Posts tagged labor

Jess Cockerill for ScienceAlert:

Just under seven years of data from 83,013 adults were collected as part of the UK Biobank, using wrist-worn devices to track their activity, sleep, and sedentary time. The amount of time individuals spent standing and sitting was matched with incidences of cardiovascular diseases – coronary heart disease, heart failure and stroke – as well as circulatory diseases – low blood pressure on standing, varicose veins, chronic venous insufficiency, and venous ulcers.

The researchers found no association between time spent standing and the risk of cardiovascular disease, suggesting standing desks and similar work postures might not be enough to stave off the health problems associated with sitting around.

University of Sydney population health scientist Matthew Ahmadi suggests this might be because many studies in support of standing were based on ‘soft endpoints’ like improved blood pressure, insulin sensitivity, and triglyceride levels.

Well it’s official: if working while sitting or standing is bad for you, then we need to just ban work altogether

Jamey Keaten for the AP:

A court in Switzerland — where time is money for its famed watchmaking industry — has ruled that a dial manufacturer was justified in telling workers: If you need a bathroom break, clock out and take it on your own time.

An investigative report by public broadcaster RTS over the weekend revealed how a regional court in western Neuchatel ruled that watch dial maker Jean Singer & Cie SA was within its rights to require staffers to punch out for toilet time.

…

The court said that while Swiss law was clearer on issues like the hygiene of restrooms and the rights of company leaders to make decisions suited to the specific needs of their businesses, a “loophole” remains when it comes to bathroom breaks — a hint that lawmakers might need to intervene to fill it.

I can just sense the worst people in the world salivating at the thought of this

Rachel Treisman for NPR:

Millions of Australians just got official permission to ignore their bosses outside of working hours, thanks to a new law enshrining their “right to disconnect.”

The law doesn’t strictly prohibit employers from calling or messaging their workers after hours. But it does protect employees who “refuse to monitor, read or respond to contact or attempted contact outside their working hours, unless their refusal is unreasonable,” according to the Fair Work Commission, Australia’s workplace relations tribunal.

Nice

Australian opposition leader Peter Dutton has already pledged to repeal the right to disconnect if his coalition wins the next federal election in 2025. He has slammed it as damaging to relations between employers and employees, and portrayed it as a threat to productivity.

The Business Council of Australia echoed those concerns in a statement released Monday, saying the new workplace laws “risk holding Australia’s historically low productivity back even further at a time when the economy is already stalling.”

That’s how you know this is a good idea

Ash Parrish for The Verge:

More than 500 developers at Blizzard Entertainment who work on World of Warcraft have voted to form a union. The World of Warcraft GameMakers Guild, formed with the assistance of the Communication Workers of America (CWA), is composed of employees across every department, including designers, engineers, artists, producers, and more. Together, they have formed the largest wall-to-wall union — or a union inclusive of multiple departments and disciplines — at Microsoft.

This news comes less than a week after the formation of the Bethesda Game Studios union, which, at the time of the announcement, was itself the largest wall-to-wall Microsoft union.

Gaming

Chris Isidore, CNN:

Hourly workers at Volkswagen’s plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee overwhelming voted to join the United Auto Workers late Friday, a major breakthrough in the union’s effort to organize workers at plants nationwide.

Shortly after 11 pm ET on Friday the National Labor Relations Board, the federal body that oversees such votes, announced that 73% of the 3,600 workers at the plant who cast ballots had voted in favor of joining the union. There was an 84% turnout among eligible voters.

Sick

Edwin Evans-Thirlwell for Rock Paper Shotgun:

The videogame union ZeniMax Workers United have come to a “tentative”, “first of its kind” agreement with ZeniMax parent company Microsoft over the company’s usage of the latest “artificial intelligence” tools in the workplace. As part of the agreement, ZeniMax will “provide notice to the union in cases where AI implementation may impact the work of union members” and the union will be able to “bargain those impacts” where they feel it necessary.

…

“Coming to this agreement was a high priority for us,” ZeniMax QA tester and ZWU member Dylan Burton comments in a ZWU press release. “It’s hard to say how developments with AI may impact our work, but now we can be more confident that the agreement will help to protect us as we navigate the potential adoption of AI into our workflow.

Not terrible

Josh Funk for the AP:

The major freight railroads say a disagreement over whether they will be allowed to discipline some workers who use a government hotline to report safety concerns has kept them from following through on the promise they made back in March to join the program after a fiery Ohio derailment prompted calls for reforms.

Sometimes you just admit to being a cartoon villain

Jordan Valinsky, CNN:

A restaurant in California has been ordered to pay $140,000 in back wages and damages to employees after it hired a priest to extract workers’ confessions, in what federal investigators are calling “the most shameless” acts of corruption an employer has taken against its staff.

The US Department of Labor said an employee testified that owner Che Garibaldi, who operates two locations of Taqueria Garibaldi in northern California, hired a fake priest to hear confessions during work hours and “get the sins out,” including asking them if they had been late for work, stolen money from the restaurant or had “bad intentions” toward their employer.

Excuse me, what

Jerry Chea for the AP:

Targeted grazing is part of California’s strategy to reduce wildfire risk because goats can eat a wide variety of vegetation and graze in steep, rocky terrain that’s hard to access. Backers say they’re an eco-friendly alternative to chemical herbicides or weed-whacking machines that are make noise and pollution.

But new state labor regulations are making it more expensive to provide goat-grazing services, and herding companies say the rules threaten to put them out of business. The changes could raise the monthly salary of herders from about $3,730 to $14,000, according to the California Farm Bureau.

…

Companies have historically been allowed to pay goat and sheepherders a monthly minimum salary rather than an hourly minimum wage, because their jobs require them to be on-call 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Gotta say, this feels mainly like another “if your business model requires the exploitation of workers to stay afloat, then you should not have a business” scenario