The 68-hour a week job, was manufacturing widgets, which is to say, car parts. According to the poster who described the scenario. There you do double production by doubling workers (actually possibly more than double production, because risk of industrial accident/repetitive injury becomes much higher the longer a person works at that sort of job without changing up).
I agree with you that non-widget manufacturing jobs don’t work that way. Professional jobs are rarely hourly, and most salaried workers work in exempt positions (no overtime). So that’s completely different financially also.
However, in the scenario that poster described (widget making with incredibly high turnover) the usual explanations (save on training! etc) really don’t apply in any way that makes sense. Unless there’s something more to it, that wasn’t included. I could think of a few examples, such as if every worker has to get a security clearance, or get drug tested every 15 days, or something along those lines that creates a lot of hassle per worker.
A number of my friends are contractors (electric, concrete, etc.). They are always looking for good workers. If I were laid off today, I would be working for them tomorrow. I would also be looking for a permanent job. I would not collect unemployment.
Accepting unemployment would make me feel icky and lazy. I blame it on being raised by German Catholic parents. For better or worse, they taught me to get up at 5 AM everyday and work hard all day, and to only accept compensation for work performed. Yes, I know this is not logical since I “paid into” unemployment. But I can’t help it; it’s just the way I am. I have to work.
Yes, that is exactly the reasoning for death marches. The paper I referenced (“The $2,000 Hour: How Managers Influence Project Performance Through the Rework Cycle” by Kenneth G. Cooper, Project Management Journal, March 1994) says that the issue with these calculations is that they don’t consider the cost of mistakes and rework. Project management software - at least when I was working on the project I mentioned - is excellent for tracking resource usage and milestones, but awful at dealing with loops. The putting on a play or building examples this software comes with don’t have loops (except for Spiderman, I suppose). So, using this software if you increase your resources by increasing hours you’ll be convinced that you can get it done in less time with less people. I suppose if you are writing a report which just needs a bunch of pages, you’ll be right, but if you are developing software or a computer chip, you are going to have bugs and wind up always behind where your project management software tells you where you are supposed to be.
Some of us believe that human beings are different from apples. That even in these times, if a human being is willing to work eighty hours a week for 25 cents an hour, some common decency should prevent other human beings from taking advantage of their desperation.
First off they are told up front what the hours are.(If you would of took the time to read some of my previous post’s you might of seen that.) Second the work ethic I was talking about was about lazy people versus hard working people.(Once again read my previous post’s.) Last but not least.. Yeah your’e right…The company is just out to fuck people’s lives over. Cause God knows it so much cheaper too pay people for 60+hrs compared to paying them for 40 hours.
Here is how it works…
We have 2 plants that feed into us. Each plant runs about 6-7 million parts a week. So we have to run 12-14 million a week to break even. Our backlog as of today is 22 million. We can’t keep people. We had 4 people start last Thursday. There are 2 left. All these guys have done for 3 days was sit in a training room for 8 hours. And still half of them are gone. Why?.. Cause a lot of people now a days are fucking lazy! I’m so sick of hearing people whine about the bills they have to pay and how bad they have it when they are the ones that will take the most time off work. The ones that bitch about all the hours are the same ones that will bitch when the hours get cut. If you have a job now be thankful. If you don’t have one good luck.
That would imply that the fluctuations in unemployment figures that go with a fluctuating economy means people are becoming more lazy, then less lazy, then more lazy again, and now a good 10 percent of the US population has magically become lazy. I have my doubts.
What would eight years of design work previous to being laid off which led to being on UI lead you to assume?
Do you believe in the importance of families? Of the importance of both parents in child rearing? Someone working 68 hours a week will neither be a good husband or wife, or a good and involved mother or father.
I also suspect that the long work weeks are not freely arrived at. It is not like a group of workers demand to work 68 hours a week. When I worked 60 hours a week, it was theoretically optional, but everyone knew who did it and who did not, and the one guy who left at 6 with his car pool every day got a bad rating despite the protests of his direct manager.
Remember, children working 110 years ago were not enslaved - they did it of their own free will and that of their parents.
So your company works people over 60 hours a week and complains about high turnover? Real rocket scientists running your company. Turnover is expensive, which is one reason why most companies don’t pull this.
When I gave my notice, I worked for two weeks more cleaning stuff up, and I left at a reasonable time every day. I discovered I got a lot more done when I wasn’t exhausted. I’d say the people who left aren’t lazy, just sane.
That’s exactly what I did - a friend of mine is a general contractor and I got work from him. The problem? There isn’t any work for moths at a time. That’s why this is different. For the past 40 years this guy (of Austrian Catholic parents, which I assume are much the same as German Catholic parents such as yours) has ALWAYS been busy. For him, 40 hours is a slow week. He was running multiple crews and employing dozens to hundreds of people.
Know what? HE hasn’t worked for two months now. Why? In my area there is no work to be had. He still looks for jobs, puts in bids, and everything gets canceled or put off or whatever.
That is what you don’t seem to understand, Crafter - in this nation, right now, there really are places that have NO work. None. The general contractor doesn’t have work. Neither does any of his crews. There is just nothing happening right now. No matter how able-bodied you are, no matter how willing, no matter how eager, no matter how drive if there is no job you will have no work.
You can’t tell me that suddenly all the general contractors and every single construction worker and tradesman in this area suddenly decided not to work for three months. It’s ridiculous. At bids 30 contractors will show up and fistfights have broken out over getting work. It’s damn scary out there, let me tell you, which is why over the past two months I’ve been working on two different backup plans.
Thing is - three years ago everyone had more work than they could handle. When it crashed it crashed hard and faster than anyone imagined it could. The local pawn shops won’t take tools anymore because so many tradesmen have sold theirs to pay the bills and buy necessities that the pawn shops are glutted with them. There are guys selling their toolboxes for scrap iron.
Trust me, you get over the “icky” feeling real quick when the bank account sinks to single digits, you still have to pay for the roof over your head, and the pantry is bare. When the ONLY way you’re going to get enough to eat is to accept aid somehow being hungry becomes more icky than taking the aid.
I didn’t equate human beings and apples–I equated human beings who sell their labor to human beings who sell apples.
I don’t pretend to understand people’s reasons for doing things. I have the common decency to give every other human being the respect that I think I deserve. If someone likes to pay someone else to kick them in the balls, I think they have their reasons for it. I don’t pretend that everyone should value the things that I value.
But you apparently disagree with me–you think that if everyone doesn’t value what Evil Captor values, then they are wrong. That’s fine if you want to think that, I don’t care. Just trying to fight your ignorance (yet again–we’ve talked about essentially this same subject before).
I have $223.14 in my bank account right now - just how far do you think I could get on that? How do you move when you have no money? How am I going to get a new place to live without enough for a security deposit? Are YOU going to lend me gas money to get somewhere else? No? Then do you expect someone else to do that? No? Do you expect someone to simply GIVE me free gas, or a place to live?
You do not understand the obstacles. I hope you never have reason to experience them yourself.
I also have the problem of a disabled spouse - are you suggesting I simply abandon someone unable to care for himself? If it was just me sure, simply dumping most of what I own and going elsewhere might be an option but if I do that I leave behind someone unable to follow and who is dependent on me for food, clothing, shelter, heat, medical care… tell me, what would you think of someone who would do that?
The problem is that it is in no way an employer’s fault that you have been out of work and thus are not going to be as up-to-date on things as more recently laid-off folks. It’s absolutely none of their concern that it’s a vicious circle (or cycle) for those who haven’t been lucky enough to find work within a few months of their previous job ending. It’s a sad state of affairs, but that’s what happens in a thoroughly capitalist society that doesn’t give a damn about helping to level the playing field. Yes, we have social nets, but that’s primarily so that those stuck in these situations don’t resort to crime and violent revolution.
In my instance, I wasn’t told when I decided what to study that there wouldn’t be any jobs available with that degree that I was actually capable of doing. Is it my fault that I listened to my teachers when they said that I was so smart I should do whatever I found most interesting? Is it my fault that the psychologists I went to failed to address the underlying neurological cause of my problems and instead only focused on fixing the symptoms? Even if it’s not “my fault”, it’s not anyone else’s problem either. There’s no one interested in fixing the problem, because it’s not their problem, it’s mine.
There’s no easy solution, because the problem doesn’t exist in any one place, it exists in the system. Businesses have become more and more concerned about short-term profits, and are in a “what have you done for me this week” mindset. They don’t care about you unless you have money to spend, and no longer believe in the “welfare capitalism” of Henry Ford. It’s no longer their job to help you get the money you need to buy their products, it’s their job to make money for the shareholders this quarter. And you certainly can’t blame the shareholders for demanding those returns, because that’s the only reason they’re holding the stocks.
It will take some serious reform to change these mindsets, but it will probably require a depression worse than that of 1930s to actually do it.
Funny thing about contracting. I’m a writer, and almost all of my work is contract work. On January 25 I completed a job, and my editor liked it so much he told me he was putting me down for six upcoming jobs. Today he told me that his budget had been cut, and all six of my projects along with it.
For better or worse, they taught me to get up at 5 AM everyday and work hard all day, and to only accept compensation for work performed. Yes, I know this is not logical since I “paid into” unemployment. But I can’t help it; it’s just the way I am. I have to work.