Report: Ford plant clamping down on bathroom breaks

[dubyaD40web]

Ford eyeing bathroom breaks

NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Ford Motor Co. management reportedly is trying to stop the company's financial outlook from going down the toilet.

The Detroit News reported Thursday that management at the company's Michigan Truck plant in Wayne, Mich., issued a memo in which it said too many of the factory's 3,500 hourly workers are spending more than the 48 minutes allotted per shift to use the bathroom.

The extra-long breaks are slowing production of the Ford Expedition and Lincoln Navigator sport utility vehicles that are built there, the company said.

<snip>

Workers interviewed by the paper said that management is trying to divert attention from broader problems at the nation's No. 2 automaker, including soft sales of the large SUV's made at the plant following this year's run-up on gasoline prices.

http://money.cnn.com/2005/10/27/news/fortune500/ford_bathroom_breaks/index.htm?cnn=yes


What a crock of sh*t! (Pun intended) They're worried about the productivity of making S.U.V.'s that no one is buying anymore. No wonder why our automakers are going down the crapper. (Pun intended again)

[Coastie for Truth]

1. This was an issue at USSteel in the 1970's

Also, I had a friend, a U of M "I.E" graduate who had worked at Ford in Manufacturing for a few years, who said that this makes a periodic comeback.

[Democrats_win]

2. Isn't it inhuman to tell someone they can't go to the bathroom? nt

[elehhhhna]

Uh oh, another carrer path closed to GW.

[ixion]

6. while I think they're being extreme

in all fairness, if you're spending more than an hour in the bathroom for an 8 hour shift, you're probably not just takin' care of business, as it were. ;-)

[LeftyMom]

11. What about women?

There's a certain time of month we require a few extra trips to the ladies room and take a bit longer in there. Men in general take less time anyhow due to easier cleanup and can go longer without urinating due to outdoor plumbing.

Rules like these are sexist and unfair.

[Realityhack]

62. I still doubt that takes more than 48min

in an 8 hour shift.
an 8 min bathroom break would be fairly long even for a woman (IMO) and you would still get 6 without going over.

[LeftyMom]

66. That'd be rough for me when pregnant

or on certain days of my cycle. If I had a bladder infection or somethign (I had three while pregnant, they're very common in expectant mothers) there's no freakin way.

Bear in mind that's not 8 mins in the stall, that's 8 mins to leave one's work area, get to the potty, maybe wait a minute for a stall to open, do business, wash up and get back to work. Not a long time at all.

[Realityhack]

73. Ok... but...

how many assembily line workers are pregnant?
How many other breaks are there?
Are the employees paid for that 48min?

IIRC it said 'too many' were taking over 48min. Seems to me like they were allowing leyway and it may have been getting abused.

Sure they may have set the timeframe too low (though I would assume it was set in union negotiations) but my question is... where do you think the reasonable line is where the company can say that someone is spending enough time working?

[LiberalFighter]

80. Depending on where the bathroom is located in relation to the worker

A man should take about 5 minutes if it is just the basic and 10 minutes for the sit down. Women take longer. (That is if the worker is walking briskly to and back from the bathroom) Age is a factor too. Then there are medical or other health problems that may take longer.

Also!!!! There is the matter of when the worker is relieved from the line to use the bathroom. Many times the worker responsible for relieving others is occupied with other work and it may be some time before it happens. Most times a worker CANNOT walk off the line for that purpose. Otherwise, that worker's job will not get done.

[Dogmudgeon]

13. Got colitis?

At one point in my life, I would have been happy to have only spent one hour out of eight tethered to the potty.

I was working in an office. They bitched and moaned and questioned my Work Ethic™ until they saw I was outproducing nearly every other worker in my position.

It may not be possible for an industrial line worker, I know. But that's what medical coverage is for, isn't it?

Oh, wait. I forgot. Medical coverage is Socialifm Moft Foul.

--p!

[Realityhack]

65. I think you hit it with industrial worker...

Some jobs can accomidate that kind of flexibility and should... others can not.
Of course its pritty mute anyway because the % of people with a serious medical reason requiring that kind of bathroom time is probobly extreamly low.

[Realityhack]

63. Your kidding right?

How often and for how long to you let an assebaly line person spend on bathroom breaks before you consider them to not be fuffining their job requirements? 48min per shift sure seems reasonable to me. Thats 6 8min bathroom breaks.

[saigon68]

64. MAKE THEM WEAR DEPENDS ALL DAY

ONE PER PERSON

THAT WAY THEY CAN SHIT AND PISS TO THEIR HEARTS CONTENT

LIKE WAL-MART DID TO ITS WORKERS

[bobbieinok]

84. link to Walmart requiring depends??????

[Straight Shooter]

3. 48 minutes every 8 hours

Six minutes per hour. Some people can't hold it very long or they have other situations going on which require more time. Also, how long does it take to walk to where the bathroom is?

If I were working at Ford, I would be happy to assign half my time to someone who needed it more.

[trogdor]

50. If I were at Ford...

...I'd be sure to use every last second of my allotted 48 minutes, and encourage everyone else to do the same. See how many of those fuckyoumobiles get built then.

[Realityhack]

74. Well the article said 'too many' were going over...

It would be good to have more facts. Its hard to tell how reasonable this is without knowing more.

There has to be a line somewhere though.

[Jed Dilligan]

4. This is outrageous

It reminds me of "Maria Full of Grace" or the workers in the central valley before Cesar Chavez.

I would, however, advise the workers to eat more veggies if they are spending an hour on the pot...

[Realityhack]

67. How is it outragious?

Seems to me management has a reasonable expectation that you will spend a certain amount of time actualy doing something productive durring your shift. 48min per shift for bathroom breaks seems fairly reasonable. At what point do YOU think they should draw the line and decide an employee is screwing off instead of working?

[Jed Dilligan]

68. We don't know the layout of the plant

If it takes 5 minutes to walk to or from the bathroom, and the average person uses it 3 times on a shift, that's 18 min. of actual bathroom time--which isn't reasonable, especially if someone is pregnant, has IBS, etc.

On edit: If someone is "screwing off" in the bathroom it should be dealt with individually. Most people go to the bathroom only when they need to, and they should not be punished for some individuals taking advantage of this right.

[Realityhack]

79. there are a lot of open questions...

like how far the bathrooms are and if the situation has been changing over time...
but there is something you missed... using the batthroom durring lunch or another break.

Lets say it does take 5min each way (fairly long way off) you use it once on lunch.
Now you have 4 bathroom visits per trip and your math leaves 6 min per trip in the stall which seems a little long IMO.

The thing is from the tone of the article it sounds like perhapse this situation has changed over time.

What would you consider a reasonable cuttoff?

[Mend]

5. the workers should sh*t on management's floor. Pee, too. It's always

the workers' fault...never the dumb-fuck decisions by management.

[SledDriver]

30. If they do that on the floor, some poor janitor will have to clean it up..

Better to do it in the SUV on the line in front of them. Give it that nice new car smell!

[DBoon]

42. That is an interesting idea for a worker job action for protest

:evilgrin:

[LiberteToujours]

7. Sounds reasonable

48 minutes a day seems more than reasonable to me. I'm sure Ford isn't talking about employees who are just having one of those days, but those who abuse the system by hanging out in the bathrooms.

[K-W]

14. As long as the executives have to abide by the rules as well...

Im guessing if I go to Ford's corporate HQ, I will find lots of newspapers in the bathroom stalls.

The issue isnt whether 48 minutes of bathroom time a day is reasonable.

The issue is whether strict regimentation of bathroom breaks is reasonable.

I'm sure Ford isn't talking about employees who are just having one of those days, but those who abuse the system by hanging out in the bathrooms.

I think the policy will apply to all the employees.

[LiberteToujours]

19. Why?

I'm not saying you're morally wrong, but legally, why must the Ford executives follow the same rules as the assembly workers? Manual labourers don't get flown to business meetings and put up in fancy hotels either. Should they?

Of course, there's no better way to piss your employees off than to rub your executive privilege in their face. But still, legally I don't see why this matters. Executives have their own set of responsibilities and they're liable to getting fired if they break them. Not spending too much time in the bathroom is probably not one of those responsibilities.

[Realityhack]

70. well put. n/t

[Realityhack]

69. actualy...

the post said that the memo indicated that too many were taking more than the alloted 48min so
a. Its a policy that is already in place.
b. Wither its strict or not there must be some reasonable expectation that a worker is doing something productive durring their shift rather than sitting in the batthroom.

Having a strict cuttoff of how much time you can spend away from your station at an assembly line type job may well be a reasonable thing. Its always good to have some flexability but it sounds like they allowed flexability and it has gotten abused.

[northzax]

93. not neccesarily

the assembly line workers are paid by the hour, I doubt many executives at Ford are. having worked both hourly and salaried, there is a major difference. When you pay me by the hour, I am paid to work from say, 9-5 with stipulated breaks, I may be expected to get a certain amount of work done in that time frame, but if for whatever reason, especially if it's out of my control, I go home at 5 or you pay me more. A salaried employee is paid to do a job, and is expected to do that job, on a schedule, no matter how long it takes.

a comparison. right now I am doing some freelance video editing. I am paid hourly. if I get there at 9, as required, and the video doesn't arrive until 11, I still leave at five, unless they want to pay me more to stay late. If I was salaried, and the video shows up at 4, I'm there until midnight, without extra pay, to finish on the deadline. If I take an hour restroom break, I still have to finish the job, without extra pay.

[proud2BlibKansan]

8. Are they doing more than using the bathroom during this allotted time?

If so, management needs to deal with that instead of punishing the lot of them for the behavior of a few. I can't imagine the entire work force abusing their 6 minutes per hour.

[madmom]

9. heard through the grapevine that at Delphi plants workers are not

even allowed to talk to each other, they have one supervisor for every two hourly employees. It has often been said that since the 1950's as the auto industry goes, so goes the nation! We lead the labor movement, America better WAKE THE F**K UP!!!!!!!!:banghead:

[sweepster]

44. Plant people not allowed to talk comment

It may have to do with safety. My brother works at a automotive stamping/manufacturing plant. You are correct to a degree. Operators are not allowed to talk with each while operating the machines because it is very fast paced and talking makes you lose your concentration and you could get hurt. You can freely talk but you have to back away from the machine beyond a certain point.

I've seen the 40 ton presses at his work and how fast they move. One small lapse of concetration and your hand will be flat as tin foil

[Cobalt Violet]

10. I wonder how long the women spend in line waiting to go? n/t

[madrchsod]

12. 48 minutes?

when do they work? that`s just bathroom ,what about lunch and regular breaks? dam i`ve worked for the steelworkers and iam unions and we never had 48 minute bathroom breaks.

[nini]

20. I agree.. back when I had a job with scheduled breaks

we got 15 minutes after 2 hours. then lunch then another 15 after another 2 hours.


We were allowed to go the bathroom as needed but we didn't abuse that.. .which is why it wasn't a problem at the job.


48 minutes over an 8 hour shift is a bit much IF that did not include lunch breaks etc..

[Occulus]

28. you misunderstood

I did as well; they're talking, for the TOTAL shift. That's six minutes to use the restroom, once per hour.

That's not enough unless the toilets are very close, and even then it's unfair to workers in areas further away from the restrooms than others. Since they have to walk further, their bathroom breaks are effectively shorter.

It sounds like a lot, until you break it down to how someone would actually use it.

[uncle ray]

59. it IS a lot when you compare it to the law.

i believe fed law is you're only required to have ten minutes rest every 4 hours.

i really don't think women having their period or people with bladder problems are the issue. i guess you must have to actually work in a fast paced manufacturing environment to understand the types of people that work there that take 45 minutes to read the paper on the john several times a day, or make as many trips to the tool room as possible. they are not targeting hard working employees, they are targeting the dead weight. i thought that was a good thing?

[pschoeb]

89. That's not the law about bathroom breaks

That's the law on rest breaks. Which has nothing to do with bathroom requirements. OSHA handles that, and it says one can take a bathroom break whenever an employee needs to go, there are certain alowances for employers in line situations, where line work can't be stopped, but still OSHA regs require that workers be allowed to use the bathroom as quickly as possible when they need to go.

The law on breaks, has to do with safety and productivity. It was shown that forcing a 15 minute rest break every 4 hrs dramatically cuts down on worker related injuries. The reason it's law, is that people with More Bullshit Added degrees often think of workers as inhuman machines, and ignore the real benefits to their bottom line, both in less injuries and increased productivity.

The reason for the break is rest, not primarily to go to the bathroom, one shouldn't force ones employees to wait until their break to go. That's really really unhealthy and you will end up increasing your employees visits to doctors for bladder infections, especially women, which I'm sure will cut into the bottom line. Also you will dramatically increase worker stress and decrease concentration, it' becomes really hard to concentrate when one is desperatly trying to hold ones bladder until your break. But MBA types are largely clueless wankers, who probably spend more time jacking off in the bathroom, than any low level employee.

[Realityhack]

76. I think you missunderstood the other poster...

IF there are other breaks (and I think its clear lunch is not included here) you have a total of a lot more than 6min every hour.

Lets say you get 2 15min breaks and 30min lunch... those would probobly allow reasonable time durring say 2 hours of your shift (you go to the bathroom durring lunch and durring one of your 15 min breaks)... so you are left with 8min per hour not 6 for the other hours. Skip even 1 hour and you are now up to 9.6 min per hour for the other hours.

The real questions are:
Where are the bathrooms
What other breaks are there
How much time are employees spending actualy IN the bathroom
Has the situation changed over time (ie has bathroom time increased indicating that perhapse it is being abused)

Without more facts I do not think we can say this is either reasonable or un-reasonable.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

15. Oh well, there goes Shrub Bush's plant visit.

[bowens43]

16. IMO 48 Minutes per shitft seems excessive.

[Mizmoon]

18. Agreed

If a person is so ill that they can't keep to 48 minutes per day, perhaps they should be on disability.

Normally I would scream about denying people bathroom breaks, but 48 minutes is pretty generous imho.

[bowens43]

24. That's in addition to breaks and lunch.

[Occulus]

35. It's 6 minutes per hour.

Not nearly enough, really.

I'm just opposed to restroom quotas as a matter of principle; it takes as much time as it takes.

I'd like to point out that, were they going to fully enforce this, they would have to actually control what their employees eat when they're off company property, and when they eat it. Not realistic in the least.

Then there's the Weyland Corporation, I think it was, which told its employees that if they smoke, they're fired. Even if they do it at home and not at work. The reasoning was healthcare costs, but I can easily see an employer using that as a precedent to tell their employees what they can, and when, because going to the bathroom harms production.

I tried to find an article on that and I couldn't, but I think it may have been discussed here at DU when it happened.

No, I'm not trying to be funny. I honestly can see that happening, because of what the Weyland Corp. got away with. The corporate foot is now in the door to be able to control your life and the way you live it in order to even have a job.

Eat fast food? It causes bowel cramps and more frequent bathroom breaks; anyone seen eating or known to eat fast food will be terminated. Drink lots of water? No water bottles allowed on the workfloor, and doing so results in automatic termination. Drink coffee at home before work? Coffee is a diuretic; you can't have your morning coffe anymore, and we will be administering periodic, random drug screens to test for nicotine, additives used in fast foods, caffeine, and other, illegal drugs as a condition of your continued employment. Failure to voluntarily participate in such screenings shall constitute resignation-at-will, and shall not be subject to an in-house appeal.

Am I the only one who thinks it could go there? I hope not.....

We need to end corporate personhood so corporations cannot do such things to us anymore.

[Realityhack]

77. not 6 min if you count other breaks.

even if you use the bathroom only once durring either lunch or another break that boosts it to almost 7 min.

[LostinVA]

38. Not if you work in a large plant and have to walk a long way

to a bathroom. My BIL used to work in a textile plant, much smaller than a Ford plant, and it took him over five minutes to walk to a bathroom. One way.

[Realityhack]

75. which brings up how ford should address this...

they should start by making sure their are bathrooms strategicaly located so trips take less time.

Architectural space engenering can alleviate some problems like this.

The thing is thats 10% of your time on shift not working. At some point the employer must draw a line. Perhapse it should be a diffrent point but there does come a point.

[hogwyld]

82. I Agree

I wish I could get paid 45 minutes worth of wages just for going to the bathroom. By the time you add in the breaks/lunch mandated by law, you're down to about 6 hours of work during a 8 hour shift. We keep this crap up, (pun intended) and no employers are going to stay here.

[uppityperson]

17. 6 minutes every hour is not very long, how far are toilets? Breakdown here

1 1/2 minute-putting your equipment away so you can leave safely
1 1/2 minute-walking to toilet
0 time to pee
1 1/2 minute-walking to job site
1 1/2 minute-picking up place/equipment, ready to work safely
---
6 minutes

Lets say they walk fast and there is no line and it doesn't take that long to get back to work:

1- equip away
1-walk to toilet
(Male urinate
10 seconds to unzip
20 sec to relax enough to pee
1 minute to pee
30 sec to shake, stuff, zip, don't wash hands)
(female pee
same as male except that last 30 sec is spent wiping, pulling pants up, washing hands)
(poop
30 sec to unzip and sit, getting comfortable
1 1/2 minutes to poop, wipe, wash)
1-walk to jobsite
1-prepare to work

Sorry, still seems too fast. Now, if they would have toilets closer, or make them jog (increasing your health by cardiovascular workout) it might work.

[LiberteToujours]

22. Do you pee every single hour?

If so, you should see a doctor.:rofl:

[uppityperson]

23. I do and so should you to be healthy.

I am a nurse. In order to be healthy you should drink at least a glass of water every hour and pee every hour. If you have a history of bladder infections, it is even more important. As people age, both women and men, they have to pee more often. If you have a problem with this, get over it. Yes, I have to pee every single hour on the advice of doctors. snit over

And you didn't even laugh at my time table, or was that the laugh?

[ninkasi]

33. Well, I've always had to

I'm retired now, but all my life, I've needed to pee just about once an hour. My daughter says that she and I have "squirrel" bladders. I also have to get up 3-4 times a night to go to the bathroom. I know there are meds now for "overactive bladder", but I already take Prevacid, 2 blood pressure meds, and pain killers for a condition which causes chronic pain, and will likely last the rest of my life.

When I did work, though, even with the bathroom breaks, I was consistently tops in production, so management didn't complain. How could they? Uppityperson, since you're a nurse maybe you can confirm this, but years ago, my stepdaughter had to be hospitalized with a rather severe bladder problem, and the doctor traced it to her "holding it" for years at her job, rather than go when nature called.

She still has bladder problems, has some scarring, (you might understand why), and it was all caused because the company she worked for didn't want her to take too many bathroom breaks. One poster said that if a person needs to go every hour, they might be too ill to work, and on disability. That would have been a terrible thing for my company, since they would have been paying me disability for nothing, and even with my breaks, I was tops in production. Sometimes, it helps if a company is reasonable.

[uppityperson]

85. If you don't pee often enough, you can get bladder/kidney infections

If you get kidney infections, this can lead to killing off bits of your kidneys, eventually to kidney failure. Having a too small urethra (tube between bladder and outside world) can make it harder to empty bladder. Not peeing often enough, or not emptying bladder fully when you pee can lead to infections. Better to go often than not often enough.

Urine is sterile. However, it is possible to get bacteria into your bladder or urethra. If you hold your urine long enough, the bacteria can multiply=infections.

[nini]

36. Bladder capacity plays a part in this too

I know people who drink the required water and have no problem going 2 hours between breaks and lunches to relieve themselves.


This is not that unusual and being a nurse doesn't mean you can say others don't have the urge to urinate every single hour like clockwork.

[Occulus]

37. I'm healthy, and I do...

I tend to drink between three and five 20 oz. bottles of water in an eight-hour shift. This is because I work in a dusty, dry environment in which I'm constantly moving around, expending energy, and most importantly, sweating, which of course expends water.

I would very, very much resent this rule.

[BiggJawn]

48. Obviously, you're just a young squirt. Dumb, too.

Get back to me when you're in your late 40's and your Prostate starts making its presence known.

12 times a day, Bud, 12 times a day....

[sadiesworld]

52. Getting rid of older (more expensive) workers?

:shrug:

[BiggJawn]

53. Yeah.

Unless you're lucky enough to buy your way or be born into the Ruling Class by the time you're 35...

It AMAZES me, the number of "ain't got a pot to piss in" poor people who are anti-Union...

[Realityhack]

72. wouldn't this be...

a rule that the union already agreed to?

Sounds like it is already in place and they were loose about following it and now want to enforce it a bit more.

[CdnObserver]

32. 10 seconds to unzip? I think you're padding a bit here!

One mississippi... Sounds like enough time to unzip right there.

[uppityperson]

86. OK, add in how long it takes to fish it out and point right direction

or would that be under the actual "pee" part? Some might take longer to fish it out, brush off the lint and point it right? OK guys, someone try it and give me actual numbers.

[LostinVA]

39. The 90 seconds of walking time is probably conservative

Probably more like 5-10 minutes one way.

[Realityhack]

71. I think you may have overlooked...

any other breaks they get including lunch durring which they could use the toilet.

How much time do you think they should allow per 8 hour shift to spend in the bathroom before they can reasonably say that you are spending too much time away from your job and therefore not performing your duties?

[nini]

21. FLAMEBAIT..... I bet smoking has something to do with this

I bet many are smoke breaks more than bathroom breaks. The smokers I work with take many more breaks than the rest of us.


:evilgrin:

[SledDriver]

31. Didn't think of that, but probably some truth to it. n/t

[endarkenment]

25. The point is that as usual

management cracks the whip on labors back in order to deflect attention away from their own mistakes and blunders. And as usual DU is full of posters with 'Democratic disease', ever so willing to see the 'other point of view' without considering what is motivating that view, or bothering to analyze what is actually going on.

[Katidid]

26. Sound like the labor rules China uses with their workers ..

I understand they are paid 15c an hour with limited potty breaks.

[Sequoia]

27. Ford Motor Company to issue adult diapers.

[lebkuchen]

29. The bathroom break is the US equal to the month-long European break

a month long, at the least.

[Little Star]

34. What Pissers! n/t

[progressivebydesign]

40. Usually a worker gets 15 minutes per 4 hours, then 30 for lunch...

That's 60 minutes of normal break time.. now are they saying that there was 48 additional minutes taken? Then that's pretty bogus... Or maybe I'm just thinking California standards of breaks. Need more info on this to decide.

[LostinVA]

45. Breaks are usually off the clock, though

Even when I worked retail, we didn't clock in and out for bathroom breaks, although we did for lunches, etc.

[llmart]

41. How the hell did they figure out how long it's taking?

Are they doing time studies on the employees? If so, you'd think management would have something better to do.

[Rainscents]

43. Always blame it on the workers!

Where I use to work, it took, 4 minutes walk to bathroom and everyone bitch to managements about the long walk to bathroom... So, who created this problem anyway? Of course, Corporate! It's their fucking company!

[maxrandb]

46. Damn Unions!!!

Folks, that is what this entire BS with the Republican Party has been about for the past 50 years. They don't give a shit about gays, or abortion, or woman in the military, or civil rights, or law and order, or family values. The Republican Party is nothing more than Official Government Sanctioned Union Busting.

The only reason a company like Ford can publicly harp about the bathroom breaks of it's employees is because the republicans have done the same thing to the word union that they've done to the word liberal. They've demonized it.

[DS1]

47. I assume they've already eliminated taking smoke breaks outside

[BiggJawn]

49. Here comes Ford's "Psychological Department" again....

Only in Murka....

[arwalden]

51. I Recall A Story (Or A Movie Plot?) Where A Woman Ended Up...

... wearing adult diapers so that she could just urinate on herself (in the diapers) as she stood on the assembly line so that she wouldn't get fired for taking a bathroom break.

Does this sound familiar to anyone else?

[BentleyJD]

54. as someone who used to work for Ford......

and knowing what things look like in an assembly plsnt:

1. Most workers would rather eat outside the main cafeteria.

2. No one I know would have wanted to stay in the dirty, filthy, crappers longer than usual.

See, for some reason, some people have less than hygenic bathroom habits that maintenance couldn't keep up with.

3. The damn formen were off their job at least two hours a shift.
take care
tony and dietrich

[Dover]

55. So does that mean they designed a 'boot' for toilets?...n/t

[spacelady]

56. So will they have to hire "potty police" to enforce this? What a strange

era we live in & what a stupid concept to blame slow production on.

[olddad56]

57. So this is why Ford makes 'shitty' cars.

[olddad56]

58. FORD- Ford Orders Reduction in Defecation.

[KamaAina]

60. "What's this stain on the front seat?"

I should be getting a 500-dollar discount for this!!

[damntexdem]

61. Ford workers may have to ford new streams if workers can't get ...

needed bathroom breaks.

And I'd be careful about buying any Ford sports urinal ... I mean, utility vehicle.

[adolfo]

78. Ford Priorities

Last time I had a Ford it really lived up to its name.

(F)ix (O)r (R)eplace (D)aily


Their priorities should be spent on improved engineering rather than employee bathroom breaks.

[Gman]

81. Somehow I don't think shareholders will be convinced that Ford

is trying to improve it's outlook by policing potty breaks. Can you imagine the Vanguard Funds buying up big blocks of Ford stock on this news? LOL!

[depakid]

83. There's a reason why Ford' loing tons of money

and it ain't bathroom breaks!

Sometimes I wonder about these peoples' sanity.

[DoveTurnedHawk]

87. Unless the Bathrooms Are in the Next State

48 minutes per eight hours is ridiculously long.

Perks like these are part of the reason unions get a bad rap. Push for higher wages and job security, not longer bathroom breaks.

DTH

[hogwyld]

88. Stupid crap like this

Is one of the reasons we can't compete globally. While we're doodling around the toilet for nearly 1 hour, foreign companies are cleaning our clocks. You just cant pay people 8 hours per day for six and a half hours of work. (48+15+15 paid breaks) + 30 min. lunch.
Pretty soon, we will all be out of work, because no company can justify that kind of lost productivity. On the bright side, we'll all have plenty of time for the bathroom.

[conflictgirl]

90. What I know about GM factories

My dad works in a GM plant here in Michigan. He got in there about 10 years ago after working for a very small non-union shop for 25+ years before that. Unfortunately, as much as I (and he) totally support labor and unions, from what he tells me, employees abusing their privileges is a rampant problem. He says that there are some guys who bring beer to work on second shift, some who sleep, some who clock in and then leave for several hours of their shifts.

I agree that if Delphi needs to solve problems, cracking down on employees abusing the bathroom break "privileges" is a dumb place to start. But I've never worked *anywhere* where we were even allowed 48 minutes out of an entire shift for bathroom breaks. I've worked in call centers where you had to go during your 15-minute breaks or your lunch hour and that was it. If you had some medical reason that you had to be in the bathroom more often than that, it was often viewed as a big problem. That's an extreme that I don't think should be in place anywhere. But if you ask me, if employees are routinely going over their 48 minutes of allotted bathroom time in a shift, in most cases I think that's way excessive. And based on my dad's stories from the GM plant, I don't have any reason to believe that such abuses aren't happening.

[Ilsa]

91. If (male) management would all develop enlarged prostates,

then maybe it wouldn't be an issue.

[iamjoy]

92. And I thought This Was A Joke...

STAFF NOTICE

TOILET POLICY

With immediate effect, a toilet policy will be established to provide a more consistent method of accounting for staff, during working hours, thus ensuring effective time management and equal treatment for all.

In future, the doors to all toilets will be equipped with computer-linked voice recognition devices, which can only be activated to open at the sound of a persons voice. Staff must therefore immediately provide management with two voiceprints, one in a normal tone and one under stress/desperation.

The following rules will also apply:
On the first day of every month, all staff will be issued with 22 toilet trip credits which may be accumulated. Once the employees trip bank reaches zero, the doors of the toilet will not unlock for the employee's voice until the first working day of the following month. In addition, all cubicles are to be equipped with timed paper - roll extractors.

If the toilet is occupied for longer than three minutes, an alarm will sound. Thirty seconds later, the toilet paper will retract into the dispenser, the toilet will flush and the door will open automatically.

If the toilet remains occupied , your photograph will be taken by a security camera and will appear on the Toilet Offenders Board.

Anyone appearing three times on the Toilet Offenders Board will forfeit three month's toilet trip credits. Anyone caught smiling when the photograph is taken will undergo counselling by a clinical psychologist.

Be advised that workmen's compensation insurance does not cover any injuries while trying to stop the toilet paper retracting into the dispenser, or trying to keep the toilet door from opening.

We trust that you will cooperate fully with us, and suggest that if you have any problems with this policy, you should make more use of your toilet facilities at home where you can sit to your heart's content.

By order
MANAGEMENT.

:hurts: :hurts: