My employer has recently instated a new rule where we have to be productive a certain amount of time. Sounds rather innocuous right? After all, workers should be working. Except they’re now saying our break time counts against our productivity and adding that to any time when the company has no actual work for us to do as well as going to the bathroom, people can easily fall under the acceptable productivity requirement.
Shit rule must be illegal right? —Can No Longer Take Breaks
This article appears in Jun 24-30, 2010.
you’re allotted your breaks provided you’re working the required, consistent amount of hours…. what is it? 4, I think….
or maybe 3… hmm, not sure.
I feel your pain though… the bean-counters want to know where your time is being taken…
likely to see if they can pile more work on you since you are so ‘freed up’ all the time.
I feel for ya.
Some middle manager got Dilbert for Xmas and didn’t quite clue into the fact that it is meant to be satire.
It’s all about maximizing how much work they can get out of you before you burn out.
illegal I’m thinking yes; I would collect all the documentation you can and call/write labour standards
fuck the rules, take your allotted break,labour standards board will back you up. and employer gets to look like scrooge.
Tell them they are assholes and walk out. Then get a new job. Works every time.
This isn’t convergys is it? Where the contract stipulates that anything you do at anytime for the rest of your life belongs to them no matter what? Sign my life away for $9 an hour? No thank you.
3.5 hrs, I think, zZz.
Contact the labour board, OP…but i doubt they’ll really do anything for you. Pretty sure it’s just an excuse to employ more government employees.
Sounds like a call centre. Probably an American one.
This isn’t anything new… Call centres call this compliance, or any other number of euphemisms, where your direct supervisor has little to no control of your breaks. So, the company inputs a control wherein they can monitor your breaks and productivity. Wnat someone to blame? Blame the co-workers who took the extra 5 on each side of the break, every break.
Don’t go to the labour board. They won’t help, and this is perfectly legal, as long as you get that 30 minutes for every 5 and a half hours worked.
This is Nova Scotia, therefore it’s perfectly legal.
ah… stuck in the middle-class sweatshop….
at least you aren’t physically chained to your desk…