I think the reason unemployment is so high is that employers are making workers work longer and longer hours so they don't have to hire new workers. Should we basically have a mandated 40 hr work week to resolve this issue?
40 hr work week.
- Thread starter SuperTool
- Start date
Normally I'd be quick to say no, pointing out a labor contract should be a private agreement between worker and employer. However, larger corporations today seem to be exploiting the fear workers have of losing their jobs to such an extent it crossing the line of defacto exploitation.
A fixed work hour limit would have consequences, though. Productivity drops and businesses have even more incentive to hire workers abroad....or even worse...to finally jump ship and move out altogether. I think you'd see bonuses dry up altogether as well.
I have no immediate suggestions. No easy answers.
A fixed work hour limit would have consequences, though. Productivity drops and businesses have even more incentive to hire workers abroad....or even worse...to finally jump ship and move out altogether. I think you'd see bonuses dry up altogether as well.
I have no immediate suggestions. No easy answers.
Salaried employees at the nationwide company I work for are required to work 50 hours per week. Plus coming in early and staying late if needed and it's always needed.
They're running the hourly employees as hard as they can every day of the week as well. Working harder and cutting overtime. We have a computerized system to monitor hourly workers and they're sent home the minute O/T starts. If there's more work to be done they call in part timers and have the full timers on the carpet the next day asking why they couldn't finish their impossible workload.
Weekends are mandatory for salaried employees when needed as well and we work about one weekend per month.
When people say "enough" and refuse to be abused any longer then we'll have more jobs to go around. Right now everyone is running scared and that's just the way the Republicans want it. If you're afraid for your job you just shut up and do what you're told.
Hayabusa Rider
Admin Emeritus & Elite Member
- Jan 26, 2000
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Most of what I see is salaried employees working extra to compensate for the hourly workers being allowed to work only part time so they cannot get benefits.
I was hired as a part time worker with no benefits but have been working more hours per week than a normal full time worker since I am called in whenever someone is sick or on vacation or whenever they need extra help. It isn't that bad since more hours mean more pay.
Good to hear you're able to earn more but still they're denying you benefits even though you're working more than a full time employee. That sux. It should be illegal.
It didn't used to happen in union shops I worked in. Say what you like about unions, they kept management honest. Or, I should say, more honest.
MovingTarget
Diamond Member
- Jun 22, 2003
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Originally posted by: BOBDN
Good to hear you're able to earn more but still they're denying you benefits even though you're working more than a full time employee. That sux. It should be illegal.
It didn't used to happen in union shops I worked in. Say what you like about unions, they kept management honest. Or, I should say, more honest.
I dont think I've ever quoted BOBDN before and agreed with him to this degree, but there's a first time for everything I suppose. He is dead on here. Although I've never worked for a company with unions in them, I do see how companies exploit their workers in the same fasion. Take Walmart/Winn Dixie/et al for example. I know many people that work at these style places. They deny overtime to anyone and use part time and salaried workers to make up the workload. Then they cut the hours of full-time employees from 40 hrs/wk to like 38 or 39 or something and completly deny them of benefits of any form that they used to get. Its a sad situation really because these people worked hard and barely made ends meat. They are then forced to spend more time away from their families and other responsibilities to take on a second job at a different company that does the exact same thing. Anyway, companies will try to get around these labor laws any way they can, despite how much thier workers get shafted. Kinda makes me wish we had more unions in these places....something needs to be done....
MovingTarget
Diamond Member
- Jun 22, 2003
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Yeah, mandating a work week like that is detremental to the economy. I have no problem with people working 40+ hrs/wk, just so long as they are compensated fairly in the origional spirit of the overtime laws. But as many have said in this thread, companies are finding ways around these laws and shafting thier workers because they already fear for their jobs....
Originally posted by: BOBDN
Good to hear you're able to earn more but still they're denying you benefits even though you're working more than a full time employee. That sux. It should be illegal.
It didn't used to happen in union shops I worked in. Say what you like about unions, they kept management honest. Or, I should say, more honest.
Now, if only unions were honest.
Corn
Diamond Member
- Nov 12, 1999
- 6,389
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Good luck getting unions to agree..........
That's about as ignorant a statement as I've read. But seeing where it came from, not suprised in the least. Your whole post reeks of bullsh1t, and since your track record is rife with misrepresentations and half-truths as it is, I'm gonna be hard pressed to believe a single word of it.
Strange how I work for one of the largest corporate entities ever in the history of the industrialized world, run by die hard Republicans, and yet we've one of the most generous white collar (read: salaried) benefit packages around. For example: A new hire clerk receives 23 days paid time off after 6 months of service, in addition to 8 paid holidays (thats nearly 6 weeks of time off per year!). Hours are flex time (within reason) and even though that clerk is a salaried employee, hours worked overtime (including hours worked at home) are paid at the equivalent of time and a half.
Are we asked to work overtime occasionally? Hell yes we are. One of the main reasons for this is because layoffs are painfull. When workflow demands more bodies we hire temps to complete non-technical/non-skilled tasks and the "regular" employees are able to focus their skills and talents more precisely. Yeah, sometimes it's a bitch, but in an industry that is rife with turnover, most of my co-workers have double digit years tenure at my employer. Our employer is loyal, and our employees are loyal.
The corporate world is full of incompentance. My Republican (LOL, are they all Republicans? Of course not, but those that know whom I work for know how "republican friendly" my employer is) employers are interested in hiring and KEEPING talent. *This* is the way that Republicans (or simply good capitalists) want it.
Sounds to me like BOBDN's shop is run by Democrats.
If only..............
Not sure what that means.
The great thing is....if the membership doesn't like the leadership...the workers can vote them out!
Too bad the workers can't vote a bad manager out.
Bowfinger
Lifer
- Nov 17, 2002
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Wow. Talk about your pot - kettle.
You'd be more credible if you made your case without the rabid personal attacks. You'd be even more credible if you ever strayed from the Bush party line, but eliminating the non-stop attacks will help too. IMHO. of course.
McDonald's? WalMart?
Zebo
Elite Member
- Jul 29, 2001
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Very misleading statistic. Germany counts everyone since uneployment benefits are forever there. We, on the other hand, only count those for 16-25 weeks on the rolls, we don't count those whos benefits have expired, who never found a job in the first place, who are unemployed in thier field and working as a waiter (underemployed). Germany does.
I wonder what the US rate would be if we counted everyone, not just those on the rolls? Anyone have any data on that? Most European countries measure unemployment that way.
Exactly, good thread and info guys. Looks like some people should move to Germany if they like it so much.
Salaried people I know both here and in Florida are being forced to work more and more hours or face being let go for people that will work the minimum 60 hours. A couple are actually putting in a double week in one, 80 hours just to keep their jobs. Getting in at work at 8 am and not even thinking about leaving until 8pm or even later and this is everyday.
This is how the "Productivity" is through the roof with less workers and less hours on the books from the Non-exempt "On The Clock" workers. Corporations are literaly having their Cake and Eating too, getting practically slave labor from what jobs they have left here while enjoying huge profits from real slave labor overseas. Oh what a great Win-Win for everybody
No kidding.
Look we had 10% nationwide unemployment in 1982. This lowered every year until 2000 when we reached nationwide 2.4 or so % unemployment.
I don't remember hearing that our government passed any laws restricting the amount of hours you should work back in the 80's!
Why should we be doing this now???
It realy doesn't make much sense.
Look the reason our economy is so robust is because 75% of workers work for small business. 25% of people work for those large corporations you see so often in the news. It gives us flexability and security. If half the large corporations all of a sudden went under that would add a maximum of 13% extra unemployment. And you will have a hundred lean hungry business jumping right in to fill the gap.
What government could do that?
These small business have to remain highly competative and have low profit margins. If the government goes around and starts telling people how they should run their businesses it's just going to screw everything up.
Hell half the senate are full of people that couldn't handle running a night shift at a 7-11 much less a nationwide economy. Let the politicians handle the politics and let the business men/women handle the business.
Look the economy is a natural phenominon. It's basicly how people interact and there attitudes on work and spending money. No person or group of people can hope to control it anymore then I can control the rain or the cloads.
Even the most hardnose liberal economist knows deep down inside that nobody realy has a clue whats going on or what's going to happen next. So why try?
You can't control it. Trying to control thru silliness like 40 hour only work weeks is just going to screw things up if it has any effect at all.
Look at Germany. It's a good example of a decent socialist state. They are technically savy, highly educated people, with a strong tradition of hard work and it is a rather large economy in it's own right. Were does all this Government meddeling in the private business affairs of the average person got them? Nowhere. Their ecomony is going nowhere. It doesn't grow it doesn't decline. One quarter it's up .2% the next it's down .2%. No chance for change, you can't adapt to new situations or grab at new opertunities. No hope for it to ever improve. Now it's probably as good as it will get for the next decade. Once something is a law or a rule, how easy is it to change? It's almost impossible to repeil something like that, so all you can do is throw more tax money at it or pass new regulations to counteract the effect. Then you get even more ingrained and inflexable.
Just think. What until some legislator or Leader makes a real bonehead move that seems a good idea at the time. It's going to happen and there is nothing anybody can do about it. It's human nature to make mistakes occasionally, even if you have 300 people in the senate agreeing with you.
The difference is that in a capitolist/freedom-based economy if somebody makes a mistake it's their problem. Only them and their company is going to suffer. Probably have a side effect of openning opertunitie for others, anyways. The effect on the whole is minor. A mistake in the Government then EVERYBODY is screwed by law!
In the United States economy, a 2.3% growth rate is a bad thing. It's something kinda slow and dreadfull and not much realy going on. This is what our economy is at right now.
Anyways. Personal Freedom is more important then the economy is anyways. Business dealings are just one faction of it, which is what liberty means; you have the right to do with the results of your labor what you will. Weither it's working for money, starting your own business, or growing potatoes, it makes no difference.
Personally I would rather be dirt poor and hungry then be a ward of the state. If somebody wants to be taken care of and coddled after, there is a whole world full of people that would love to tell you what you can and can't do with your life.
Look we had 10% nationwide unemployment in 1982. This lowered every year until 2000 when we reached nationwide 2.4 or so % unemployment.
I don't remember hearing that our government passed any laws restricting the amount of hours you should work back in the 80's!
Why should we be doing this now???
It realy doesn't make much sense.
Look the reason our economy is so robust is because 75% of workers work for small business. 25% of people work for those large corporations you see so often in the news. It gives us flexability and security. If half the large corporations all of a sudden went under that would add a maximum of 13% extra unemployment. And you will have a hundred lean hungry business jumping right in to fill the gap.
What government could do that?
These small business have to remain highly competative and have low profit margins. If the government goes around and starts telling people how they should run their businesses it's just going to screw everything up.
Hell half the senate are full of people that couldn't handle running a night shift at a 7-11 much less a nationwide economy. Let the politicians handle the politics and let the business men/women handle the business.
Look the economy is a natural phenominon. It's basicly how people interact and there attitudes on work and spending money. No person or group of people can hope to control it anymore then I can control the rain or the cloads.
Even the most hardnose liberal economist knows deep down inside that nobody realy has a clue whats going on or what's going to happen next. So why try?
You can't control it. Trying to control thru silliness like 40 hour only work weeks is just going to screw things up if it has any effect at all.
Look at Germany. It's a good example of a decent socialist state. They are technically savy, highly educated people, with a strong tradition of hard work and it is a rather large economy in it's own right. Were does all this Government meddeling in the private business affairs of the average person got them? Nowhere. Their ecomony is going nowhere. It doesn't grow it doesn't decline. One quarter it's up .2% the next it's down .2%. No chance for change, you can't adapt to new situations or grab at new opertunities. No hope for it to ever improve. Now it's probably as good as it will get for the next decade. Once something is a law or a rule, how easy is it to change? It's almost impossible to repeil something like that, so all you can do is throw more tax money at it or pass new regulations to counteract the effect. Then you get even more ingrained and inflexable.
Just think. What until some legislator or Leader makes a real bonehead move that seems a good idea at the time. It's going to happen and there is nothing anybody can do about it. It's human nature to make mistakes occasionally, even if you have 300 people in the senate agreeing with you.
The difference is that in a capitolist/freedom-based economy if somebody makes a mistake it's their problem. Only them and their company is going to suffer. Probably have a side effect of openning opertunitie for others, anyways. The effect on the whole is minor. A mistake in the Government then EVERYBODY is screwed by law!
In the United States economy, a 2.3% growth rate is a bad thing. It's something kinda slow and dreadfull and not much realy going on. This is what our economy is at right now.
Anyways. Personal Freedom is more important then the economy is anyways. Business dealings are just one faction of it, which is what liberty means; you have the right to do with the results of your labor what you will. Weither it's working for money, starting your own business, or growing potatoes, it makes no difference.
Personally I would rather be dirt poor and hungry then be a ward of the state. If somebody wants to be taken care of and coddled after, there is a whole world full of people that would love to tell you what you can and can't do with your life.
CADsortaGUY
Lifer
Yep - been there done that. Been a part of it twice. Bad managment needs to be brought to the attention of "higher" management or the owner. Both of my cases were dealing with the owner to rid ourselves of a jackass manager. He was removed in short order once a few of us decided enough was enough and individually talked with the owner. Everyone under this manager was then talked to by the owner and then he fired the (mis)manager. People need to start looking out for their own livelihood - I will leave any employer who doesn't treat his employees with the respect they deserve and won't change things when problems arise. Keep in mind that YOU CHOOSE your employer and if you don't like the situation you are free to leave - and only the good companies would survive if such were the case.
drag - good post:beer:
CkG
That is partially correct. We count long term unemployed as long as they still looking. We do not count the underemployed, but i dont know who counts the underemployed either.
Actually the US does track this stat. There is about 4% that do not have a job and are not looking for one. I dont see how those not looking for a job are a valuable stats.
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