Forbes What Your Boss Doesn’t Want You To Know
This attorney also has a blog http://employeeatty.blogspot.com/
Screw You Guys, I’m Going Home
What You Need To Know Before You Scream “I Quit,” Get Fired, Or Decide to Sue the Bastards
The ten points are worth reading and probably re-reading numerous times..
Fear and intimidation can be BACKED DOWN .. by knowledge of the rules..
Filed under: General Problems
The author of the book gives a different interpretation regarding restroom breaks.
“I mentioned this when I appeared on NPR this week on the Tropical Currents show. The show was a call-in format, so imagine my surprise when a caller told me he worked for OSHA. He called for another reason, but I asked him about the bathroom breaks issue. He advised me that OSHA directs all issues regarding breaks to the Department of Labor.
That’s odd, because the Fair Labor Standards Act, administered by DOL, doesn’t require any breaks whatsoever. So an employee seeking help calls OSHA and says, “My employer doesn’t let me take bathroom breaks. I have to pee in the potted plant behind where I stand when I have to go.” Instead of helping, OSHA directs them to an agency that can’t help. And they wonder why people are frustrated with government.”
I note that the OSHA standard was issued in 1998. But, as the author states, if you call OSHA regarding your company not allowing you a restroom break, they defer you to DOL and DOL doesn’t require breaks.
After reading quite a bit of the authors blog, it appears to me that most employees, whatever the reason, are usually screwed when it comes to issues with their employers. This country is pathetic in its protection of workers. The author believes that there is a new wave of employee protests coming. We have seen a bit with regard to Wal-Mart and some long shoremen on the Pacific coast. I hope I see the day when pharmacists come out from the behind the counter and protest in front of their chain pharmacies.
This brings me a topic that you mentioned in another post regarding the survey and work environment. Pharmacy was given a fairly good working environment. However, I would like to know just how they determined this. I have found times when there was so much noise in the pharmacy that I could hardly concentrate, with techs talking, customers dropping off rx’s at the drop off window, talking loud, sticking their head in the window, and at the pick up several customers talking, some complaining, and some talking loud into their cellphones. This does not even include the phone constantly ringing. This is certainly not a work environment for a professional that has peoples health and lives at stake. In some point in the future, maybe someone with some common sense with design a new pharmacy that is completely different and more enclosed than the mess we have today. Of course the chains want the impossible. They want us to be accessible to the public, but to not make mistakes. How can a person do an accurate job when they are constantly being interrupted? At some point, you would think that someone would come to their senses and say we have to chain pharmacy, the pharmacy environment, and the way we do things. But, we live in a corporate world where idiotic ideas are the rule of the day.
@Peon…
Here is the law:
Although there are no Federal and few state laws that require employers to give bathroom breaks, the Federal Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA) has interpreted a section in its Sanitation Standard, to mean that it “…requires employers to make toilet facilities available so that employees can use them when they need to do so. The employer may not impose unreasonable restrictions on employee use of the facilities.”
In 1997, OSHA issued a $332,500 fine to Hudson Foods, a poultry processing plant in Missouri, for violations including failure to provide employees sufficient restroom breaks.
The OSHA regulations dictate the minimum workplace ratio of toilets to workers, but don’t specifically speak to employees’ rights to use the toilets. Still, OSHA determined in the Hudson case that the company violated the law when they refused to grant bathroom breaks.
An official Standards and Compliance Letter issued by OSHA in April 1998 says employers must give workers prompt and reasonable access to toilet facilities.
Now the kicker is … OSHA .. doesn’t come looking for these violations.. an employee has to complain to OSHA…
I found something of interest on the writers blog that has been discussed in pharmacy circles: restroom breaks.
http://employeeatty.blogspot.com/2012/11/no-bathroom-breaks-for-you.html
Unless there is a state law, a company does not have to give you rest room breaks. OSHA enforces laws to make sure you have a clean and available restroom. But, the kicker is, they don’t require companies to give you are break to use those facilities. Do we have some crazy laws or what?