Posted on 12/09/2014 5:16:59 PM PST by SMGFan
I supplied the tools. It was a local kid. He could cut with it but he didn’t know how to fix it.
When I hire out people for tree work, I make sure they are licensed and insured - and have their own tools.
Well, let’s look at it another way. If the security checkout area catches fire and employees are burnt to a crisp, is the employer liable?
Um, shouldn’t that be something mutually agreed upon by the employer and the employee? What business is it of ours to dictate terms in a relationship we’re not a party to? Do we also need to force Amazon to pay $15/hr and provide insurance which covers abortion?
Got news for you, the unions won’t do anything about it either.
I worked for UPS in the 1990s and was briefly in the Teamsters’ union. (Yes, I was young and stupid.) When employees report to work at a hub or other sorting facility, they get a cursory bag check and have to walk through a metal detector going in. They also have to have a more thorough bag check and again have to walk through a metal detector on the way out. There was often a line on the exit side.
The time clock was inside the building, well away from the security checkpoint. You did not get paid for the time at the security checkpoint either way. The union did not care and that was never a point of contention for them.
This is status quo for most of the distribution/shipping industry now and has been for decades.
I didn’t see any mention of whether the security checks were a part of the deal and noted during the hiring process - did employees agree with them to be hired?
No. The state sets the rules of the market place. Maximum work hours, overtime, safe working conditions can and are all set by the state. Employers and employees make agreements within the rules set by the state.
The state just needs to be sensible about it. If it regulates American businesses, it doesn't need to open the door to foreign imports that don't play by our rules, without a hefty import tariff.
One of the rules previously set by the state is that if you are not free to physically leave a business, then you are on the clock, and deserve to be paid. This ruling flies in the face of that precedent. A 5 to 10 minutes to pass through security is not unreasonable. But 30 minutes is, and should be compensated as it's a work requirement.
Duh! Courts have always been arbiters of private contracts. One of their main functions. Dude this dates back at least 4000 years.
Not as dictators of the terms of those contracts.
What we have with legislative and judicial control over every aspect of the operation of private businesses looks a whole lot more like fascism than liberty.
Your entire nanny state loving post is disappointing to see on a conservative site, but this line is hilarious.
"Asked"? This is not some informal request where your neighbor is asking you to give him a hand with a heavy package or something, this is a long-term commercial transaction where one party sells labor and the other buys it. Trying to apply the standards of the former to the latter is silly. Professional transactions ought to be handled in a professional manner -- each job requirement is paid for at the agreed rate.
In the case of a "cursory" check that takes a minute or two, nobody is likely to make an issue of it. The reason this became an issue is because of wait times on the order of half an hour. By giving Amazon a half-hour of the employee's time free of charge, this arrangement removes the incentive to make the security system efficient. It's the same dynamic that tends to happen whenever one person can shift the costs of his decisions onto somebody else.
That’s what we have lawyers for...I guess.
A fifteen minute security check represents about 3% of the workday. Amazon should inform the employee that the security check time will now be covered time and that all employees wages are being adjusted to compensate.
If the employee doesn't wish to accept a 3% cut in hourly wages, then they are free to leave the plant immediately and permanently.
During such negotiations employees should be free to demand a raise of any amount which they deem appropriate with the same outcome if no agreement is reached.
This isn’t quite analogous, since if your employee falls on his way out the door, it’s covered by work comp rather than liability insurance, even though the employee wasn’t on the clock. The work comp clock stops only once they’re completely off your premises.
The reason for the screening is a very high level of theft if they don’t do it.
You can blame sticky fingered employees for that...the company shouldn’t have to pay because a high percentage of them are scumbags when no one is looking...
During the Christmas rush, it could often easily take half an hour or more to get out through the UPS security checkpoint. Again, we didn’t get paid for that time and the union would not do anything about it.
This is the 21st Century.
How about just getting a weekly salary to do a job. This does not always mean nice and neat 8 hour days with an hour for lunch. Sometimes you need to work 12 hours during a crunch time. Other times, you might be able to slip out a little early. It balances out and the job gets done without all the overhead of payroll administrators, lawyers and such.
Some of our most successful companies have done away with the time clock and their employees are on salary - with performance bonuses so that they are financially motivated to get the job done well and efficiently.
Some innovative companies are even doing things like doing away with tracking vacation/sick time.
For example, Netflix offers all their employees unlimited vacation time. Yes, you heard that right. If they are sick, they take a vacation day. If they want to travel to France, they take two weeks of vacation.
Now you might think that employees would take advantage of this and take enormous amounts of vacation but this simply did not turn out to be the case. In fact, the employees take an average of about 2 1/2 weeks of vacation, even though they could take much more if they wanted to.
This is because Netflix treats their employees as adults and they instill in their workforce a positive working environment that induces in the employees a desire to do the job well. People actually like coming to work and while they take a vacation now and then, they are committed to their employer.
One thing they aren't doing is hollering like a bunch of pussies because they had to spend a few minutes waiting to get through some security checkpoint.
Time to discard old models and move into the 21st Century.
and employees shouldn't have to lose 30 minutes every day because the company can't figure out how to not hire scumbags, screen faster, identify the perps before they walk out, or otherwise prevent the thefts.
My guess is that the company just needs to add an additional screener or two or stagger the shifts a little.
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