[HN Gopher] I'm a Frito-Lay Factory Worker. I Work 12-Hour Days,... ___________________________________________________________________ I'm a Frito-Lay Factory Worker. I Work 12-Hour Days, 7 Days a Week Author : elsewhen Score : 172 points Date : 2021-07-17 19:42 UTC (3 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.vice.com) (TXT) w3m dump (www.vice.com) | Beaver117 wrote: | Everyone knows to work smart not hard. What's stopping them? | otde wrote: | This is the "have you tried yoga" of labor discourse -- | shallow, unhelpful, and really dismissive, especially when | factory workers are not given the choice to work additional | hours, working conditions are challenging at best, and | management seems (putting it charitably) negligent. | brianwawok wrote: | That's a pretty demeaning way to look at people. | quickthrower2 wrote: | They are being very smart, by striking and standing up for | their rights. | | I think forcing people to work that many hours should be | illegal, like in the EU | mchusma wrote: | They weren't forced to work though. | | Conflating optional decisions with force is dangerous. | | If they have better alternatives, they should do those. If | they believe that by stopping work, they can get change from | their employer, go for it. But nothing here is forced. | quickthrower2 wrote: | Depends what you mean by forced. | | If you can get fired for "underperforming" or even think | you can then this is forced in the minds of the employee. | | There is a massive power imbalance. | | Sure the guy can resign and get another job, just like the | tech industry right? Might even get $200k plus RSUs and | free lunches? | | More like struggle to get another job, maybe get evicted, | and oh surprise new job is shit too and they force you to | do OT or an algorithm fires you. | dang wrote: | " _Please don 't post shallow dismissals, especially of other | people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something._" | | https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html | [deleted] | Layke1123 wrote: | What a myopic view. Everyone knows to just be rich, whats | stopping them from being so? /s | [deleted] | jjcm wrote: | "In its latest contract offer, Frito-Lay has said it would raise | wages by four percent over the next two years" | | Consumer price index has risen 4.5% since June of last year. With | Biden planning similar amounts of printing, it's likely this | trend will continue. What Frito-Lay is actually saying here is | that they will cut employee's purchasing power by 5.2% over the | next two years if that amount of inflation holds. | baron816 wrote: | > I stay here because in two years, I'll be 62 and I have a union | pension acquired over 37 years. I've spent so much time here that | I might as well take that pension and social security and call it | quits. | | Had they not been locked in by the pension, I'd imagine most of | them would've quit, and Frito-Lay would've been force to improve | conditions. | | I wonder if unions prefer pensions pretty much for the same | reason--it allows businesses to abuse workers, forcing them to | turn to unions to bargain for better conditions while also | keeping them locked in to the business and thus the union. | vfclists wrote: | Nope. He is just like a prisoner coming up for parole who | doesn't want to get into any trouble that will affect his | release. | | The risk isn't worth it. | user-the-name wrote: | You read this and your first instinct is to attack unions? | baron816 wrote: | Why is your first instinct to assume unions are wholesome, | benevolent actors? Unions have a long history of corruption, | racism, and being associated with organized crime. | hogFeast wrote: | I used to work as an equity analyst, so have come at this problem | from totally the other end. | | The number one problem, that I have seen no-one talk about, are | certain incentives from the market (not short-termism, if someone | says that they don't understand what is happening). | | I buy PEP at 15x earnings...I don't need a lot of growth to make | that price work. Even if they grow a 10-20% over five years, I | will probably make a market return. Which is fair. | | If I buy PEP at 25x earnings plus (roughly where it is | today)...that is different. I need earnings to double and then | some within five years. Huge imperative for growth. If I don't | see the growth, I will lose 50%+ on the position. | | So when the share price is that high, the incentives are out the | window. The board is never going to hire the guy who says: well, | share price could do with a reset, how about we take a year | boys...no, at 25x earnings, they will take the guy who comes into | the room ten minutes after his piece, rips his shirt off in the | interview, and drinks blood for breakfast. The boys on the comp | committee want growth, they will set the 20x salary bonus package | accordingly, and the exec team is going to fight like rats in a | bag to get the juice. | | This got very bad in FMCG too because 3G Capital exposed the | amount of middle management waste at Heinz and, of course, | consumers are consuming less of these unhealthy snacks. No top- | line growth, so costs is the only way you can pay out. | | On the OP, it is deplorable. Investors do not want this. Most | fund managers do not have money in their own funds, the PR is | horrendous. Companies shouldn't treat their workers this way. | But...the Fed has pumped up the market, every exec team is | feeling joocy on that stimmy, multiples are through the | roof...everyone knows it is going to blow but the music is still | playing. | | I have no idea what the solution is, only that lots of people get | the incentives totally wrong. Investors aren't short-term. Every | investor wants the stock they can hold for five, ten, twenty | years. But I have seen good companies run themselves into the | ground because the comp committee wanted a "stretch" target that | was literally impossible (particularly in retail, any company | that can grow unprofitably but cheaply will be hung by the comp | committee). Companies are even doing % of market cap growth by | date X packages now, it is truly obscene (thank Elon). CEOs | create these cultish atmospheres because of the incentives of pay | (this is true of PEP: afaik, Nooyi was a terrible CEO, made | terrible acquisitions to goose the share price, never got | challenged, and walks away with $25-50m...if you lose the guys on | the floor, you don't have a company tomorrow...if you don't hire | Nooyi, you have saved billions in shareholder value...but it is | the latter that is indispensable?). | [deleted] | gwright wrote: | I feel like there is something interesting in here but the | finance jargon and writing style is obscuring it for me. | mjevans wrote: | It was unclear for me too. Though the gist of what I | understood around the jargon: | | Overvalued companies are driven by the stock market to have | unsustainable growth, always more than before or at the very | least always going up over time, even with complete market | dominance. | | Therefore once a company caps out a market only cutting | quality or civic duty corners are left and it becomes a | knife-fight to the death for all involved; with more literal | impacts to the workers and customers (quality of output). | Even if a company COULD just allow the profit to stabilize at | a long term sustainable level that would benefit everyone | most overall; they won't and will instead be driven for short | term results. | hogFeast wrote: | Yes. Almost. | | But the point is explicitly not that the issue is short- | termism. I am not going to go over everything again, but | the issue is not solved (as everyone today thinks) by | bailing people in. | | Look at Tesla's exec package: Elon's package is | what...$100bn? He will lose money if the stock goes to | zero, but that is still a very one-sided risk for him. So | doing long-term packages makes no difference because the | reward is all one-sided, no risk, and the fundamentals | usually aren't changed. It actually makes it worse because | you dangle $100m in front of someone on a base package of | $500k salary...they will believe anything to get that | money. So timescale isn't relevant (again, the market isn't | short-term...every investor wants a "one decision | stock"...you buy, hold for the rest of your life). | | As an example, this is why you see so much M&A...it makes | no sense but you buy revenues from another company, you get | growth. Execs don't care about the price, you just need | growth, you just need to hit your targets. Whether they are | short or long, the issue is with the incentives and target | (although are wrong for a few different reasons I have | already mentioned, and I haven't yet seen a company that | has managed to structure pay perfectly...most just wildly | overpay for very mediocre execs who add nothing). | vfclists wrote: | Speak English | JackFr wrote: | Where is the union? | | That has got to be the single most ineffective union I've ever | seen. If that's what a union shop looks like I can understand why | people might not want to pay union dues. | bpodgursky wrote: | My brother-in-law works at the Target distribution center in | Topeka, and is very confused why these workers don't just quit | and work at either the Target or WalMart centers that are | practically next-door and begging for workers. | | Definitely sounds like a rough gig here, but everyone is begging | for entry-level labor, most at higher wages than this. The | workers need to just protest with their feet and quit. | underseacables wrote: | What percentage of labor cost would a company like Frito lay have | to reach before they consider moving the company to another | country? | | I think about Oreos and how they are made in Mexico now, and I | always wonder what was the calculus behind that. How much money | are they saving? | | Is there a generally recognized point where labor is so expensive | that outsourcing begins to make more sense? | | Edit: my bad grammar | crackercrews wrote: | The U.S. keeps sugar prices artificially high, and sugar is the | first ingredient in Oreos. [1] That is why the candy companies | fled Chicago for Canada. Probably also drove Oreo mfg out as | well. | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oreo | JackFr wrote: | Off topic tidbit from the article - note only corn based snacks | are made in Topeka. One presumes there are factories in | Washington and Idaho for the potato chips. | | Shipping vegetables is shipping water. | akudha wrote: | Jeez! 59 year old guy with the same salary for the last 10 years. | People working in 100 degree temperatures with no air | conditioning. | | This is depressing to read :( | raffraffraff wrote: | America needs an equivalent to the EU working time act. | bserge wrote: | People like that work the same hours in the EU. | Kwpolska wrote: | Working 7 days a week all the time is not legal in the EU, | see [0]. Also, many EU countries have even stricter local | regulations in that regard. | | https://europa.eu/youreurope/business/human- | resources/workin... | Tarucho wrote: | But are the regulations enforced? | mrunkel wrote: | Yes | celticninja wrote: | Yes, although workarounds exist, but not in a way that | would make this sort of employment possible. | hosenten wrote: | You have even mandatory holiday as intern. | | You have health care either through your family or through | any normal job including flipping burgers. | | You have min 20 days holiday as burger flipper as well. | | It's a shame how unfair humans get treated in the USA or | let's say disgusting. | | And no federal maternity leave in the USA. | | Country of freedom for the rich and social shit hole for the | rest. | brundolf wrote: | Wasn't this made illegal 100 years ago? | knuthsat wrote: | Anyone knows why people decide to do this kind of time consuming | work? Is the world getting hard enough that there is no | alternative? | | Whenever I see people working really hard in other parts of the | world, especially when the country is filled with other | opportunities, I always wonder is it just everyone else that is | raising the bar and now the standard is very time consuming work. | | For example, there's year long tourism on Madeira. Everyone there | is working hard all year long, charging for tourist services very | cheaply. Yet there are many examples of places with year long | tourism, but you can still find mass closures during siesta. | | Everyone, through culture, decided not to overwork and there's no | one "hard-working" enough to have their business open during | siesta. No employee will agree to work during siesta, similarly | employers do not expect their business to be open. | brianwawok wrote: | Factories aren't generally in cities. In a rural town, your job | choices may be work at Walmart, one of two factories, or on a | farm. The "hard" factory job may be the "best" bet among the | choices. | | The bigger question is usually why don't people move from a | rural location? And the answer is usually "it's complicated ". | Old parents to take care of. It's familiar. Friends. Maybe own | your simple home. Maybe your church is there. Maybe quiet life | is your thing. | bena wrote: | Maybe those jobs don't pay enough to save up to move. | | That and the logistics of moving. Not to mention, having a | job beats not having a job. And moving often means not having | a job to start. Especially when your only work experience is | retail, factory floor, and farmhand. | | You can't really afford to take a week off of getting paid. | | And if you're constantly working to make ends meet, you don't | really have time or energy to work on developing marketable | skills. | 8note wrote: | Another answer to the bigger question: it costs money to move | hallway_monitor wrote: | The best thing about moving to remote work is that it will | enable people to live in these smaller communities while | having the increased income of the city. I hope this will | bring more money back to local economies and revitalize rural | areas. | ryandrake wrote: | If remote work really takes off, it won't be long until | most employers adjust salaries down to each employee's | local cost of labor. Why pay someone a Bay Area or NYC | salary when they work in rural Montana, when they could pay | a rural Montana salary to get someone who works in rural | Montana? | nawitus wrote: | Remote salaries might end up being somewhere between | rural Montana and Bay Area. There's no reason to assume | there's a huge supply of software engineers in the US | which would make all remote salaries to be in the low- | end. | barry-cotter wrote: | > Why pay someone a Bay Area or NYC salary when they work | in rural Montana, when they could pay a rural Montana | salary to get someone who works in rural Montana? | | Because you can't get anyone in rural Montana who is | capable of getting a job paying Bay Area or NYC salaroies | to accept that offer. Adjustment will result in meeting | somewhere in the middle but whether that's 25% or 95% of | Bay Area salaries is an open question. | vitaflo wrote: | All this will do is drive up the cost of housing as remote | workers compete for it, driving out the locals. | | Remote workers also don't fully contribute to the economy | of the rural area because their place of employment is not | in that area. If the company the remote worker works for | does well and grows, that won't grow the rural community. | MisterTea wrote: | Right but the remote worker will spend money locally | keeping the local economy going. And do you not pay local | income tax? The only possible downside is if they're | hooked on convenience and order everything online from | amazon or whatever instead of patronising local shops. | ipaddr wrote: | The opposite is true. They pay the same taxes, use the | same stores and go to the same bars and attend tbe same | cultural events. A lot of rural home owners work in a | nearby town as well. | sigstoat wrote: | > All this will do is drive up the cost of housing as | remote workers compete for it | | when you stop competing for the same strip of land, 10 | miles from the pacific ocean, it turns out there's a sort | of stupendous amount of land. | | while, yes, there will technically be some competition, | in the areas under discussion i don't think it will | meaningfully effect housing prices. | | (i could divide the amount of land in rural america by | the number of possible work-from-home employees and we | could figure out what it'll do to the average population | density. but, hell, i've lived in these areas, i don't | need to.) | jrockway wrote: | > All this will do is drive up the cost of housing as | remote workers compete for it, driving out the locals. | | Rural America is huge. If every single person in New York | city got themselves a suburban house, they'd take up 0.1% | of the United States (about the area of two counties). | | Housing is expensive in cities because 10 million people | want to live in the same square mile. The US, however, | has 4 million of those square miles. (Everyone in New | York City could move to California and have 10 acres of | their own. I did the calculation with the intent of | showing that everyone in the country could have their own | square mile, but that's not true -- I didn't realize how | big a square mile actually is.) | | Remote workers probably aren't going to raise the cost of | living that much. It is certainly possible that they | could all move to the same place (i.e. turn Aspen, | Colorado into New York City), and that would be a | problem. But if people randomly move into rural areas, | there just aren't enough people buying 1 million dollar | apartments in the same place to "gentrify out" farmers. | | I'll also point out, that remote work doesn't necessarily | imply that it's possible to move to the middle of | nowhere. You still need a good Internet connection, and | many people want to live closer than an hour's drive away | from a grocery store or hospital. I work remotely but I'm | happy to live 3 minutes away from Manhattan. There are | factors other than commuting to work that account for | where people live. | petee wrote: | Depending on your skill set or circumstances, you need a job | quick; more hours means more money. What sucks is then you | become reliant on that money, and changing careers is near | impossible without risking your family's security. | | Personally Ive done the 12+ hr/7 day in the film industry, a | notoriously abusive industry (tv shows shoot 14-18hr days) but | the money is great. We call it blood money, and do it until we | need a vacation. We also get health benefits | walrus01 wrote: | > Anyone knows why people decide to do this kind of time | consuming work? Is the world getting hard enough that there is | no alternative? | | A lot of people who work paycheck-to-paycheck in "flyover | state" parts of the USA do not have sufficient savings to | relocate to a place where they could work a normal 40-hour week | schedule and support themselves on a reasonable income. That, | combined with family ties and obligations force them to remain | in their local community. | | https://www.marketwatch.com/story/americans-struggle-to-save... | anemoiac wrote: | Why people "decide" to do this sort of work? Oh, I don't know, | probably the same reasons people "decide" to be poor. | mcculley wrote: | In addition to the many insightful replies here add: Once you | have a working class addicted to some combination of fast food, | sugar, caffeine, alcohol, pot, opioids, and other drugs which | cost money, they have a reduced capability to dig themselves | out of a hole. | alisonkisk wrote: | You skipped rent which dwarfs all that. | | Fast food and sugar are cheap for what you get. Pot isn't | addictive. | samatman wrote: | Man it is super weird that you put caffeine on that list. | | I assume, because you did it, that you're one of those | mutants who doesn't use it nor like it much. Good for you and | all, but _caffeine made the modern world_ , the majority of | the population uses it every day, and industrial society | wouldn't function without it. | | It's also super-cheap even on a modest salary, and most | workplaces give it away for free because of how necessary it | is to production. | mcculley wrote: | I am aware of Pollan's recently well-publicized assertion | that caffeine made the modern world. I am unconvinced. | | I quit caffeine a few years ago. I'm not an unusual mutant. | I have the genes on markers rs4410790 and rs2470893 that | indicate a typical reaction to caffeine. | (https://enki.org/2017/08/13/quitting-caffeine/) | | Most people experience a temporary increase in productivity | until they build up a tolerance for caffeine. Thereafter, | they are just paying and consuming to avoid headaches and | reach the baseline. | diordiderot wrote: | What was your experience quitting like. I want to but am | afraid | ac29 wrote: | According to the article, "Most people make between $16.50 and | $20 an hour". | | So, at 84 hours a week (46 normal pay, 38 overtime at 1.5x), | thats $1700/week on the low end, or $88k/year. | | I dont think that excuses the forced overtime and I would | absolutely expect severe health and/or mental health issues to | result from the overwork. But, these people can quit (and | according to the article many do) - I expect the only reason | folks do stay is because they cant make the same money anywhere | else. | robarr wrote: | People with poor formal qualifications or habilities not | longer marketable have little choice except double shifts to | raise a family. Just imagine being 40 years old, no college | or technical education, having only retail work experience. | throwawayboise wrote: | You still have many options. It is probably true that for a | person in that situation, they may not be apparent or seem | feasible. | quickthrower2 wrote: | They are not making that much as it's unpaid overtime or | "suicide" as they colloquially call it according to the | article. | | Edit: sorry I'm wrong. I read "kills you over time" as "kills | your overtime" | ac29 wrote: | The article doesnt say anything about it being unpaid. The | "suicide" is a forced double shift, not a forced unpaid | shift. | sdfsadfjaslj wrote: | The article does not claim that it is unpaid. If they were | working unpaid hours that would be a serious legal issue | and state and federal regulators would be getting involved. | alisonkisk wrote: | Wage theft is the largest form of theft. | VWWHFSfQ wrote: | This is not unpaid. That's extremely illegal. | indymike wrote: | Unpaid overtime is highly illegal un the US for hourly | workers. That's why tech loves salaried workers so much. | alisonkisk wrote: | techie employees make far far more than hourly with | overtime. ask your local conteactor/temp/vendor. | nine_zeros wrote: | The real problem is cost of living without a job. It is just | too fking expensive to live with little or no income. | | As a result, people in less than abundant job markets are | forced into taking up jobs to merely survive. | | If someone is trying to imagine an alternative world, they | should visit non-tier 1 cities of SE Asia or India or China. | People routinely survive with less than full time income. Sure, | it's a life with less material pleasure but it is a | surprisingly adequate survival life. | AndyMcConachie wrote: | People running factories have been exploiting and overworking | the people working in their factories since there have been | factories. There's nothing new here. | kcplate wrote: | I think there is always going to be a bit of a disconnect and | lack of empathy about excessive work hours when an hourly | worker gripes about forced overtime (where in the US they are | legally required to be paid at least 1.5x their hourly rate | for the overtime) is complaining to salaried management (that | are generally working a similar number of hours...but unpaid | beyond the 40). | | Kind of makes you wonder which side is being exploited. | alisonkisk wrote: | Management gets paid a lot more, and half their "work" time | is goofing off. | Exmoor wrote: | Besides some of the obvious reasons such as the previously | mentioned location limitations and low education limiting | possibilities, I'll throw out another one. Once you're in a job | like this it kind of limits your ability to branch out into | less physically demanding and better paying work. Your resume | kind of pigeon holes you with respect to future employment and | the fact that you're working long, exhausting days means its | very hard to find the time and energy to build your skills | outside of work. | risedotmoe wrote: | There is no job that won't work you for as much as they can. | They pay you low enough to where you're dependent on them | paycheck to paycheck. The turnover is high and if you don't | like the conditions they get rid of you. There are a ton of | people in line for your job who will put up with worse working | conditions so you either lick boots or you aren't making ends | meet this week. The culture at every job is that if you aren't | sweating from 6AM to 6PM you're "lazy." Don't want to work | overtime? You either won't make ends meet or you will be fired. | If you don't make ends meet in America you will be homeless | unless you are married with children or can live with your | parents. | | The only way to remedy this is to go to college or trade school | and hope your degree makes you valuable enough that you can | bargain for a realistic work/life balance. | XenophileJKO wrote: | College or trade school is not the only way out. The core way | out is skill attainment. College and trade school are one way | to do this. | xyzzy21 wrote: | No choices. This is in the Midwest in the middle of no-where. | | No you can't realistically move - every other location is far | more expensive and would require significant relocation | expense, and you'd have to leave your community, likely where | you were born and raise(d) your family. | nradov wrote: | And yet during the Great Depression poor people moved by the | thousands to find work in other states. Sure it was hard but | they did what they had to in order to survive. | alisonkisk wrote: | Except the large numbers that didn't survive. | elliekelly wrote: | Mobility doesn't work like that anymore. Moving states in | 1929 meant, for the most part, a completely fresh start - | your landlord wasn't going to chase you for the rest of the | rent on your lease, you didn't have a car payment or health | insurance to worry about (using social security nets like | medical or housing assistance is even harder when you | haven't yet established residency in a new state), and if | you had any debts or even reputation issues they were very | unlikely to "follow" you. Now we have credit reporting, | background checks, and a system that makes it all but | impossible to "start over" when you have no other options. | jollybean wrote: | "Anyone knows why people decide to do this kind of time | consuming work?" | | About 50% of people have very little choice in the types of | jobs and conditions they work in. | vasco wrote: | There's no "siesta" (a spanish word and custom) anywhere in | Portugal, including Madeira. Businesses may close for an hour | or so for lunch, but "siesta" is not a thing. Not sure why you | picked that as an example out of any other work expectation in | any country. | rufus_foreman wrote: | Time consuming? | | I worked in a factory for years when I was younger, not too | different than what he is describing. | | There are some jobs, like the one I have now writing code where | you think about them even when you aren't doing them, they | invade your dreams. I feel like I am writing code all the time, | even when I'm not logged in to the work laptop actually doing | it. | | There are other jobs where you don't think about them when you | aren't doing them, you go home after work and then you stop | thinking about work. | | The factory job I had was not like either of those, I did not | think about work even while I was doing it. My mind was free | while my body was getting paid to do work. I could be thinking | about anything else other than the physical work I was doing. | | I'm getting old, won't be able to write code much longer. The | factory job that I used to do doesn't exist now, it's been | automated. Save your money, kids. | [deleted] | bko wrote: | From the article: | | > After 37 years, I still get forced to work 12 hours a day, | seven days a week... I make $20.50 [an hour] after 37 years | here. | | Assuming they obey overtime laws, he's' making $112,996 a year | ((40 * 20.5) + (44 * 1.5 * 20.5) * 52). | | I think that has something to do with it. There likely aren't | any alternatives where someone with that skill set can make | nearly double the median income for Topeka, Kansas. But there | are probably alternatives where they can make maybe a half that | at more reasonable hours. | nabilhat wrote: | If you don't have an easy option close at hand it ends up being | a choice between continuing, taking a massive hit to your | income, or choosing unemployment. | | The pay is exactly high enough to maintain minimal staffing. | That's normal, but in working conditions like this sometime it | ends up a tiny bit higher than the local rate for similar jobs | if there's competition for employees. Not everyone can maintain | the working conditions. They leave, get kicked out, or they're | useful (or connected) enough to keep around working humane | hours. | | The rest have bills, or legal requirements to maintain | employment, or burned a bridge at the other factory in town, or | they're inexperienced enough to not know better. They establish | a reputation as an employee who can be pushed into working | inhumane hours. Managers are often rewarded for keeping up with | production with a small team. | | A few years go by before you know it, and working hours like | this is expensive. You don't have time to maintain your stuff | and house, you pay someone else to. Kids need to be watched. | Spouses leave. Drugs or alcohol offer to fill the holes in | Maslow's Hierarchy you've sacrificed. Savings don't pile up | like one might assume. | | Interviewing is treacherous. If you're lucky you work a night | shift so you can do an interview instead of sleeping. They'll | ask you how much you make per hour and offer you a lower | "starting rate" hourly wage with fewer hours, which would cut | your income drastically, and suggest there might be a | review/small raise in 6 months. They'll call your employer | before offering you a job at that rate, putting you at risk of | retaliation whether you take the offer or not. | pryelluw wrote: | Anyone knows why people decide to do this kind of time | consuming work? Is the world getting hard enough that there is | no alternative? | | As someone who had to do similar work for years the answer is | that there were no alternatives. | | No one takes a shitty job on purpose. | treis wrote: | That then raises the question of why they're paying time and | a half to work their employees to death. | phreack wrote: | I thought so as well, but then I started offering jobs to | people I knew hated their jobs and also worked unpaid | overtime constantly, with the smallest salaries. But for some | reason, when offered a 6x salary freelancing, for less hours, | with guidance, and the road paved as much as possible, | everyone refuses. | | Turns out there are people who take shitty jobs on purpose, | out of a sense of... I don't know, fear, embarrassment, | impostor syndrome, or a combination of them. | | *This is not in the US. | ipaddr wrote: | They want something stable. Freelancing is not. | diordiderot wrote: | Kids, car, rent, healthcare = Need something stable | mertd wrote: | Maybe they think the offer is too good to be true. In some | countries it is default to assume everyone is out to scam | you until proven otherwise. | theshrike79 wrote: | It's a self-feeding cycle. | | First you need work two 10 hour shifts a day, 7 days a week | to survive. Then you can't even study, because you can't | afford it. | | This is why proper unemployment and free schools (evil | SOCIALISM) comes in to play. People don't need to work | themselves to death just to survive, there are safety nets | you can fall back on. (Yes there are holes in said nets, but | it's better than the gaping black hole the US has). | justlern2code wrote: | You are free to offer them $100k / yr for 40hr weeks at your | company. | TaylorAlexander wrote: | Its a very good question. I think in general it is important to | realize that a significant amount of "design" work goes in to | creating economies. Local, state, and national decisions will | lead to certain conditions. How were those decisions made, and | under what conditions? For any given place the answer will be | different. How does one place compare to another? | | It is my view that it is perfectly feasible to design economies | (in a voluntary way) where people can work 20 hours a week and | have two months off a year every year. Or closer to our current | world, there is no question in my mind that we could keep | things as good or better they are now materially, while making | sure no person has to work more than 40 hours a week to | survive. | | I do love to talk about specific strategies [1] but that | quickly activates our tribal instincts and can cause violent | arguments even when our underlying goals are in near complete | agreement. So it can be useful to just ponder on the above. How | did things get the way they became? Is it due to iron wrought | natural laws, or historical decisions we could freely agree to | change? | | [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27860696 | clairity wrote: | as nice as that utopia would be, the fundamental flaw with | trying to limit working days/hours is that some people will | still pour their whole lives into work, which creates an | iterated game that pushes the equilibrium for everyone toward | working more. there's no practical way to mitigate this | powerful, arguably inate, incentive. | | the other option is actively coercing a daily/weekly work | limit, and that not only severely infringes personal | liberties, but eventually makes whole economies less | competitive as the hardest working & most ambitious workers | migrate away. | | the better approach is to try to ensure everyone has dignity | and fair pay for the amount of work that they do. that's a | function of the distribution of pay and wealth, which is | something we can legislate via sticks and carrots. | distributedsean wrote: | I can't believe people are even having this conversation. | As a civilization we solved this problem about a century | ago. We know the solution. In the US labour law has been | subverted and undermined. Thats the problem. It's not that | nothing can be done about it. Lots can be done and has been | done around the globe (but predominately in advanced | economies, of which the US is one). | Frost1x wrote: | >some people will still pour their whole lives into work, | which creates an iterated game that pushes the equilibrium | for everyone toward working more. there's no practical way | to mitigate this powerful, arguably inate, incentive. | | The trick here is to make sure those who don't push for the | incentives are taken care of. You need to make sure | everyone participating at the sane rates are taken care of | in their needs and some wants. After that, you allow for | those obsessed with incentives and wants to work as much as | they want to get extravagant things. It's easier said than | done but I believe its attainable. If you can create an | economy where that sort of effort at work is used to buy | luxuries and not necessities, then you have a good model | that still has a balance of incentives without dragging the | rest of society into a work obsessed life. | | People who put for this amount of effort shouldn't be doing | it because they have to, they should be doing it because | they want to. Unfortunately many people are doing it | because they really have to, that or their standard of | living drops significantly, their overall longevity. | Unfortunately that's the world we have. People are forced | to work at these sorts of rates to survive and it's only | getting worse. It's not that they're slaving away their | lives because they want to get a new luxury car or exotic | vacation, it's that the alternatives to not doing it means | they may be homeless next month or looking for somewhere | new to live. | clairity wrote: | yah, that's why ultimately the better focus is on a more | equitable (but not equal) distribution of pay and wealth. | worrying about the number of hours in a work week (or | even minimum wage, in the long run) is a distraction in | this regard (popular distractions on hn and elsewhere, by | how well received such misguided ideas seem to be). we | should be making labor markets radically transparent for | workers, and legislatively shifting power to humans over | amoral corporate entities. companies should be working | for the people at large, not the other way around. once | you accumulate about $2-10MM in assets, you've won the | economy and we should make it steeply, progressively | harder (but not impossible) to accumulate more. this also | has the nice side effect of making the economy more | dynamic and resilient, while also fostering more | innovation all around. | rantwasp wrote: | if people want to work more that's fine but the others | should not be punished for it. | | you see: some people push very hard because their life is | their work. They don't have time for something else because | they work a lot, and they work a lot effectively consuming | what should be their free time because they don't have the | mental energy to so something else. | | Once you create a bit of space and disentangle yourself | from your work not a lot of people want to work extra time. | ideally life should be split between work and creative | pursuits and the percentage of work should decrease until | it eventually hits 0. People will still do stuff, but your | livelihood should not be tied to your job. You should | pursue your "hobbies" because they are fun and/or | fulfilling. | | Automation is good enough today that we should not have to | work more than 15-20 hours per week. Knowledge workers | already do this but "butt in seat" mentality still says 40 | hours per week. It's a tragedy really. We took all the | productivity gains our technological advances brought and | use them to create more bs work instead of reducing the | amount of work we have to do. | TaylorAlexander wrote: | > the fundamental flaw with trying to limit working | days/hours is that some people will still pour their whole | lives into work, | | To be clear, I am talking about a voluntary system. No one | would be prevented from working more, it just wouldn't be | necessary to survive. I love to work pretty much all the | time, though only some of that is hours I am billing to my | employer. | | EDIT: I quickly rewrote my original comment after posting, | but I do see one quoted reply got in before the change. | Just wanted to add this note about the change. | nemothekid wrote: | > _I see no contradiction or flaw. What I desire is a | world where it is possible for any person to survive | working 20 hours a week with a couple months off._ | | What GP is arguing is that is achieved by fixing the pay | distribution, _not_ by limiting hours. If you only limit | hours but don 't fix the pay problem you create perverse | incentives where people _have_ to work undocumented | "overtime" or face the threat that they will be replaced | by someone who will or where people who want to work | overtime face punitive punishments if they do so. | xyzzy21 wrote: | These are NOT "design" jobs. They aren't "knowledge/service" | jobs either. | | And fun fact: retraining absolutely does not work. Less than | 10% can be retrained and usually they are the segment that | could have retrained themselves without specific retraining. | iamjackg wrote: | I think you might have misunderstood the comment you're | replying to: they're saying that economies (and related | policies) are often built through some form of design | process, not that factory jobs are design jobs. | jbay808 wrote: | > How did things get the way they became? Is it due to iron | wrought natural laws, or historical decisions we could freely | agree to change? | | Reminds me of Scott Alexander's _Meditations on Moloch_ , | which also ponders this question. I can't do it justice with | just one excerpt, but here's one passage that always stays | with me: | | _The reason our current system isn't a utopia is that it_ | wasn't designed by humans _. Just as you can look at an arid | terrain and determine what shape a river will one day take by | assuming water will obey gravity, so you can look at a | civilization and determine what shape its institutions will | one day take by assuming people will obey incentives._ | | ... _Just as the course of a river is latent in a terrain | even before the first rain falls on it - so the existence of | Caesar's Palace was latent in neurobiology, economics, and | regulatory regimes even before it existed. The entrepreneur | who built it was just filling in the ghostly lines with real | concrete._ | | https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/ | PaulDavisThe1st wrote: | Sorry, but this is BS. The course of a river is a direct | result of several close-to-deterministic forces and | influences. Caesar's Palace, along with "neurobiology, | economics, and regulatory regimes" are manifestations of | many different forces, a large number of which are subject | to individual and social choice-making. The pretense that | "neurobiology is destiny", "economics is as immutable as | physics" and "regulatory regimes are natural law" is just | completely bogus, and the argument is one entirely in favor | of the status quo, by the status quo. | jbay808 wrote: | Are you arguing against me, the essay, or the excerpt? I | don't think your rebuttal really hits at the main body of | the essay, which is about how competitive pressure can | trap groups into miserable situations that no individual | wants, but which are stable enough to be hard to break | out of. It's not that you can _really_ predict the form | of societal institutions, but just that they perhaps aren | 't shaped by free choice as much as they seem, because of | how much the incentive landscape restricts our choices. | | I don't think the point is that the exact detailed form | of Las Vegas was inevitable, but rather that it | exemplifies the collective madness that these forces can | produce. | | Although perhaps more relevant to this thread would be | how a society might, under pressure, lose its traditional | siesta and never get it back. He mentions examples like | this too. | nitwit005 wrote: | Going on strike is deciding not to do it, and the article | suggests they can't hire anyone: | | > Frito-Lay has been told they need to fix this but | unfortunately, when they bring in new people, they force the | same schedule on them and they quit. Frito-Lay has waited so | long to replace workers, and now Frito Lay has a horrible | reputation in town so a lot of people won't work here. | | It seems like the existing workers mostly put up with it for a | while, and then it eventually fell apart like you'd expect. | intricatedetail wrote: | I think it is also interesting why people agree to work for the | fraction of value they create for the company. Somehow this | kind of suffering and exploitation is socially acceptable. | Companies make billions and workers struggle to put food on the | table. I think governments should focus on companies avoiding | tax rather than taxing them though workers (as workers suffer | and yield is fraction of what companies should be paying) and | we should look at tying minimum wage to company revenue (with a | nationwide minimum, so that worker always gets paid a wage they | can live off). | hallway_monitor wrote: | I'm generally a libertarian but I think current corporate law | is insane. This seems like a reasonable starting point, maybe | along with a policy requiring giving each employee a stake in | the company. | opinion-is-bad wrote: | Does the employee have to buy into that stake? Do they | surrender it, or sell it, or keep it when they leave? Do | they get more over time? Why should minimum wage field | hands that will work for a month own part of my farm? | | We have had negative cash flow for the last decade, should | our employees have made under minimum wage due to capital | calls that were made by the business? | | How does a bank do proper due diligence on a loan for a | business with 47,000 owners, but isn't publicly traded? | What about the administrative overhead around decision | making needing a timely signature from every owner? | | It's really simple to say employees should have equity, but | get into the details and the idea falls apart. | kevin_thibedeau wrote: | > raise wages by four percent over the next two years | | Matching inflation is not much of a raise. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2021-07-17 23:00 UTC)