ago. However I did have similar issues at other jobs. I worked at a retail store in Vancouver very briefly, and they required that all employees be present a half-hour before their shift (to ensure that nobody was late). They also wanted to subject everyone to searches at their shift end. The security detail wasn't ever around when my shift was over, and the wait would have been half an hour in some cases. So that was sometimes an extra hour daily that they didn't want to pay for. Of course if I was there, and not looking like I was working, the manager would make note of that, even if I wasn't on shift or being paid. After a couple of weeks of increasingly ridiculous rules like these, I started refusing to participate. I told them that I would show up when my shift started, and if they wanted me there earlier, they would have to start paying me earlier. I also told them that if I was ever late, they could fire me. I started refusing to wait to be searched, and ultimately refused to be searched at all. The employment didn't last long. I can't remember if they stopped scheduling me, or if they just kept hassling me until I quit. Raising minimum wage is only one part of the problem. Short shifts, charge-backs for uniform cleaning or other work-related expenses, deleting hours or underpaying overtime - there are many other issues which contribute to the problems of being working-poor. http://money.cnn.com/gallery/news/economy/2014/03/13/overtime-violations/index.html?hpt=hp_t2
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Comments
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Pandafaust said @ 11:09am GMT on 14th Mar
[Score:2 Informative]
Australia actually has a great system for this, though I don't like some things about it. The minimum wage is based on age, and this has resulted in fast food workers at one point being exclusively teenagers so that they could pay something like 7.50 an hour. But our minimum wage for adults is something like 15$ which is yeah, actually livable on. Not easily, but doable. And most occupations have 'award rates' which are much higher than this (e.g. as a caterer I was being paid 19$). Then you've got this weird thing where a lot of ethnic-run businesses employ exclusively their own disenfrachised minority who don't know better, so they can pay them under the table and avoid having to pay tax on payroll.
BUT the really good system is that you can make an anonymous complaint to this government ombudsmen, who can then investigate an employer. And if it is found they have been breaking minimum wage laws, the employer can be compelled to reimburse the workers for time missed. Not a lot of people know this, but it means that you can tough it out with a shithead employer for a few months that screws you, claim your back pay and quit without a bad reference. |
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Dumbledorito said @ 7:03pm GMT on 14th Mar
Isn't Australia under some kind of conservative nutter administration right now? I keep hearing things about doing away with the Minister of Science and so forth. Are they just concentrating on the religious/corporate side of things for now, or will this labor policy come under fire as well soon?
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Dumbledorito said @ 7:04pm GMT on 14th Mar
And I understand the irony of me, an American, asking about another country's wingnuts.
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Pandafaust said @ 4:44am GMT on 16th Mar
Yeah, we are now under a Mr Abbot, one of our more conservative, right wing politicians. Keep in mind that 'conservative, right wing' by the the rest of the world's standards is America's moderate.
Nitty gritty like this doesn't tend to come under fire. And nobody in their right mind would attack the minimum wage over here. But in general what we see when the Libs take power is an attempt to erode union laws, reduce environmental protections, reduce funding for programs for women and minorities, etc. A lot of this stuff is par for the course. It's disappointing, but not surprising. What's been a little scary and unusual is more... authoritarian measures. For example we spent massive amounts of money creating a national curriculum involving many experts in the education field. It's now being rewritten by two conservative wingnuts who were disappointed that the curriculum 'uncritically promoted diversity' and 'downplayed the contribution of judeo-christian civilisation' and a number of other comments suggesting that they would like to promote white nationalism as part of the curriculum. |
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GordonGuano said @ 9:02pm GMT on 13th Mar
[Score:1 Insightful]
Another way for a company to exploit workers is to put them on salary, then give them 80 hours' worth of work in a week. The Obama administration is considering using an executive order to stipulate that management be paid overtime as well. The squealing over at the Wall Street Journal would do Ned Beatty proud.
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GordonGuano said @ 9:24pm GMT on 13th Mar
[Score:1 Funny]
Eh, turns out the new rule has to be enforced by someone in a post that needs to be confirmed by the Senate. Never mind.
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Dumbledorito said @ 1:33pm GMT on 14th Mar
Isn't it amazing how the rich will complain that paying workers more will disincentivize them from working harder, yet they mysteriously don't apply the same "logic" to themselves?
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rndmnmbr said @ 11:54pm GMT on 13th Mar
[Score:1 Interesting]
As it was once said, "Minimum wage means they would pay you less if they could."
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spleen23 said @ 12:54am GMT on 14th Mar
And as I always say, "Pay someone minimum wage, expect minimum effort."
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Naruki said @ 3:11am GMT on 14th Mar
Except when it's not a teen on his first job who doesn't give a shit, but an adult who is desperate to feed their family and it's the only job they can get.
Those are the ones they can treat like slaves. |
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spleen23 said @ 11:13am GMT on 14th Mar
Historically, slaves had no choice at the work they did, but except when the overseer were right on their asses, they worked at the slowest, most effort minimal pace they could manage while still looking busy.
People who has little choice in their shitty jobs pretty much use the same stratagems. |
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jbhalper said @ 8:57pm GMT on 14th Mar
I think a fairly large swath of people who may have choices and don't see that, or don't like their choices, or whatever the case may be still use these stratagems in jobs that would be considered pretty good by many others.
Basically: there are lots of people in lots of jobs, trapped or not, public or private sector that will do as little as they can for lots of reasons. |
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robotroadkill said @ 3:15am GMT on 14th Mar
I think it was Chris Rock. Maybe among others.
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robotroadkill said @ 3:19am GMT on 14th Mar
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zTuq8SedL1o
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cb361 said @ 9:55am GMT on 14th Mar
Minimum wage means they would pay you less if they could
Sounds like it's not for want of trying. |
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lilmookieesquire said @ 4:27am GMT on 14th Mar
[Score:1 Interesting]
This is kind of creeping me out man (and I like it)
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lilmookieesquire said @ 4:28am GMT on 14th Mar
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vocaloid
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lilmookieesquire said @ 4:32am GMT on 14th Mar
Hatsune Miku - the "Best new virtual singer for the otaku generation".
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Bruceski said @ 4:34am GMT on 14th Mar
Unknown if this is my problem or a Sensible Facial problem: when I click on the video it hangs at "receiving trollery". Just tossing it out there in case it's not on my end while I poke around a bit.
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ithaqua10 said @ 1:32pm GMT on 14th Mar
go to the options and you can tell it not to hide videos. It is a known issue and being worked on. You can select the pony princess theme while you are there.
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Bruceski said @ 8:39pm GMT on 14th Mar
Thanks. My computer's old and buggy enough that I always get to play "is it just me".
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