[LAF] [Fwd: [anarchy_africa] Companies That Make the Employees Pay for their Errors]

Wed Nov 28 12:44:18 UTC 2007

Has anyone read anything on how common this practice is? In my  
experiences of retail and those sorts of things there was always an  
'acceptable margin of error' that was allowed. If you were outside of  
this you received a warning, and after certain number of warnings you  
were fired. In other words, if you fucked something up there were  
consequences, but I don't ever remember their being attempt to have  
employees cover the difference of the mistake.

BTW, what country are we talking about in this example? What's a 150  
NIS worth?

Cheers
Stevphen

On Nov 27, 2007, at 7:40 AM, Volodya wrote:

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> The day my son flew to the US, the woman who sold him his ticket  
> called
> the house asking for him.
>
> I told her he was en route to the States.
>
> She told me that a mistake had occurred with the amount he was charged
> for the ticket and that he owed "Issta" another 150 NIS.
>
> I asked her how that happened. She said she made an error.
>
> I asked if they have anything in writing saying that he still owes  
> them
> money. She answered in the negative. In fact, the receipt indicates  
> that
> he paid in full.
>
> I asked my son about it and he said that he thought a mistake  
> occurred,
> but not to pay it as it was the ticketing clerk who made the mistake.
>
> I called her back and said: "If you made a mistake and the receipt  
> says
> my son paid in full, then you have no legal charge against him. Would
> you pay your local grocer if he one day said to you that you owe  
> him 150
> NIS but had no proof that you in fact owed the money? It's a bad
> precedent."
>
> She answered: "I understand, but if you don't remit the money; I will
> have to pay the difference out of my pocket."
>
> That pulled the worker solidarity strings of my heart as two memories
> came back to me. In the first, I was a 15-year-old worker in  
> McDonald's,
> my first job. A quick change artist came to my counter and ripped me
> off. The rip off was deducted from my salary, as was the amount  
> that my
> cash register was once *over*.  Fast forward six years. I am  
> working as
> a cocktail waitress at the Fountainbleu Hotel on Miami Beach once got
> bumped into by a customer as I was carrying a full tray of drinks that
> went all over the floor. *I* had to pay the full price of those  
> drinks,
> which was considerably more than I made that night of eight hours  
> on my
> feet.   I sent the check - which the company said should be made  
> out to
> "Issta".
>
> I also sent a letter to the main branch of "Issta" telling them that I
> am utterly disgusted with their policy of making workers pay for  
> errors
> when they make so much money hand-over-fist.
>
> Those in a Capitalist state of mind and will agree with the company
> policy. "Hey, she made the mistake. She has to pay for it. Right?"
>
> Wrong.
>
> A simple clerk earns enough working for a company like "Issta" to live
> an upper middle class lifestyle after two hours of work per day on the
> average. All the rest goes into the company's pocket.
>
> That's right. A full 75%, at least, of your work time is for the  
> benefit
> of the company, not to your benefit. If your boss is a real SOB,  
> even by
> Capitalist standards, and forces you to work overtime, without
> reimbursing you time-and-a-half, and some don't reimburse at all, that
> too goes to their advantage, obviously. When I worked in a "Telma"  
> food
> factory*, the workers were forced to work overtime, *LOT* of overtime
> and still earned so little that they had to get an income supplement
> from National Insurance.
>
> *(I've worked as a counter girl, waitress, factory worker and lowly
> clerk at about 50 low-class various jobs despite my fancy shmancy
> education, which, as Jim Croce said so very eloquently "prepared me  
> for
> life in the Middle Ages", because my heart is with the workers and I
> wanted to know their lives first hand. I've done jobs that involved  
> more
> "prestige" too, including teaching and conducting research, and found
> that, with one notable exception when I tutored at a boarding  
> school for
> asthmatic youngsters with a prince of a General Manager and a dream
> staff, that those "respectable" jobs always involved the moral
> degradation of shutting up and covering up, which I could not  
> conscience
> and also paid far below the worth of the workers.)
>
> Take into account too that when a worker "reimburses" hir (hir is the
> accepted non-gender specific form of both his and her) boss for a
> mistake zie (zie is the gender non-specific form of both he and she)
> doesn't pay the net cost of the good or service, but the resale cost.
>
> I realize that this abuse of workers is so very much the norm that  
> it is
> taken as a given. As I wrote, I have been a victim of it. I also  
> realize
> that it is the corporations that determine what people are generally
> made to think is right and wrong and they train people how to react
> emotionally to them via the mass media, but this practice is an abuse
> and must be stopped. People have the right to make honest mistakes.
> Don't the owners and bosses tell themselves their only human when they
> make mistakes? Too bad they don't tell themselves they're only human
> when they relate to their workers and set company policy.
>
> Solidarity ya'll, D2
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
>
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Stevphen Shukaitis
http://stevphen.mahost.org
http://www.constituentimagination.net
http://www.autonomedia.org
http://info.interactivist.net

AIM: foucaultisdead

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