Posted on 03/31/2014 12:58:29 PM PDT by MNDude
Germany's labor ministry has banned managers from calling or emailing staff out of hours except in emergencies. The ministry says the measure is intended to prevent staff from suffering undue stress by being constantly on call.
Daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung reported Friday that the ministry is following the lead of major German companies such as automaker Volkswagen and Deutsche Telekom.
Sorry, I thought you may be someone who picks up their phone at the theater!!! It happens all the time. When my brother took his kid to “The Addams Family” musical, he got in a fight with a woman who had an entire conversation on her phone.
Don’t the Krauts get the whole month of August off?
The company store was a true evil. I visited some preserved worker’s paradise somewhere around Buck’s County several years ago - I can’t remember if it was a preserved farm or factory. Totally blank on that. But the company store building was perfectly preserved as well. Yes, capitalism has a capacity for evil - that’s why personal ethics must be started in the home at an early age. The two go hand and hand and can work to liberate all of us.
It was horrible; as mines were worked untl they were tapped out, miners and their families would abandon their shacks, carrying what they could, because after working for so long they still owed the company money.
Capitalism is the best system out there, but when abused it led to the rise of communism for a reason. Without regulation, we’d be feudal serfs again.
Wal-Mart is becoming the new “company store”; soon it will be the only game in town.
Retail does tend to work as a company store - especially when marooned in the suburbs. They sometimes provide horrible, cheap food in the break room to keep the workers there. They even have rules that workers can’t leave the premises on their lunch break.
Of course, if we didn’t have Obama’s economy, retail workers might have better options to improve their lives. Just my opinion.
I’d also say that the abuses in the capital system first caused the rise in unions. There was a reason why unions got started. Sadly, it quickly degenerated in a criminal system that has been a disaster for America.
“Of course, if we didn’t have Obama’s economy, retail workers might have better options to improve their lives. Just my opinion.”
What made the company store so bad was that it was the ONLY store; that is what is happening with Wal-Mart.
“I’d also say that the abuses in the capital system first caused the rise in unions. There was a reason why unions got started.”
Definitely; unions ran into problems when everything they bargained for became law. After that, it just became fundraising and protecting bad workers in their jobs.
I’ve seen a bumper sticker that said: “If you enjoy your weekends, thank a union”. That is based in fact (and more people are losing one or both days of their weekends to work now that much fewer people are unionized), and I can appreciate it. Those unions from so long ago achieved a lot of good; what have they done lately but chase jobs away?
The strangest thing is that May Day originated in the US and is hardly noted here, while celebrated in many other countries.
All the box stores run small businesses out of business. The company store, as you know, was designed to return the workers’ paychecks to the business and, as you say, ensnare them into debt. While I certainly don’t think it has come to that in break rooms, if the economy continues like this, we may see it!
My mother worked in her office on Saturday afternoon. The weekend began on Saturday night - and she worked during the 2nd WW and the late 40s. Just watched an episode of The Honeymooners (a brilliant comedy but also a sociological study of NYC in the 1950s) and Alice had to lie about being married during a job interview. No married women allowed to work because they might leave the job to have a baby.
“While I certainly don’t think it has come to that in break rooms, if the economy continues like this, we may see it!”
With Wal-Mart it will evolve into that because there will be nowhere else we can afford to buy anything; I mean the “company store” in a broader sense (for ALL workers, not just those at Wal-Mart).
“No married women allowed to work because they might leave the job to have a baby.”
As a pro-life supervisor of a small department I have mixed feelings about this; having to train someone else for a key position while holding that position for the absent employee is a hardship. I had an employee transfer from another department while concealing a pregnancy; she was hardly trained before she left on maternity leave. She returned but couldn’t juggle raising the child with a full-time job, which was just as well; she started missing work, coming in late/leaving early, etc. on a regular basis. Supervisors can’t be expected to rely on someone in that situation, and the law will make them hesitant to hire someone that might put them in that position.
I’ve had great female staff, and they were at least 50 years old; nowadays as fewer people have children this may be less of an issue.
When I worked in offices in NYC, women always got pregnant and left for long periods of time. I even remember one dame bringing her kid in and making her secretary baby sit. And nothing could be done! Of course, my reference to Alice was that she had to LIE to get a job. She had to deny her own marriage. I’m sure that really happened.
I understood the reference; I know that happened plenty. At my job some mothers would bring in their children if there was an unexpected day off school; eventually management put an end to that (issues with insurance and such).
The lie sold to women today is that they can “have it all” (meaning a career and a family); it is nearly impossible, and one goal or the other (or both) suffer...
Generally the secretary gets stuck with “having it all.” A job, in some ways, worse than working retail.
My wife describes a co-worker who can watch a nanny-cam on her work PC that is connected to the datcare where she leaves her children; I would never stand for that. It has become ridiculous.
This is a sick country. That kind of stuff is not going to last long in the age of Obamacare and market crashes!
I know i`m kind of late to the party but your source is wrong. After hours calls or mails are not regulated by law in Germany. More and more companys are banning them on their own accord though. Now the labor ministry has followed suit so ministry staff don`t have to take calls after hours. Lost in translation, i guess.
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