8 years ago
10
In A Sneaky Move, Scott Walker and Wisconsin GOP Take Away Workers’ Right To Weekends Off
In a move designed to turn the clock in Wisconsin back to the 19th Century, Scott Walker and Republicans in the state legislature have included a provision in the budget that takes away a worker's right to the weekend off.
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Seems like I've heard of a day of rest somewhere. In a book, I think. A pretty popular one... especially Scott Walker and friends. One that they are keen on making into the sole law of the land. Now what was the name of that book?
Its at least internally consistent with the conservative beliefs. They see this as removing an unnecessary restriction.
Yep. That and corporations are more important than people.
I'm not even sure it's that. I suspect the supporters of this feel something along the lines of:
I'm not entirely sure I agree with it, but if it came with strong minimum wage and overtime guarantees (I have no idea what the situation is for that in Wisconsin, but I don't hear good things), I'm not sure I disagree either.
If it didn't come after so many attempts (and successes) at taking rights away from workers, I might be able to see that as a possibility. But, rightly or wrongly, after so many episodes, I just can't trust that they had anything in mind other than taking from the worker to give to the employer.
Voluntary overtime has never been restricted by government, nor has negotiating work schedules. It's the obligatory overtime and insane work schedules that have been regulated.
I haven't read any more than just the linked post, but isn't that exactly the issue? From my reading of that post, the current situation is that each employee in Wisconsin must have a 24 consecutive hour block every week that they are not scheduled to work, and this provision is allowing employees to waive that requirement.
I'm mostly playing devil's advocate here, but why should a schedule of 4 hours M-F, 8 hours Saturday, Sunday be explicitly disallowed?
Employees have always had the option of volunteering to work four hours Monday through Friday and then eight hours on both Saturday and Sunday. Wisconsin is proposing to take away the voluntary aspect of it and allow employers to make it a condition of employment. In other words, they can schedule you for those hours whether or not you agree to it.
Is the provision just worded in a way to be intentionally misleading then?
My reading of that is that currently an employee could not receive the work schedule I was describing as their normally scheduled work hours, although they could volunteer to cover a shift to work those same hours.
It's worded in such a way to obfuscate, yes. Under current law employers can't compel employees to work a seven or more day shift.They could always accept employees who volunteer to work multiple days in a row.