Employers want to control our lifestyles (even if it doesn't interfere with work)

[Domela Nieuwenhuis]

In todays newspaper i read a piece about employers wanting to be able to take action in an employee's lifestyle, even if it doesn't interfere with work!

Read it here (only in Dutch): Werkgevers willen ongezonde levensstijl werknemers aanpakken (http://www.rtvnoord.nl/artikel/artikel.asp?p=114325)

The article says that in a survey, about 60% of northern-dutch emplyers want to be able to interfere in an employees unhealthy lifestyle.
If an employees lifestyle becomes interferend with his work, 94% wants to be able to intervene.


I think that's the most utter capitalist-bullcrap!
They may not and can never be able to interfere!

Your thoughts please...

[Lynx]

An employer can require you to stop smoking, but what you do in your personal life, on your own time, is none of their business.

[Yuppie Grinder]

Yea this shit really infuriates me. Whenever this sort of thing comes up in conversation some servile worm will say "The employer has a right to protect the image of his company!".

[Domela Nieuwenhuis]

I mean, i'm not totally ok with smoking and heavy drinking, but they have reached the edge.
It all comes back to the same thing, they want the opportunity to let us make more money for them. Ergo, we become a better capitalim-sustaining and -generating slaves!

Fuck them!

[atom]

Completely agree. Its like Bloomberg saying workers cant drink supersized soft drinks. What right do they have to control our personal choices?

[RebelDog]

An employer can require you to stop smoking, but what you do in your personal life, on your own time, is none of their business.

Is it? Where I work they perform 'random' drugs tests and they monitor facebook by their own admission.

[Questionable]

Is it? Where I work they perform 'random' drugs tests and they monitor facebook by their own admission.

Same here. The worst part is the amount of victim-blaming that goes along with it. Yes, it's your fault for partying with your friends on your own time and wanting to share pictures of your personal life with those same personal friends, not your employer's fault for literally spying on you. Such bootlicking.

[Rugged Collectivist]

This shit isn't new. Ever heard of Fordlandia (http://www.cracked.com/article_18947_the-6-most-insane-cities-ever-planned_p2.html)?

I also remember reading about a guy who set up a town for his workers, complete with store... that only took the custom money he printed. Since he payed his workers in his own money, which was worthless everywhere else, they couldn't afford to leave.

Now that I think about it, that may have been Henry Ford too. Henry Ford was crazy.

[Domela Nieuwenhuis]

Is it? Where I work they perform 'random' drugs tests and they monitor facebook by their own admission.


Same here. The worst part is the amount of victim-blaming that goes along with it. Yes, it's your fault for partying with your friends on your own time and wanting to share pictures of your personal life with those same personal friends, not your employer's fault for literally spying on you. Such bootlicking.


What the hell kind of a job do you guys do!? :confused:

If my boss asked me i'd laugh my brains out!

[Regicollis]

A story like this demonstrates how capitalists look at workers. They see their employees as their property.

Another part of this trend is the workplace health bullshit that is gaining popularity among employers here. Workers are required to do workout at work and the employers use peer pressure to get employees to quit smoking and loose weight. The media treats this wave as a wonderful thing - a win-win situation - for everyone and turns the blind eye at all the repressive aspects of this trend.

Yet another way this view of employees as property manifests itself is the amount of emotional fondling the bosses subject workers too. In many fields of work turning up in the morning and doing your work is not enough - you also have to take part in "self-improvement" schemes - understood as self-improvement on the bosses' terms.

I have nothing against healthy living, exercise, and various forms of therapy. What I'm against is forcing people to do these things.

[piet11111]

I mean, i'm not totally ok with smoking and heavy drinking,

If they do those things in their own time its not of the bosses business unless if someone comes in hung over and becomes a threat because of his impaired ability to operate machinery.



This shit isn't new. Ever heard of Fordlandia (http://www.cracked.com/article_18947_the-6-most-insane-cities-ever-planned_p2.html)?

I also remember reading about a guy who set up a town for his workers, complete with store... that only took the custom money he printed. Since he payed his workers in his own money, which was worthless everywhere else, they couldn't afford to leave.

Now that I think about it, that may have been Henry Ford too. Henry Ford was crazy.

Many bosses did such things and in the early days of capitalism it was common to live in a home you rent from the factory to drink in the company bar and to do your grocery's in the company store.

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

This shit isn't new. Ever heard of Fordlandia (http://www.cracked.com/article_18947_the-6-most-insane-cities-ever-planned_p2.html)?

I also remember reading about a guy who set up a town for his workers, complete with store... that only took the custom money he printed. Since he payed his workers in his own money, which was worthless everywhere else, they couldn't afford to leave.

Now that I think about it, that may have been Henry Ford too. Henry Ford was crazy.

Mining companies used to do this. The houses and stores would all be company owned and the workers would be paid in company vouchers that could only be redeemed at those company stores. This would prevent them from being able to easily find a new job since in reality they were perpetually broke. It also made them easier to deal with during labor disputes because the company could literally kick them and their families out of their homes and then starve them into submission.

Getting rid of that kind of practice was one of the main goals behind a lot of the labor struggles in the Appalachians at the beginning of the last century.

[Ocean Seal]

Go into work with a bottle of vodka and a spliff and tell the bosses that the revolution has come.

[Lynx]

Is it? Where I work they perform 'random' drugs tests and they monitor facebook by their own admission.
I wouldn't tolerate that unless I was being paid a ton of money, or found myself working for IBM.

[Domela Nieuwenhuis]

Hell, i'm a mechanic...nobody orders me shit!