Supreme Court decides workers don't need to be paid for mandatory 25-minute security checks at Amazo - Polidicks

[QUOTE=Kybalt;46686688]Its like, we idolize the free market, but when there's a solution that the free market can actually solve everyone suddenly is confused and unsure that it would ever work.[/QUOTE] Mandating employers to do anything isn't free market. So no, this has nothing to do with being confused about the free market working. [editline]10th December 2014[/editline] Paying for commute time would be stupid for everyone involved. It would give very negative incentives like trying to get a job far from your house so that you get paid more (just like people try to get overtime work for the same reason). It would incentivise employers to only higher those close to their employment. It would make the number of available jobs smaller for the average person. etc. etc. etc.

[QUOTE=ilikecorn;46686978]They aren't on the job when they're going through security. No more than a military contractor is on the job when they're stuck in traffic going through the gate. IE. Not at all. [editline]10th December 2014[/editline] Why should they get paid for commuting? Honestly. why? They aren't doing anything productive for the company, in the slightest. They're on their way to DOING something productive, but that's like saying I should get paid for all the work i'm GOING to do, instead of the work I actually did. Shit i'd love to get paid for all the patients I'M GOING TO SEE rather than all the patients I actually saw. Military civilian contractors regularly have to wait 30+ minutes to get through the gate at military bases, why on earth would you pay them when they weren't at work? Furthermore why SHOULD you pay someone to not be at work?[/QUOTE] If you have to walk from one desk, to another desk to do some work, should the time crossing from desk to desk be subtracted from your hours as again, you're only way to doing something, you're not doing anything.

[QUOTE=cody8295;46685762]Sounds like spoiled workers who just want that extra half hour of pay. [editline]10th December 2014[/editline] for doing no work[/QUOTE] I have worked at an Amazon Fulfillment Center before here is my post from quite a while back: [QUOTE=peepin;42973322]Worked at Amazon $12/h through temp agency. If I hadn't quit because of school I could've become an 'Amazonian' with a 50 cent raise. (Plus a few other benefits like stock options and dental coverage) Working at Amazon wasn't as bad as a few other jobs I had done (warehouse related) but they are very stingy on health and safety, lunch breaks, and items received/picked per hour (tack time if I remember it correctly). When I say health and safety is stingy I really mean that you get written off for the smallest things imaginable. For example there are color coded hook knives, every week you need to be using a different colored knife; caught with last weeks color you will be written off. Going again with the colored hook knife, you still have to cut away from yourself. Which is ridiculous since there is no way you can hurt yourself with it. [B]Lunch breaks were the worst or their time management system for each employee. Because how much security is involved: scanning each person to make sure they aren't stealing anything. So a 45 minute break turns into 30 minutes.[/B] Their tack times for receiving items or picking (had the pleasure of working in both departments) was just ridiculous. With the managers giving no positive feedback just complaints. You don't hit the 450 items/hour on receive? Well a manager will come up to you and start asking you questions as to why you haven't hit the tack--- While you are working (in essence your tack will drop even more since its hard to focus on 4 things at once) Wasn't a good experience for me really stressful environment were you need to be fast and safe at the same time.[/QUOTE] I bolded the important part; you should also note that this was during the summer and not the Christmas holiday season (when they hire hundreds of employees just to get the work done). My friend that is working there right now finds ways to get out earlier just to avoid the long queue for through security. (Because like I said there are now [I]hundreds [/I]of people leaving out for lunch at the same time)

[QUOTE=ilikecorn;46687256]I too believe that we should give businesses further excuses to go overseas.[/QUOTE] Oh waahhh, like paying workers an extra hour a day would bankrupt them. [editline]10th December 2014[/editline] [QUOTE=thelurker1234;46687087]I think it's a bit extreme to pay for commute time. But security checks definitely should be compensated for.[/QUOTE] It's time that you have to spend on work that you can't spend on living your own life. You should get paid for it. I don't really get why people think it's acceptable that a noticeable portion of what you make at your job gets burned [I]just so you can get to your job[/I]. Not only are you losing out on an hour of your time driving back and forth, for instance, you're losing out on an hour of your time AND an hour's pay in transportation expenses. You're hogging 10 hours of your day and only getting paid for 7!

You can always be salary

[QUOTE=ilikecorn;46687681]I'm not saying it'd bankrupt them. I'm saying that they exist to make a profit and if you start drying up their margins left and right they say "ok cool, well mexico doesn't do this shit so we're going there". [/quote] Everyone that can make more money by moving overseas has already done that. [quote] I dunno about you but I live exactly 10 minutes from work. I use less than 1/2 a tank per two weeks of work. I'd imagine most people make more than enough money to cover transportation expenses, otherwise THEY WOULDN'T BE WORKING. [B] Maybe if you have a problem with long commutes you should find a job closer to where you live, or live closer to work.[/B][/QUOTE] Talk down to people much? It's not that fucking simple. At some point Americans need to wake up and realize that the best course of action is to push to make their existing jobs better, not hold out for the magical day when a better job falls out of the sky.

[QUOTE=ilikecorn;46688050]At some point Americans need to realize that it's not their employers job to make them happy, or even satisfied. In fact their only job is to pay you for services rendered. And that's it. Want healthcare? That's the government's job. Want to enjoy your job more? That's on you. We sit and bitch about privatized things and yet we want our places of work to do everything for us, knowing full well they're going to go with the cheapest options they can get away with legally.[/QUOTE] I don't want them to [I]do everything for me[/I], I want them to stop getting my time for free. Why are they entitled to burn an extra hour of my day and not pay me for it?

[QUOTE=ilikecorn;46687741]To be fair, a temp worker probably isn't ever going to get offered a salary. Neither is a burger flipper at mcdonalds.[/QUOTE] Get a job that does salary then wow it's fucking nothing. I don't get why this generation is feeling so entitled to things.

[QUOTE=ilikecorn;46687681]I'm not saying it'd bankrupt them. I'm saying that they exist to make a profit and if you start drying up their margins left and right they say "ok cool, well mexico doesn't do this shit so we're going there". [editline]10th December 2014[/editline] I dunno about you but I live exactly 10 minutes from work. I use less than 1/2 a tank per two weeks of work. I'd imagine most people make more than enough money to cover transportation expenses, otherwise THEY WOULDN'T BE WORKING. Maybe if you have a problem with long commutes you should find a job closer to where you live, or live closer to work.[/QUOTE] "find a job closer to work" "live closer to work" are not solutions for most people. Offering it as a solution, isn't really helping anyone because it simply doesn't work for most people. I would love to live closer to work, I would love to live 10 minutes from work, but in my region, simply not possible with the amount of money I have as aparentments, and rental units closer to where I work are crazy expensive. I can't find another job doing what I do closer because no one closer does it. How does your argument make ANY sense?

[QUOTE=HumanAbyss;46688283] How does your argument make ANY sense?[/QUOTE] Because he lives in that world where the only poor people are poor by choice and/or stupidity...

[QUOTE=JohnFisher89;46688253]Get a job that does salary then wow it's fucking nothing. I don't get why this generation is feeling so entitled to things.[/QUOTE] not everyone gets to have good jobs. society would fall apart if everyone got to have great salaried jobs. some people suffer through shit jobs, shit pay, and shit job satisfaction and get nothing out of it. No one is looking after them and they're going to struggle to look after themselves and they'll become a bigger burden and bigger problem in the long run. You need people working the lower tiers of jobs, and not looking after them hurts everyone in the long run.

[QUOTE=ilikecorn;46688331]In the lower teir jobs the worker is entirely expendable though. If you're making minimum wage then they can probably hire a new worker and train them in about 40 minutes. Which begs the question: if they're paying for your commute, then why shouldn't they fire you and hire someone who lives closer? Most middle and high teir jobs are already salaried, which just leaves low teir jobs that already have high turnover rates as is.[/QUOTE] so are you just openly admitting you think making the poors lives harder is better for everyone? Because there's no other ways to take what you're saying here.

[QUOTE=ilikecorn;46688346]I'm saying that those jobs already have a high turnover rate, and it'd be absolutely nothing for the companies to simply fire those who "live too far away". Then you make it EVEN HARDER for the poor to have a job. But we're cool with that as long as someone's winning, right?[/QUOTE] we're already crushing the poor. I've never even once said I'm for the travel pay idea, but I do think we already make their lives hard enough and we're only making it harder for them.

Did you read what I said? I'm not for the traffic pay idea. Why waste half a reply to a thing I don't care about? Yes, both of those things would be good, but if you don't think companies will find a way to shave hours again, and do what they can to save costs again, then you're wrong. The issue is simply softening the blow isn't good enough. They need protection. Whether anyone likes it or not, they rely on the poor both as a work force, and for their purchasing power. Fucking them further is going to see our economies shrink. We have to stop being afraid that any regulating and legislating in favour of the poor is going to scare companies to foreign countries. They're already there.

Sorry but this whole idea that some people are talking of, of being paid for your commute to work and back, is ridiculous. For one, you could be perfectly qualified for a job but you might lose that opportunity because someone else, who perhaps might only have one less year of prior work experience than you, lives much closer and would not have to be paid as much. Two, it would harm job prospects in regional areas where people absolutely have to commute longer. Three, where do you stop? Should the employer offer and eventually force employees to live on-site so they don't have to commute at all? Because that would be much closer to slavery than just taking an hour to commute to and fro work each day. Like, it's understandable for fly-in fly-out jobs, because plane tickets are expensive and the commute takes up many hours, but for every other job it's just ridiculous.

About the only time this has been demonstrated as a hurdle is for lunch breaks, if amazon wasn't cheap they would create a space for workers to be able to eat and store their belongings safely during the day, like a break room.... Its stupid that such a trivial problem had to use the court system to get resolved when just talking with them could have solved this, you can't advertise your company as modern and smart when asinine things like this happen because you simply don't bother to look at problems in your company [editline]10th December 2014[/editline] about the only time you should get paid for a commute is if your job involves going to multiple locations or basically driving around to customers

Anyways on the topic of security checks at Amazon, maybe the security company should have to somewhat compensate employees somehow if the security checks take a while. Eg if in line for 10 minutes or more, the employee gets owed the time proportional to their wage by the security company. For the security company to keep their costs down it would force then to have the process be as fast as possible, and if it's slow the employee can potentially be compensated for that especially as they have no choice but to wait in line. That should be left up the companies though, not the government.