Work so hard you cripple yourself

[Croolis]

This article reminds me of the old phrase 'beatings will continue until morale improves'

How long until warehouse work is fully automated though? I gather 'dark warehouses' are springing up all over Europe.

I think this might be a good time to open a discussion about a basic universal wage given to every adult over 18 . Sooner or later, there's more automated jobs than people. The argument that more jobs of just a different type will get created and simply replace the lost jobs I think holds no water at all. My job, for example, will likely be toast before I get to retirement age and I'll end up just like those old boys that I laid off. Can't wait. Should have been a plumber, a spark, some kind of tradesman delivering services to the domestic sector. Those sort of jobs can't be replaced by robots easily, AI and robotics won't be that good for an extremely long time. But how many jobs like that can one society contain?

But things will become problematic sooner than that. We'll all need free money. I wonder if capitalist ideals of constant economic growth will last more than 5 minutes as soon as folks begin to realise that, for the vast bulk of the population, there's nowhere to go with their aspiration.

The rich folks will likely have us all gassed and used as fertiliser for their vinyards before you can say Ayn Rand.

 

[Tris]

Personally I think a universal wage, tied to activity providing a social good or ongoing training/education, and tapered according to earnings would be a great idea.
How to fund it is a whole other argument though

 

[deema]

I'd respectfully suggest you are confusing things and in doing so undoing your own argument as age is a protected characteristic.

Well, I can’t remember if your a legal beaver, but the advise was provided by Eversheds and specifically their HR team. I had to use Eversheds as the company was listed in the New York Stock-exchange and we had to be seen to be using one of the top five legal firms. I’m going back 8 years now, and one thing I know is that the legal HR rules just get more convoluted as we have every ruling and never gets back to what is common sense.

Age is a protected characteristic that works both ways. You cannot ask a younger person to do a job that’s hard physical work and discriminate against them by allowing the oldies to do the lighter work. We already did job rotation to ease the burden but we were no longer able to utilise the custom and practice of giving the ‘old man’ jobs to those who served us well for decades.

 

[Blackswanwood]

Well, I can’t remember if your a legal beaver, but the advise was provided by Eversheds and specifically their HR team. I had to use Eversheds as the company was listed in the New York Stock-exchange and we had to be seen to be using one of the top five legal firms. I’m going back 8 years now, and one thing I know is that the legal HR rules just get more convoluted as we have every ruling and never gets back to what is common sense.

Age is a protected characteristic that works both ways. You cannot ask a younger person to do a job that’s hard physical work and discriminate against them by allowing the oldies to do the lighter work. We already did job rotation to ease the burden but we were no longer able to utilise the custom and practice of giving the ‘old man’ jobs to those who served us well for decades.

Perhaps you have forgotten some of the detail of their advice if it was 8 years ago. Fundamentally though the "customer and practice" that you describe in the last sentence is discriminatory even if your intentions as an employer were altruistic.

Another way to look at it is that the Equality Act removed the ability of an employer to force people to retire at a certain age but the employer retains the right to still expect a full contribution from them. Arguably therefore it balances the position of the employer and employee.

 

[Trainee neophyte]

This was titled as "Government supporting the economy", but seems to fit in the thread

The next one is a fine example of where employment is headed for "everyone else"...

 

[Spectric]

Old age will get everyone sooner or later providing they live long enough and in some jobs why not use the older people with the skills and experience to teach these skills to others. Even an old bricklayer can teach because he will not be expected to do a hard days graft building a complete wall, just demonstrate how to lay bricks and layout corners etc. What you don't want is really old fireman because some jobs are going to be physical and there is no way round it but then they do get a pension at a younger age.

 

[heimlaga]

I have come across men in their 70-ies and one man in his early 80-ies doing onsite carpentry or bricklaying. However they have all been specialists doing the more advanced jobs few others could do. Where managers had a simple choice. Let the old men do it their way at their pace or wait 11 months and pay three times more for a speciality contractor coming from abroad for the job only to prove his unability and leave it half finished.
Run of the mill construction work is so specialised today and so hard on the body that men get physically worn out in their 40-ies. Even in Finland where unions are way more powerful and workers have way more rights than in UK or Australia. A human body just cannot hang drywall or tie rebar day in and day out without severe damage.

Myself I am 43 and doing speciality work onsite. Still considered a youngster by most who do what I do. Plodding along at my own pace using my own tools because no employer owns the required tools. Marvelling at the madhouse around me.
In Österbotten we have an old tradition that a skilled specialist worker is an equal of the manager. With the difference that the worker is responsible for getting the job done and the manager is responsible for the financial part while both depend on the other for a livelyhood.
Only a few weeks ago I had to teach a big city manager a bit of a lesson. His greatest worry was that I was too slow and too expensive and didn't behave quite as expected. While I calmly pointed out that he and his subcontractor had deliberately chosen to make me spend 11 weeks on an 8 or possibly 9 week project through inefficient management and formal hindrances and delayed deliveries of materials and lack of lifting help. He looked a bit funny. I said I am from Österbotten where we are equals.

 

[Ed Weber]

Well, when I first read the article, I didn't think ageism or poorly written regulations or a political party. All I got from it was corporate greed, pure and simple. Boiling every task down to an assigned amount of time with no leeway for anything other than the task.
Nothing more than a modern workhouse. I'm sure when the robots take over, everything will be fine.