Current Events > Working conditions in america sound like dystopian hell

(+) Yeah! (+)

From the bits and pieces I've heard, anyway.

Here's my working week

• 9 to 5.30 5 days a week, with an hour lunch, and no expectation to stay late
• 28 days holiday a year, fully paid
• sick days are not closely monitored or requiring evidence unless you're off for more than 3 days at a time
• (just my company) basically no requirement for lead time on scheduling leave, unless there's something super important happening
• Impromptu doctor visits/picking the kids up/get to the bank detours from work are not a problem

yea but you guys need all that stuff because youre lazy lol

*passes out from exhaustion*

28 days is quite middling, in other countries such a low number would be unthinkable.

Also in the UK the onus is on you to take them, in other countries the onus is on the company that the workers take their holiday.

I have everything you have and I live in America >_>

pinky0926 posted...

From the bits and pieces I've heard, anyway.

Here's my working week

* 9 to 5.30 5 days a week, with an hour lunch, and no expectation to stay late
* 28 days holiday a year, fully paid
* sick days are not closely monitored or requiring evidence unless you're off for more than 3 days at a time
* (just my company) basically no requirement for lead time on scheduling leave, unless there's something super important happening
* Impromptu doctor visits/picking the kids up/get to the bank detours from work are not a problem

1 hour lunch lolllllllzzzz

Michael_Booth posted...

Also in the UK the onus is on you to take them, in other countries the onus is on the company that the workers take their holiday.

Not sure about this bit. My company insists holiday is taken every year.

neccis posted...

1 hour lunch lolllllllzzzz

it's awesome

neccis posted...

1 hour lunch lolllllllzzzz

But, yes it's a miserable shit hole.

pinky0926 posted...

it's awesome

Rub it in.

My work week is

• 7:45-4:15 with an hour lunch, 2 hours every other day, with no expectation to stay late
• 53-54 paid days off, depending on if its an election year (every other year)
• Those other things (I assume you meant scheduling leave time)

neccis posted...

But, yes it's a miserable shit hole.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/2/5/5/AADfCWAADYIH.jpg

My lunch spot is not so bad

My schedule is 7 am-3:30pm and I rarely work later than that. I dont have any scheduled time for lunch, I take it when I want to for as long as I want to. We have unlimited PTO, shut down two weeks in the winter, 10 paid holidays, and I have no problem taking time off when I want it. I dont need to show proof of being sick unless its 3 consecutive days. I have my daughter and sometimes need to jump off early or go in the middle of the day for a doctors appointment and have never had an issue.

I work a salaried job in the US. All they care about are my metrics, which are solid. I think the key is that I work in tech. I have friends at FAANGs and other tech companies and they have similar deals. Well except for someone I know who works at a Chinese based tech company, apparently wlb is unheard of there.

Cleo_II posted...

My schedule is 7 am-3:30pm and I rarely work later than that. We have unlimited PTO, shut down two weeks in the winter, 10 paid holidays, and I have no problem taking time off when I want it. I dont need to show proof of being sick unless its 3 consecutive days. I have my daughter and sometimes need to jump off early or go in the middle of the day for a doctors appointment and have never had an issue.

I work a salaried job in the US. All they care about are my metrics, which are solid. I think the key is that I work in tech. I have friends at FAANGs and other tech companies and they have similar deals. Well except for someone I know who works at a Chinese based tech company, apparently wlb is unheard of there.

TBF I work tech too, I think its worse for other industries

but don't let that stop me from shitposting

I wish America was a dystopian hell, that would be an improvement.

pinky0926 posted...

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/2/5/5/AADfCWAADYIH.jpg

My lunch spot is not so bad

Are you hiring? I can cook very good breakfast.

Im in the US and am alright now. Primarily because most of my bosses have left so now I get to be the boss, so I can control things and help ensure we dont get stuck in the same overworked ruts we used to be in.

Also helps that I moved out of state in 2020 and made my own position 100% remote.

I doubt Ill use all my vacation days for the year, but I have a ton of flexibility and am sticking with no longer than 40 hr work weeks.

neccis posted...

Are you hiring? I can cook very good breakfast.

We're always hiring. if you don't mind moving to the scottish borders, with the nearest genuine coffee shop being about 20 miles away

pinky0926 posted...

We're always hiring. if you don't mind moving to the scottish borders, with the nearest genuine coffee shop being about 20 miles away

Is it true you can bring your dog to the golf courses there without to prison?

neccis posted...

Is it true you can bring your dog to the golf courses there without to prison?

you can bring your dog anywhere m8

pinky0926 posted...

you can bring your dog anywhere m8

So nice.

Damn, so you live in a country that has work civil rights, most jobs in America aren't like that, unless you have become good friends with your employer. In America people hate unions, even though most of the work civil rights we got now came from unions

Let's have a look at these working conditions TC is praising shall we:

Emmanuel Appia*, a fisher from Accra, Ghana, has worked all over west Africa, on Portuguese crab boats, Korean tuna vessels and supply ships for the oil industry. But it was only when he came to the UK, he says, that he experienced working conditions so dangerous that he feared for his life.

On fishing boats, Id work 10 hours and rest 14, says Appia, 37, a father of five. Supply boats were 12 hours of work, 12 hours of rest. But I have never worked more than my hours of rest until I came here.

A deckhand on a scallop dredger in the North Sea, he says he regularly works 20 hours with only four hours rest and no proper days off, leaving him exhausted. The conditions he describes would breach UK legislation on fishing industry working hours, which stipulate 10 hours rest in any 24-hour period.

Working overtime continuously reduces your strength and leaves you overstressed, he says, speaking from a ship in a Scottish port, from a small cabin he shares with three other migrants.

You can easily forget things, he adds. Its a dangerous job. If you do forget something, like connecting and disconnecting thick wires on the dredges you could be dead.

Appia was hired on a transit visa, intended to allow non-British crew to join ships leaving UK ports for international waters. Boat owners apply for transit visas on the basis that their vessel operates wholly or mainly outside UK territorial waters, which are defined as more than 12 nautical miles from shore.

Those on transit visas have no legal authority to enter the UK without permission when they return to port. Consequently, they are tied to a single employer and forced to live onboard the vessel, leaving the worker reliant on the job for their accommodation, food etc.

They told us if you dont take the ticket and go home, well call immigration

Migrants in the fishing industry who spoke to the Guardian say the loophole allows them to be exploited and mistreated. They add that boat owners use the confusion and ambiguities in immigration rules to threaten workers with deportation and to control them.

My visa doesnt allow me to go get another job, Appia says. I dont have a choice to go to another boat where the skipper is good and the money is good.

The accounts come after a study published last month by the University of Nottingham Rights Lab, which focuses on modern slavery. It found that crew on UK fishing boats from outside the European Economic Area (EEA), which covers EU and European Free Trade Association states, experience exploitation, violence, racism and abuse.

Researchers found they worked excessive hours on an average salary of 3.51 an hour, a third of Britains living wage and a fraction of the share of the catch earned by EU and UK crew.

ppias contract states the hours of work are in accordance with the operational requirements of the vessel. A timetable onboard reads six hours work, six hours rest, he says. In addition to working continuous overtime, he says he is verbally abused and forced to go fishing in weather that other vessels avoid.

We have two sets of skippers. One doesnt care if its a storm, [if] the waves are big. On deck, its a big risk. I try to focus, to think of my kids. Im careful.

Appia adds: Sometimes the skipper loses his temper. They bully you. They say fuck you and Are you senseless?

If you complain, you get fired, he says. He earns 1,000, with a 200 bonus, a month.

A 2017 survey by Seafish, the public body overseeing the UK industry, estimated that foreign nationals accounted for 39% of all deckhands in the UK. More recently, the organisation estimated 19% of all crew were from outside the UK.

Kwame Mensah*, 41, a deckhand on a prawn trawler based in a harbour in Northern Ireland, says he works 12-hour shifts, with four hours of rest in between. His contract, which sets out his pay at 1,200 a month, states that where possible he should have 10 hours rest in any 24 hours.Living on the boat with no showers means the crew are unable to properly wash, for up to five days at a time, until they return to port. We just use some rags and put water on them, to clean your armpits, says Mensah, a father of two from Tema, Ghana. Sometimes you stink.

Mensah, who has worked on several UK fishing vessels over the past decade, describes his current skipper as a good guy, but says he has known others who are wicked and abusive.

We want all this to stop, he says.

Michael Yeboah*, 39, from east Ghana, told the Guardian how confusion over immigration rules led to him being arrested and jailed overnight in 2016, after he was in effect abandoned by his skipper, three months into a year-long contract.

Yeboah and two others were told to leave the vessel after it was stopped at port for not having sufficient lifeboats. They were arrested and detained by police for immigration offences, because their visas did not allow them to leave the harbourside.

We were afraid. It was my first time being handcuffed, says Yeboah. I thought we were going to be deported and I would lose my 12-month contract.

They were later released, but the fishing company then gave them flight tickets and told them to return to Ghana. They told us if you dont take the ticket and go home, well call immigration.

Yeboah was paid for only two months work instead of three, he says. Out of his 1,400 earnings, he owed his agent 800, leaving him with only 600.

Elspeth Macdonald, chief executive of the Scottish Fishermens Federation, speaking on behalf of the Fishermens Welfare Alliance, an industry body made up of national fishing federations, said: The FWA agrees that the transit worker visa isnt fit for purpose and we deplore anyone being treated badly in the industry.

Migrant workers exploited and beaten on UK fishing boats

However, no one in fishing should be working in ways that endanger their safety or compromise their welfare. The FWA will be meeting shortly with government and with partners in the seafood supply chain to consider the issues raised in these reports. We will continue to drive forward to ensure that all our workers are respected and well cared for.

The Home Office said transit visas did not permit working in the UK, either on land or in UK territorial waters but did not comment on calls to close the loophole.
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/0/8/8/AAZiH8AADXHA.jpg

Borderline slavery
And that's not touching on 0 hour contacts, army of agency workers, destruction of pensions

Let's not touch how the government is breaking international law to replace striking Union workers with untrained agency guys as half the nation is on strike due to poor conditions

Let's not touch on how the minimum wage isn't close to a living wage and unless you're an MP or energy provider your pay is not matching inflation. Even NHS staff couldn't get a real payrise

What TC means is "If you're a privileged middle class white guy in a rich part of Scotland it's quite nice"

Which is obviously true of every western nation on Earth.

Tldr,:
Half the country is striking due to work conditions, food banks are more in use that ever literally and the nation is breaking international law and using near slavery to keep it that way

that's indefensible imo, don't downplay reality because you got yours, that's Donald Trump level

and to top it all off, the bastard, joe brandon, is in office

7 to 3. 25 min unpaid lunch. Five paid PTO days a year assuming I work avg 35 hrs a week weekly. No paid holidays. No paid sick days. This is considered good for my position and field. America

They are. It's why I find the Great Resignation to be beautiful

pinky0926 posted...

From the bits and pieces I've heard, anyway.

Here's my working week

* 9 to 5.30 5 days a week, with an hour lunch, and no expectation to stay late
* 28 days holiday a year, fully paid
* sick days are not closely monitored or requiring evidence unless you're off for more than 3 days at a time
* (just my company) basically no requirement for lead time on scheduling leave, unless there's something super important happening
* Impromptu doctor visits/picking the kids up/get to the bank detours from work are not a problem

Flexibility depends largely on if you're a salaried or hourly worker.

As a salary person who can work outside of business hours in order to get tasks completed, I've had high levels of flexibility in all my jobs.

If you work in a service industry and you're very customer facing, I can see that flexibility being inexistent.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIjo-dWE1Jg

i love how much america has progressed since these ancient times when this first came out.

My work week:

7am to 7pm, then on-call from 7pm to 7am
7 days per week
No holiday pay
No paid time off
No overtime for staying past 7pm

It's glorious

tbh I work in tech too (in america) and my situation is pretty much the same as yours tc