YHK - yet another hacker news clone

Amazon refused to give pregnant workers bathroom breaks

112 points worik 1 hour ago 40 comments

AndrewDucker 1 hour ago | parent

The idea that non-pregnant people shouldn't also get to use the toilet seems baffling to me.

Maybe just let people use it when they need it.

xyzelement 55 minutes ago | parent

Sounds right. On the flip side there are jobs where random bathroom breaks don't really work.

EG: bus driver.

So I am actually not sure how that works for a pregnat bus driver. Letting her randomly stop the bus at rush hour to pee doesn't seem fair to the commuters. Probably in practice pregnant bus drivers get assigned to a short route or something like that.

I don't know the nature of Amazon warehouse work. It's possible that unscheduled bathroom breaks affect multiple people (eg, I am peeing and you are idle because you depend on me to do your task) - that's the only condition where this feels at all conscionable.

happytoexplain 49 minutes ago | parent

What the fuck?

Edit: Sorry, you're suggesting that it's OK to disallow a bathroom break that would inconvenience customers or cause a fellow employee to be unable to progress? That category of work culture should be unheard of in the USA, but it's leaking in, and if we don't viciously reject it, we might as well start the country over.

If bathroom breaks are frequently causing some kind of unacceptable complication, then the problem isn't the bathroom break, it's the design of the position.

kotaKat 49 minutes ago | parent

Turns out depending on the metro they already solved that problem.

Just let them piss.

They actually do let bus operators randomly stop the bus at rush hour to pee in some cities. In Ottawa (Ontario), for instance, as long as an operator is within their 5 minute "late standard" window, they can stop and make a quick pee break or Timmy's break as long as they keep the bus in time.

The busses lock down with a PIN when they get out of the seat (generated that morning at the depot) so you can't take it out of neutral anyways to try to steal it.

https://www.michaelsuddard.com/2013/03/oc-transpo-condoned-t...

(Best part is this old blogpost with someone cranky over the stop as well getting shown receipts by OC Transpo that their Tim's wielding bus driver that morning was in fact running on time based on GPS data.)

throwaway287391 40 minutes ago | parent

> The busses lock down with a PIN when they get out of the seat (generated that morning at the depot) so you can't take it out of neutral anyways to try to steal it.

Huh, it would never have occurred to me to raise the objection "but someone could steal the bus while the driver is in the bathroom!" Why does the bus need to stay in neutral with a special system of daily rotating PINs, rather than having the driver take their key to the bathroom with them?

kotaKat 34 minutes ago | parent

Transit buses generally actually don't use keys, amusingly. You pop the drivers' window open and reach in for the manual door release, then climb on board.

The headlight switch is also the 'master on' switch for the bus, then you slap an engine starter button and off to the races you go. It's assumed you keep the bus stabled somewhere secure.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1GtuUBEeTVg

https://www.cleverdevices.com/products/secure-bus-access/

Clever Devices is one of the large players of the bus telematics industry and they just sit on the CANbus of the bus (heh!) and block the gear shift from being able to shift over it until you enter the PIN.

If you've ever played with a bus simulator, OMSI 2's Chicago Downtown addon requires you sign onto the bus to take it out of gear, too - you just look up and see the post-it note with that driver's ID and PIN ;)

rlpb 36 minutes ago | parent

> The busses lock down with a PIN when they get out of the seat (generated that morning at the depot)...

How do drivers remember their daily PIN?

kotaKat 33 minutes ago | parent

When they show up to the depot and get their bus assignment they get a slip with the PIN (IIRC), otherwise they can call dispatch back up, identify themselves, and be given a reset remotely. (https://www.cleverdevices.com/products/secure-bus-access/)

lokar 46 minutes ago | parent

Both jobs already need to be designed around some expectation for how often people need to use the restroom. If individual exceptions are not feasible, they design the job so that it works for everyone.

ang_cire 46 minutes ago | parent

You've never been on a bus where the driver had to stop to go use the restroom? There is no prohibition against that.

structural 42 minutes ago | parent

Many bus routes are designed with stopping/break points, including limiting route lengths so that operators aren't stuck in these conditions.

Yes, at 5pm in a major city, a bus driver might pull up next to a convenience stop, stop the bus, go pee, and come back. Does it happen often? Not that often, because of the aforementioned "we design routes so people aren't trapped for multiple hours" concept.

nilsherzig 36 minutes ago | parent

If you really wanted to optimize something involving living consciousness beings like a machine, at least you should consider things like the need to take a piss as a hard constraint and design the system around it.

Don't get me wrong I love factorio like the next guy and understand the idea behind your thinking, but there should be limits to that thinking in the real world. And if that doesn't convince you consider the efficiency loss of a depressed worker with a urinary tract infection.

Honestly - and I don't mean that as an insult - I hope for you to experience (just once) the loss of dignity that not being able to visit the restroom on your own decision will give you. Might make you realize the hell this kind of thinking leads to.

devindotcom 15 minutes ago | parent

look man you might just consider not commenting about stuff you know absolutely nothing about. it's totally ok to just not speak up and use it as an opportunity to learn.

EarlKing 11 minutes ago | parent

Whether you're stowing, picking, diverting, or working the dock... you literally just grab someone to cover your position for a few minutes. That's it. There are process assistants present who can literally do that if they have to. There's no reason to deny a pregnant worker this except "This is making my day harder because I can't run my aisles at an absolute minimum head count and still stand around with my cart pretending to do useful work".

The only real case I could see where grabbing someone to cover you while you take a bathroom break might not work is, for example, someone working as a yard marshal... since that's not something everyone gets trained for, so the pool of replacements is smaller (including among process assistants).

So unless this worker was working the yard... there's not a lot of reason to deny them bathroom breaks... and that goes whether they're pregnant or not honestly.

00ze 46 minutes ago | parent

No where is it written here they shouldn't

Not everything needs to be a panacea to cover all edge cases

Legally a specific situation is often required

Imo it is a phony obligation to fragment people via feigned ignorance and willful ignorance, create liquidity of a sort in the litigation market making everyone fight the same fires over and over but that is currently how it works

ajuc 11 minutes ago | parent

1. they shouldn't even have to work, they should be on a paid leave

2. if they want to work - they should have preferential treatment

3. even if they are not pregnant - their bathroom breaks or the ability to sit down shouldn't be limited by their employer

Reading about American work culture is uncanny. It's like people arguing about css-styling the NPE error stacktrace, and everybody just assumes the null dateOfBirth in the database and 5 levels of backend code without null checks is just how it has to be.

bastard_op 46 minutes ago | parent

At this point is anyone surprised at what Amazon will do to the plebeian workers that fuel them?

embedding-shape 44 minutes ago | parent

Lets wait and see why the pilot who overshot the runway didn't do a go-around instead of attempting to land, pressuring airplane pilots would certainly take them to another level in my eyes.

ryandrake 39 minutes ago | parent

Another level, yes, but not a surprising one.

trhway 11 minutes ago | parent

The pilots have union supposedly. I wonder if AMZN was able to break through here. May be it was "positive" pressure - i.e. bonuses for saving fuel/time/etc.

lotsofpulp 39 minutes ago | parent

At this point, do people prefer to accept a claim in a lawsuit as the truth if it happens to conform to their model of reality?

EarlKing 31 minutes ago | parent

When it comes to a company known to hire union-busters rather than deal with a burgeoning union in good faith? Yes. Yes they do.

soniczentropy 24 minutes ago | parent

When the claim is entirely expected and unsurprising due to being backed by a laundry list of historical similar offenses 5 miles long, yes.

distortionfield 45 minutes ago | parent

This is the company that literally hired the Pinkertons and has been repeatedly fined millions for labor related violations, up to and including union busting. Consider me not even an iota of surprised.

blooalien 39 minutes ago | parent

> Consider me not even an iota of surprised.

Yeah, I followed this link specifically to see how many folks are surprised that Amazon may have did yet another vile thing to their employees, and I'm not one bit surprised to find nobody surprised by it. LOL!

sublinear 23 minutes ago | parent

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Securitas_AB

I've gotta take the wind out of your sails a little bit on the "Pinkerton" name.

bathtub365 20 minutes ago | parent

They still exist under the Pinkerton name, they’re just a subsidiary of Securitas AB:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinkerton_(detective_agency)

https://pinkerton.com/

ajuc 34 minutes ago | parent

In any poor Eastern European country they would go for months-long paid leave long before the birth and then for months-long paid maternity leave.

If they decided to work during pregnancy they would get preferential treatment.

How are Americans not revolting against this bullshit is beyond me. The problem isn't even Amazon - it's the system that makes Amazon doing this shit even a possibility.

Aurornis 34 minutes ago | parent

I skimmed the lawsuit. As far as I can tell, the complaint is about getting 4 x 15 minute extra breaks during the day and lighter work. Amazon did grant them, but the complaint is that they didn't do it fast enough. There's also something of a disagreement where she expected to be paid for the extra hour of break time every day, but Amazon was counting it as unpaid. She was reassigned to lighter work at her request, but the complaint is that she still had to lift heavy things and they didn't give her a job where she could sit down.

The word "bathroom" shows up a lot but that doesn't appear core to the lawsuit. I think an editor was engineering the headline for maximum clickbait to link back to the previous Amazon bathroom break stories.

Regardless of what you think about Amazon, this reporting could use a little less clickbait and little more details from the actual lawsuit.

FpUser 23 minutes ago | parent

>"Reporting" - well that art is being lost and click-baits are how "reporters" get their money

devindotcom 18 minutes ago | parent

headline is factual: Lawsuit: Amazon refused to give pregnant workers bathroom breaks and chairs

all the info you point out is in the first few paragraphs, much more context also provided as well as responses from amazon and context from the women

black6 31 minutes ago | parent

It amuses me when adults need permission to perform basic human needs because a small group will always take advantage of common courtesy and ruin it for everyone else.

When I was in grade school I pissed my pants in the library because the librarian wouldn't let me go to the bathroom. We both learned a lesson that day. I learned to seek forgiveness over permission, and she learned that sometimes kids aren't bullshitting when they say they need to use the bathroom.

We are all at the mercy of the bottom quintile.

genxy 24 minutes ago | parent

I believe you have it reversed sir, we are at the mercy of the top 0.5% I doubt the librarian learned anything.

Yizahi 30 minutes ago | parent

Meanwhile St. Bezos loudly complains that people are unfairly presenting billionaires as villains :)

EarlKing 16 minutes ago | parent

...while looking like a discount Lex Luthor.

stuaxo 30 minutes ago | parent

It didn't take long for people to appear in here to say it's not too bad.

hereme888 29 minutes ago | parent

Adults need permission to use a restroom?!

throw_m239339 22 minutes ago | parent

*slaves do. Amazon big shots must be laughing at these people who have no choice but to accept these work conditions to make ends meet, so hard. They must talk about these people like they are garbage, peasants, when Amazon yuppies are among themselves...

That's what shocked me the most when I was doing odd jobs, the contempt, the disdain.