I have been looking for manufacturing, assembly, production positions all over the Midwest. It’s absolutely shocking how many of them want you to work rotating shifts.
Look at the image I submitted. That company wants you to work 3rd shift one week, then 2nd shift the next, then 1st shift the next, and then repeat it over and over. How in the hell is that healthy?
And this requirement for rotating shifts is prevalent in so many job ads now. WTF is going on with the world?
Full job ad here:
We still got shift differential on swing shift. I did it for 7 years. It maximizes 24/7 coverage with less crews, but it has a side effect of the end users of the schedule developing severe alcohol abuse and depression.
Sat - Saturday 8 hours day
Tuesday - Tuesday 8 hours night
Friday - Friday 8 hours second
The pay period was separated in such a way that you would not get double time even though you are scheduled 7 days in a row every week.
And manufacturing defects and injuries I would assume
Oh yeah, night and swing are a nightmare for quality and safety, and they’re more expensive
This seems idiotic from the employer’s perspective. You’re limiting your pool of candidates a lot by requiring that their life can accomodate essentially 24 hours of possible shift time. Companies do shit like this and then complain “nobody wants to work anymore”
As long as “temporary” foreign worker programs exist, there isn’t a shortage of labour as far as the elite are concerned.
A limited pool of local applicants is a benefit to them. Then they get to bring in foreigners who don’t know the value of their work in a western country and don’t know the laws that protect them, both labour laws and actual criminal laws.
They also import social unrest and friction, and foster resentment towards the foreigners instead of the capitalists. Essentially the reason why I am opposed to most forms of immigration, while subscribing to generally leftist ideals.
Also theyre being used to allow for continued captialist growth while ignoring issues that are leading to stagnant or even regressive birth rates.
A great example there being Justin Trudeau’s immigration policy.
Slash education, raise cost of living, lower the minimum working age and forcing ppl to work shit jobs is actually viable.
I think there’s a political party whose whole platform is based on this for this very reason
It is a selective filter. It seeks the most desperate because they will take any and all abuse.
They also leave the milisecond they can which means the company constantly has to find replacements and retrain them. Lots of resources wasted just to abuse people rather than maximize profit by treating people better.
I think part of the idea here is that people with options wouldn’t accept such an abusive schedule in the first place.
Meaning they don’t have to worry about increasing wages or providing benefits for people who work there for longer.
Yeah well they have degrees or something that says it’s a good idea for profits or whatever and damn the consequences, so checkmate, prole.
This is true. I once had a boss with an MBA. I am highly skilled, had a decade under my belt at the company. She once almost laid me off one year because her and another middle manager thought I didn’t “fit with the team” any more.
Turns out I was just going through a divorce, was deeply depressed, and simply getting shit done and going home.
She knew but that MBA mentality just saw that I wasn’t joining extra calls, putting in extra hours, volunteering to manage projects, etc. It wasn’t even about department or company performance, we were in some of our best years ever. I discovered this years later after she was laid off, probably under similar circumstances. Fuck MBAs.
I find it awful how quickly extra work becomes normal, expected, minimum work.
People don’t want to work 3rd shift - the rest of the world (your family, sports…) all work 1st shift. 2nd shift is only slightly better. It is probably better for your life to work 3rd shift for 1 week of every 3, than 3rd shift constantly - those other 2 weeks you can live semi-normal and thus have friends.
It still sucks, probably the best compromise.As someone who was forced to do this for a couple months when I was in the Army, rotating shifts destroys your ability to get good sleep, its horrendous to actually experience. It took about 2 months before people started getting so sleep deprived that people started failing PT (physical training) tests and it took the brigade commander looking at our battalion and asking “wtf is going on over there?” and hearing what our battalion had done to our shift schedule and put a stop to it. He called over every single soldier who failed their PT test to hear our excuses, and when most of us were first time failures and we all had the exact same complaint, by the time he got to me, he was like “You’ve been on rotating shifts, unable to sleep, and were forced to take this test after a shift when you’re completely exhausted like everyone else?” “yes sir” “ok, don’t expect that shift rotation to last, I’ll be talking to your battalion commander after this. Send in the next person.” Dude was ready to just start ripping into us but changed his tune right quick after hearing about the fucked up shift schedule and lack of any common sense in the leadership’s ability to plan properly. One of the few times where shit actually rolled uphill.
It’s the kind of thing that sounds “fair” to a executive who’s been trained to think about human resources like any other commoditized cog, with no concept of human physiology or empathy.
those other 2 weeks you can live semi-normal and thus have friends.
I don’t think you’re thinking about how hard this will absolutely fuck over your sleep. There is no way you can be a functional human being for those two weeks with this consistent and drastic of a schedule change.
2nd shift is great if you don’t have a family. You’re asleep when the kids go to school, you’re at work when they get home. Can’t have dinner as a family. I like 3rd, I go in after the kids go to bed and I wake up in time to pick them up.
I’d rather work third shift consistently, I’m a night person.
It’s a way if keeping the less favorable shift times at full working capacity while not having to pay more for those times.
Typically (back in the day) you may pay day shift employees $12 an hour, but in order to get enough people to choose night shift, they’d have to offer $14 an hour.
Then, of course, if you started nights and were actually asked if you’d like to move to days, if they needed more on day shift, no one would ever want to swap and except a pay cut in order to do it. Of course, if you got to keep your higher rate and move to days then everyone on days would get mad that they weren’t making as much.
So yeah, it’s all corporate bullshit so they can move you around to any hours they’d like in order to keep the 24/7 operation going and all shifts balanced with workers without having to change any pay rates.
while not having to pay more
A lot of people in this thread are saying the same thing. I can understand the surface level math of it all. But there has to be a cost to losing employees due to the harshness of the schedule and then having to hire and train new employees.
Look at the job posting that I posted. They are offering a referral bonus of up to $5,000. They probably would not need to do that if they weren’t having a hard time finding willing employees.
Just looking at the surface level math and saying it is because they don’t have to pay a differential is not taking in to account employee turnover or the need to pay referral bonuses to attract people.
Referral bonuses never happen at the start. It’s always after something like 6 months or a year of the referred employee being there, so depending on the job, there might not be great odds that both employees will still be present a year later.
Also, if it’s a job where the time to train isn’t that long, a high turnover rate may be exactly what the company wants. No raises, no long term employees trying to start a union, lower retirement costs, less people signing into benefits, no accrued sick time being used, etc.
Some companies operate on a “fuck you” budget.
That sounds like a problem for a year down the road, but if the company hits its marks this quarter the CEO gets a bonus.
It also makes it harder for employees to do things that would give them a chance at getting a better job. Can’t go to college anywhere that requires attendance as part of the grade if you’re on a shift like that. Also can’t get another job that might turn into a better opportunity, they won’t deal with your constantly changing availability.
companies don’t even have to worry about that shit anymore. things are so perilous that there will always be people desperate enough for anything no matter how shitty the conditions
I work a job where I’m covering other shifts a fair amount as well as working doubles. I also do not get Holidays/any extra days off. Prior to this I was in a salaried corporate middle management job, so for the past 20 years I’ve worked 55+ hours a week on average. I can tell you that for this particular job, yes, their goal is to destroy your health so that they get a few good years out of you and then you’ll leave because it’s too hard on you. That way they never have to worry about paying their workers (outside of a small percentage with high fortitude) wages that are much above baseline.
The second bullet point is called the DuPont Schedule and has been around for decades
Too tired to look for a better job?
They want to keep production rolling continuously to avoid the lag of shutting down and starting the machinery back up again, but they also know how few people are around who’ll willingly work the graveyard shift so they’re basically trying to package it into the job no matter what so that they don’t have to negotiate for volunteers, because now it’s part of the job description contract you signed!
Have fun keeping machines running with enough workers, or when accidents happen because workers are too tired.
Correct. I walked off a job for missing mandatory overtime (12 hours, 7 days), for having dared had the flu, probably from lack of sleep and sun, with a doctor’s note. Went straight to another factory, explained what happened (this was a Wednesday), was told to rest until Monday. Started on Monday five eight hour days, a hiring bonus that covered my lost wages, and immediately made more production. That factory only ran one shift, too. They knew the value of happy, healthy employees. Unfortunately, that happened in the late eighties. So sorry for factory worker abuse now.
Unfortunately, that happened in the late eighties.
People talk about the greed of the 80s, but it was paradise compared to corporations now.
Yes.
Possibly so they don’t have to pay night shift more?
If anyone’s willing to put up with that schedule you might as well try for being an air traffic controller. Way higher salary.
Worth noting that ATC is unusual in that there is both a maximum age that you can start (30) as well as a mandatory retirement age (56).
Sure, as long as you fit the desired demographic profile
Can’t unionize if you don’t have the energy to fight.
Can’t unionize if you don’t have the energy to fight.
The Indeed reviews for this specific company and location state that they already have a union. One review states:
“Union is garbage unless the top guys like you.”
So, their union is not doing anything to prevent the insane rotating shift schedule.
If the union bosses are pricks or shills then you don’t have a union, but a glorified HR department. Something we’ve seen lately is that the unions still have to fight to get what they rightfully deserve. Unfortunately the fight to unionize is only the start of it.
Yep, you probably end up working with different groups of people too also making unionization harder.
Actually, that would make it even easier, in theory. You’d meet more of your coworkers and would be able to more easily spread the word and discuss pros/cons, etc.
How would you figure out who the plant is?
By not giving a shit. If they are spying on you, they are scared and you have all of the power.
No my guy, the hero doesn’t always win in the real world. This is where you get placed on PIP or start having performance issues, or get a promotion to a different team where there is a clash with your new manager.
Given any opportunity I will always be for a union but good damn if the cards aren’t stacked against unions.
That’s the difference between us. I’ve always found a way to get by and any work place or so called boss that wasn’t worthy of my time or energy, didn’t get that investment.
Maybe I was just raised different but I am more than willing to tell someone to fuck off if/when its needed, it of course starts more diplomatically than a literal middle finger but I was never afraid to escalate to an actual “fuck off, I’m out of here” when it was needed. It’s one reason why I work for myself, I only have myself and my bills to answer to.
There is a growing movement towards unions and other forms of collective bargaining. If you want to keep being afraid of your own shadow, that’s fine but don’t you dare do others the disservice of pushing them away from taking control of their own destinies.
Productivity. It gives the company and increase productivity when you have fresh-ish workers vs burnt out ones in the “undesirable shifts” and have to pay them a fuck ton more to work those shifts to compensate those who have to constantly work those other shifts. But rotating shifts like this really screws up worker health and their circadian rhythm but hey, more profit for the company.
I work a “9-5,” which is basically remote meetings or email from 7-8:30 while I try to eat something and get my kids dressed, work through lunch so I can take “lunch” at the end of the day to be able to pick my kids up in time, go home and finish emails and hope to wrap up by dinner.
How people are working schedules like this is beyond me. I’m going insane as it is, and my job is “cushy.” My doctor tells me I need to work less and create less stress in my life or I’m going to start bleeding out of my ears, and he looks more tired than I do.
Everyone where I work is scared to quit for fear of working more hours on a worse schedule for less money. Everyone at he top seems to work remote at will and forces us into meetings about how to reduce burnout like they do, which is apparently by working less, having more schedule freedom, and then bragging about it by holding meetings about how to live more like they do, which would get all of us fired within a month.
I wish we abolished the rich already
At this point I"m sure the media only associates religion with crazy people because they want people to stop believing in souls altogether.
Nah, pretty sure it’s because so many religious people are just kinda crazy
Yeah, they do weird things like believe in souls
Kia plant I worked at for 4 years was like this. Countless wrecks after shift change, untold divorces and ruined lives due to never being able to plan anything. Terrible
The rotating to an earlier shift is even more insane. Maybe I’m wrong but I imagine almost everyone finds it easier to push through and stay up later than try to go to sleep 7 hours early.
I would assume it’s because each hour an expensive machine is not being used is going to waste and if machine goes obsolete in 10 years and being replaced - there is a difference between it doing 30k hours of work and 90k. I’m not sure if that’s the reason, but that would make sense to me personally.
Youre right in terms of using the machines. However, it doesn’t make any difference for the machine who operates it. If people operate it while doing their normal first shift like they do every week or if they operate it in the third shift, because they have it this week makes zero difference for the machine. Rotating shifts has absolutely zero benefits and destroy your workforce.
Thats what I’m confused about, if they have staff to run it all the time, why would they schedule people like this except to make their lives more miserable? I do know bosses love that though.
Edit: Someone pointed out people don’t want to work only the swing shift or night, so they schedule like this to keep full crews, I guess that makes sense but it still sucks
That’s true, but rotating less frequently would be better for everyone. As example rotating every month has the same effect, but allows your worker to get a good rhythm.
