I'm nearly certain he believed/believes in the Britannia Unchained folks type nonsense. Brexit, then ECHR exit, deregulate like crazy and exploit everyone and their mum. So long as GDP goes up.
That's where the exploitation comes in. You cut every cost so that the cost is lower to make up for it. Cut taxes, employee salaries, social welfare, pension, environmental protections, legal protections, net profits go up.
After all more value add, and increased production is more important than the actual human beings this value add was originally intended to benefit.
Why not both? I've met my share of idiots measuring productivity wrong, and there needs to be a chain of idiots all the way up to let this escalate to a lawsuit (chains of idiots I've also seen). But I've also seen cruelty on occasion, and you need to have no empathy with your workers to have made this call in the first place.
It could be that they are complete psychopaths with no respect for human life, or it could be that a minority of employees abuse toilet breaks but labour protection laws make them unfireable.
Coincidentally in Eastern Germany they (or so I heard) had a "keys to the toilet" trope, meaning that whoever managed to obtain any kind of position (being entrusted with controlling access to a vital facility) could and often would then go and take advantage of it by expecting bribes-in-kind from people.
Not contradicting the second part, but I want to emphasise that they are different things. Slavery (and capitalism) can be extremely inefficient and simultaneously wildly profitable.
And 68% of American adults don't even know it [0]. Not to mention all the foreign slavery in the supply chain, or all the slavery we've directly enabled by 'toppling dictators' who wouldn't give us their shit.
Like someone mentioned already, it's a demonstration of power. But it goes well beyond that: it's about domination, discipline, constant monitoring, the reduction of individual agency, humiliation (you need permission for a basic human need) etc. The labour process theory says that that management systems are not only about coordinating work but about securing control over workers, that the drive for efficiency is also a drive for managerial control, including monopolising judgement and pacing work from above [0]
In many cases it's an intentional dehumanisation of the workers - they're seen as assets or numbers, as a type of machines that should be worked to their maximum physical and mental capacity and that are not owed any dignity [x], as if work is nothing more than mechanics. Foucault (in his "Discipline and Punish") speak about how disciplinary power produces "docile bodies" by making bodies more useful and easier to control, breaking functions and movements into optimised segments. [1] This is consistent with how the capitalist workplace normally operates, where employers want to control workers' time and actions, not just the finished product. We could see the toilet restriction just as an extreme, contemporary expression of the same thing. [2] For example, dodgy Amazon does that by making bathroom use hard and uses strict worker monitoring mainly as control/discipline thing, a sort of integrated control architecture (crazy pace + surveillance + comparison + dystopian ranking and whatnot) [3][6]
For all his faults, Heidegger's point (especially in his writing on technology) is relevant here, as he claims that modern systems tend to treat everything as a resource to be ordered, measured, and used. He says that things and people get turned into "standing-reserve" (basically stock to be managed) [4]
Many employers believe that loo breaks should happen in a workers' own time [5], which is both ridiculous and an shirking of responsibility towards society from businesses (which has always been the case).
What is certain is that this is certainly not as a serious productivity argument, despite what predatory companies like Amazon claim [z], because this kind of treatment can have (and often does, like the article shared above shows as well) severe consequences for health, dignity, and productivity. [7]
The fact that regulatory bodies like OSHA in the US, and especially in the EU, recognise the abuse pattern shows it's not just anecdote or rhetoric (like the Economist and similar papers often suggest), or that it applies to countries that aren't as developed as we like to think we are in the US and the UK, but a real issue that's rather common.
There were two reasons the Court of Appeal hearing held that the complaint could be heard in UK courts:
1. They relate to alleged harm caused by decisions and policies made centrally by Dyson UK companies and personnel
2. There was substantial risk that they would not be able to access justice in the Malaysian courts
Both seem reasonable. The UK personnel may have engaged in an activity they knew were illegal. Foreign citizen can generally sue in another country, if they must establish that the court has jurisdiction over the matter -- which they seem to have done.
If anything, it should make the anti-slavery mandates of manufacturers, particularly fashion, sit up straight.
The fashion industry does feel like such a big, endless duality of incredibly wealthy people doing little difficult work and having loads of awards and shows and fun events, and factories full of people in faraway countries barely subsisting.
Is it? Can we be a just society if we allow any company to close their eyes to bad things in their supply chain? Should we not just call this "failure of due diligence"?
Otherwise none of our environmental and worker protection laws make any sense. Anyone can just do the unethical thing and move everything to a country that does not care about the rights we have set over here. Do our values not apply to any human? Including to those that happen to live outside our rough geographical area?
Why not push it all the way to the consumer? Why shouldn't you be liable if you buy a wrench, but actually the worker who made it was mistreated? That would make people think twice before buying products of unknown provenance and supporting slavery.
In the UK, if a homeowner (customer) pays a company to clear domestic rubbish, and the company illegally fly-tips it, it's the homeowner who gets chased. The law requires them to check that the company is legit.
> Anyone can just do the unethical thing and move everything to a country that does not care about the rights we have set over here
Well, instead of using North Sea oil in the UK we buy it from Norway, who got it from the North Sea. We have hilariously high energy prices because of green energy policies, so we import more and more things from other countries that have workable energy policies.
The law is an expression of our desire that our industry doesn't exploit forced labour. The fact that this mostly only counts when the forced labour takes place in our own country is a weird historical detail, long outdated by globalisation.
Either you think that forced labour in Malaysia is OK in which case this seems bizarre, or you think it's not OK in which case we need a way for the law to discourage forced labour in Malaysia. The only way it can do that is through the supply chain.
James Dyson advocated for Brexit on the basis of supporting British industry, and shortly afterwards migrated the company HQ to Singapore.
And to prove it is possible to have a profitable vacuum cleaner manufacturing business that makes its machines in the UK - long live Henry!
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2021/jul/24/how-hen...
And unlike Dyson they are almost indestructible!
Few years back (before covid) I splashed out on a fancy Dyson. Worst vacuum cleaner ever. I'm sporting a Vax now, quite good, even runs VMS.
Ha! Very good and unlike say Windows it doesn't suck.
What's VMS?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenVMS
Great article. Especially loved this
> “I love you,” Jess said above his cot one evening before lights out. “I love Henry,” came the reply.
We have a pre-schooler and am happy to confirm that our Henry is a favourite member of the family.
Just as important he's sufficiently strong to withstand our boy's curiosity :)
I'm nearly certain he believed/believes in the Britannia Unchained folks type nonsense. Brexit, then ECHR exit, deregulate like crazy and exploit everyone and their mum. So long as GDP goes up.
Not sure how enforced self-sanctions make GDP go up.
That's where the exploitation comes in. You cut every cost so that the cost is lower to make up for it. Cut taxes, employee salaries, social welfare, pension, environmental protections, legal protections, net profits go up.
After all more value add, and increased production is more important than the actual human beings this value add was originally intended to benefit.
I understand that there's a precedent here, but isn't normally the precedent for the opposite in contract law?
And if UK is precedent based, how come the previous precedents don't apply here?
I agree that no toilet breaks is cruel, but the problem here is knowing about the supplier using it?
There was not much about the legal bases in the article.
Why do employers deny their employees toilet breaks? Do they actually believe it makes the employees more productive, or are they just cruel people?
Why not both? I've met my share of idiots measuring productivity wrong, and there needs to be a chain of idiots all the way up to let this escalate to a lawsuit (chains of idiots I've also seen). But I've also seen cruelty on occasion, and you need to have no empathy with your workers to have made this call in the first place.
What was that recent Microsoft quote, something about "we believe with Copilot one developer can produce 1m lines of code per month"?
It's a demonstration of power. Which is exactly why it needs fighting against, because these people (i.e. Dyson) must not have power.
Not actually Dyson, one of their parts suppliers.
The significance of this ruling is that a British company can be held liable for its suppliers' treatment of workers in anther country.
But why only demonstrate power over 12 people and not the alleged 1200+ that work there?
Tell me when Justice condemns a corrupt billionaire to piss himself.
There are countries where white collar office workers are banned from having drinks, including even a bottle of water at their desks.
You'd be amazed what is legal or at least normalized/tolerated when regulations are weak.
It could be that they are complete psychopaths with no respect for human life, or it could be that a minority of employees abuse toilet breaks but labour protection laws make them unfireable.
people who lack imagination. Its much easier to believe that people are out to get you as opposed to facing your own failed decisions.
Coincidentally in Eastern Germany they (or so I heard) had a "keys to the toilet" trope, meaning that whoever managed to obtain any kind of position (being entrusted with controlling access to a vital facility) could and often would then go and take advantage of it by expecting bribes-in-kind from people.
In the case of James Dyson it's almost certainly pure malice. Horrible man.
Employers are not always very smart. It took humanity half a millennium to realise slavery is inefficient and ditch it. Go figure.
Slavery wasn't inefficient and was highly profitable for slaveholders.
Not contradicting the second part, but I want to emphasise that they are different things. Slavery (and capitalism) can be extremely inefficient and simultaneously wildly profitable.
Surely it's meaningless to compare the efficiency of slavery vs other systems, since your set of resources is completely different.
You could if you look at e.g. the crop yield (ceteris paribus). I don't know why you would, because what sane conclusion could you draw from it?
Not as profitable for robot owners today
Except the slaveholders entire life revolved around managing slaves and worrying about slave revolts.
No. If you actually read the history, many slaveholder delegates management works to slaves
So not much has changed really?
Try 7 or 8 millennia. The Atlantic slave trade was just a rounding error in all the slaves that have ever been.
Slavery is unfortunately still a thing in too many parts of the world.
Including the US.
And 68% of American adults don't even know it [0]. Not to mention all the foreign slavery in the supply chain, or all the slavery we've directly enabled by 'toppling dictators' who wouldn't give us their shit.
0 - https://www.merkley.senate.gov/is-slavery-still-legal-in-the...
Is that why slavery was banned?
Like someone mentioned already, it's a demonstration of power. But it goes well beyond that: it's about domination, discipline, constant monitoring, the reduction of individual agency, humiliation (you need permission for a basic human need) etc. The labour process theory says that that management systems are not only about coordinating work but about securing control over workers, that the drive for efficiency is also a drive for managerial control, including monopolising judgement and pacing work from above [0]
In many cases it's an intentional dehumanisation of the workers - they're seen as assets or numbers, as a type of machines that should be worked to their maximum physical and mental capacity and that are not owed any dignity [x], as if work is nothing more than mechanics. Foucault (in his "Discipline and Punish") speak about how disciplinary power produces "docile bodies" by making bodies more useful and easier to control, breaking functions and movements into optimised segments. [1] This is consistent with how the capitalist workplace normally operates, where employers want to control workers' time and actions, not just the finished product. We could see the toilet restriction just as an extreme, contemporary expression of the same thing. [2] For example, dodgy Amazon does that by making bathroom use hard and uses strict worker monitoring mainly as control/discipline thing, a sort of integrated control architecture (crazy pace + surveillance + comparison + dystopian ranking and whatnot) [3][6]
For all his faults, Heidegger's point (especially in his writing on technology) is relevant here, as he claims that modern systems tend to treat everything as a resource to be ordered, measured, and used. He says that things and people get turned into "standing-reserve" (basically stock to be managed) [4]
Many employers believe that loo breaks should happen in a workers' own time [5], which is both ridiculous and an shirking of responsibility towards society from businesses (which has always been the case).
What is certain is that this is certainly not as a serious productivity argument, despite what predatory companies like Amazon claim [z], because this kind of treatment can have (and often does, like the article shared above shows as well) severe consequences for health, dignity, and productivity. [7]
The fact that regulatory bodies like OSHA in the US, and especially in the EU, recognise the abuse pattern shows it's not just anecdote or rhetoric (like the Economist and similar papers often suggest), or that it applies to countries that aren't as developed as we like to think we are in the US and the UK, but a real issue that's rather common.
Also relevant: https://www.un.org/en/observances/toilet-day
[0] https://academic.oup.com/cpe/article/43/1/61/7684997
[1] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/foucault/
[2] https://academic.oup.com/past/article-abstract/38/1/56/14546...?
[3] https://cued.uic.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/219/2023/10/Pa...
[4] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/heidegger/
[5] https://www.tuc.org.uk/research-analysis/reports/give-us-loo...
[6] https://tribunemag.co.uk/2023/09/they-treat-us-worse-than-an...
[7] https://sif.org.uk/why-workplace-toilet-access-matters/
[x] https://www.theguardian.com/money/2018/nov/19/thousands-uk-w...
Why is Dyson being sued for actions taken by their suppliers? This is setting a bizarre precedent.
There were two reasons the Court of Appeal hearing held that the complaint could be heard in UK courts:
1. They relate to alleged harm caused by decisions and policies made centrally by Dyson UK companies and personnel
2. There was substantial risk that they would not be able to access justice in the Malaysian courts
Both seem reasonable. The UK personnel may have engaged in an activity they knew were illegal. Foreign citizen can generally sue in another country, if they must establish that the court has jurisdiction over the matter -- which they seem to have done.
If anything, it should make the anti-slavery mandates of manufacturers, particularly fashion, sit up straight.
The fashion industry does feel like such a big, endless duality of incredibly wealthy people doing little difficult work and having loads of awards and shows and fun events, and factories full of people in faraway countries barely subsisting.
Is it? Can we be a just society if we allow any company to close their eyes to bad things in their supply chain? Should we not just call this "failure of due diligence"?
Otherwise none of our environmental and worker protection laws make any sense. Anyone can just do the unethical thing and move everything to a country that does not care about the rights we have set over here. Do our values not apply to any human? Including to those that happen to live outside our rough geographical area?
Why not push it all the way to the consumer? Why shouldn't you be liable if you buy a wrench, but actually the worker who made it was mistreated? That would make people think twice before buying products of unknown provenance and supporting slavery.
In the UK, if a homeowner (customer) pays a company to clear domestic rubbish, and the company illegally fly-tips it, it's the homeowner who gets chased. The law requires them to check that the company is legit.
> Anyone can just do the unethical thing and move everything to a country that does not care about the rights we have set over here
Well, instead of using North Sea oil in the UK we buy it from Norway, who got it from the North Sea. We have hilariously high energy prices because of green energy policies, so we import more and more things from other countries that have workable energy policies.
So - yeah.
No, it's bizarre that this isn't normal.
The law is an expression of our desire that our industry doesn't exploit forced labour. The fact that this mostly only counts when the forced labour takes place in our own country is a weird historical detail, long outdated by globalisation.
Either you think that forced labour in Malaysia is OK in which case this seems bizarre, or you think it's not OK in which case we need a way for the law to discourage forced labour in Malaysia. The only way it can do that is through the supply chain.
If you can't globalise without maintaining standards then don't globalise. If you do, that's your liability.
Otherwise it's "just slavery with extra steps"