Maybe this has been discussed elsewhere, or maybe employment standards aren’t quite as important as unemployment itself these days, but I’ve been hearing rumours of bad things happening at formerly nice companies, and I’m wondering if it’s more than coincidence or the moon being in Taurus.
In the last week I’ve heard about one place having their staff work around 70 hours in a week, but without providing them dinner. I can’t find where it talks about that in the employment standards act, or if it does at all, but I believe there’s some rule that if you keep people late then you’re supposed to feed them. And generally you shouldn’t work them that long because their brains stop working after a while. At least mine does.
Another situation has a company only giving one week of vacation a year to new hires. This being Canada, people are entitled to 2 weeks. Frankly I don’t know how Americans can survive on one week per year, because 2 doesn’t seem like enough. We should all be like the Europeans and get a month, minimum, but in an imperfect Canada it’s still 2.
These situations are just hearsay, mind you, but they’ve got me wondering if managers of dubious morality are going to take the opportunity that this economy has provided to squeeze the life out of their employees. I’m guessing many people are too scared to jump ship right now, and I’ve heard of those who were looking for new jobs but stopped when the markets crashed. So the fear of layoffs and unemployment are keeping people tight in their seats and accepting whatever treatment they’re getting because they think it’s better than the alternative. For the sake of society I’m hoping I don’t hear about more stuff like this, but I’m afraid I might.
To be fair, I can understand that it must be tough on managers too. People have been laid off, there’s a hiring freeze at the company, but their team is still expected to perform as it did 6 months ago when projected growth was 20% per year. Of course, if they’d read up on negative productivity they’d know that working their staff to the bone is going to produce crap(-pier) results; but in a panic they’re going to throw hours at things to get them done, because there doesn’t seem to be any other choice.
Have any of you heard about changes in employee treatment at formerly nice/happy/fun companies? Do you think we’re going to hear more of this? And if the world economy continues to die an endless death, will people waive their rights in exchange for a biweekly paycheck?