NationStates

Posted: **Thu Jul 29, 2021 9:00 am**

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbV1qr_YYyc
https://perfectunion.us/frito-lay-worke ... d-stalked/

Brandon Ingram is this warehouse employee who worked for Frito-Lay for up to 5+ years and is said to have been very profitable for his employer and did good work overall. But none of this mattered once he became disabled from an accident his workplace caused. He possibly tolerated brutal conditions of extreme heat/cold combined with long work hours of 84+ hours/week without complaint but was given no accomodations or any role change to a managerial position when he had herniated discs in his back and physically couldn't continue working his role as expected anymore.

His employer was quick to abandon him and after exhausting all alternatives, he's resorted to suing his employer for damages because the medical debt and current need for disability income was as a result of the working conditions he endured. And whilst the lawsuit happened, his ex-employer is resorting to spying on him and his family to do everything possible to try to disprove/undermine his legal case against them.

Which brings us to the discussion: what updates to labor law are needed to prevent something like this from happening again? Is it wrong for health insurance to be tied to employment like it is in the US? Are certain business models like wage labor inherently bad for employees? How would you nagivate working in such a difficult situation or lifestyle? Is it indeed sometimes the case, that even the least economically valuable/most unskilled people shouldn't be desperate enough for income to sacrifice all dignity and everything else important like their health in exchange for a paycheck?

Edit: It would seem it goes far beyond just this one person. Frito-Lay is seemingly "squeezing everything they can" from anyone who physically works for them. Pushing their workers to breaking point and beyond while making the fewest concessions possible. So far being just 1 day off each week for employees and a 4% rise in wages.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... on-the-job
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business ... ke-topeka/

Posted: **Thu Jul 29, 2021 9:05 am**

No update to labor laws could possibly suffice. Sabotage and expropriation carried out by workers are, in my opinion, a morally justifiable response.

But also universal basic income and nationalize health care.

Posted: **Thu Jul 29, 2021 9:08 am**

Inevitable result of the profit motive unchecked.

Posted: **Thu Jul 29, 2021 9:16 am**

PepsiCo is a shitty outfit. I wish people would boycott them and the things they sponsor. Won’t ever happen though.

Posted: **Thu Jul 29, 2021 9:23 am**

Kerwa wrote:PepsiCo is a shitty outfit. I wish people would boycott them and the things they sponsor. Won’t ever happen though.

Would be easier to say which companies' products you think we can buy or we'll be here for a while.

Posted: **Thu Jul 29, 2021 9:43 am**

There’s alternatives to everything PepsiCo makes. And you probably shouldn’t eat that way in the first place.

Posted: **Thu Jul 29, 2021 9:47 am**

Kerwa wrote:There’s alternatives to everything PepsiCo makes. And you probably shouldn’t eat that way in the first place.

True, if you want to avoid them, remember to avoid Quakers.

Posted: **Thu Jul 29, 2021 9:48 am**

Kerwa wrote:There’s alternatives to everything PepsiCo makes. And you probably shouldn’t eat that way in the first place.

You will be waiting a very very very long time if you think the public is going to change the company.

Look what exxon did and how well they were punished? News had many stories of their gas pumps going and people justifying why they needed to buy their gas.

The only way to change a companies bad nature is to hit them extremely hard financially.

Posted: **Thu Jul 29, 2021 10:19 am**

reminder that Brandom Ingraham is the same worker who was electrocuted and then denied medical care

like i know this info is in the links but it's not explicitly said in the OP

Posted: **Thu Jul 29, 2021 10:23 am**

"Go on strike" is up to one's colleagues, not oneself. If your colleagues are brainwashed enough in anti-union sentiment (with a little help from corrupt unions lending the illusion of credibility to such sentiment) that they refuse to strike on (misguided) principle even for their own benefit, one person seeing through such sentiment won't do shit. It's a miracle Frito-Lay workers were willing to strike in the first place, given Americans' usual anti-union nature.

A lawsuit is slightly better; for now; but we need better regulation on a national scale, if not an international one. Nothing less will do.

Another thing I'm wondering; could a RICO case be made against this company for stalking this worker?

I don't know who to be more pissed off at right now. Market-worshippers who played right into the hands of the 1% by letting these warped "free markets over everything" moral priorities radicalize them, or the idiots who tarnished progressivism's credibility by presuming these market-worshippers not to care about the poor, even though some of them are poor. :/

Posted: **Thu Jul 29, 2021 10:25 am**

Esternial wrote:
Kerwa wrote:PepsiCo is a shitty outfit. I wish people would boycott them and the things they sponsor. Won’t ever happen though.

Would be easier to say which companies' products you think we can buy or we'll be here for a while.

Nestlé's of course.

P&G?

Unilever? At least that one I have stocks in.

Posted: **Thu Jul 29, 2021 10:25 am**

It's worth noting that Frito-Lays workers are currently on strike, mostly due to appalling working conditions.

Desch is now one of hundreds of workers on strike from their jobs at the Topeka factory, which manufactures Cheetos, Lay’s potato chips, and Doritos, among other brand-name snacks. In recent days, the strike has gained national attention with shocking allegations by workers. One worker, Cherie Renfro, alleged in a letter to the Topeka Capital-Journal that when a colleague died, the company “had us move the body and put in another co-worker to keep the line going.” In an interview with Vice, another worker said he consistently works 12 hours a day, seven days a week. Workers aren’t just demanding better wages — they also want an end to forced overtime that leaves only an eight-hour break between shifts, according to the union.

For its part, the company has claimed that workers are exaggerating conditions inside the plant that employs roughly 850 people, not all of whom are on strike. “Our records indicate 19 employees worked 84 hours in a given work week in 2021, with 16 of those as a result of employees volunteering for overtime and only 3 being required to work,” Frito-Lay said in a statement reported by NPR.

Workers are expected to function in temperatures that can exceed 100 degrees in the summer, according to Desch. People “fall out,” she added, and throw up from the heat. Then they’ll come back to work. “Maybe they didn’t have the points to go home sick after getting sick, or because they don’t want to shorten the crew and have the rest of us pick up the slack,” she speculated. RaShaun Thompson, who works an average of 60 hours per week, said he has seen people being carried out of the facility on stretchers. Frito-Lay, in a statement, said it is “aware of only two instances in the last five years in which an individual has experienced a medical emergency at the plant that unfortunately resulted in that individual passing away.”

The physical demands imposed by their schedules are difficult, but there are emotional costs, too. Thompson said the schedules “cause a lot of friction on people’s families” and have ruined marriages. “But it’s always like Frito-Lay has to come first.” Samuel Huntsman, who has been with Frito-Lay for three years, worked “seven days a week, usually,” in the facility’s warehouse. “Sometimes I got my weekends off, but it would only be, like, half a weekend. I’d have to go to work and work half the shift and then I’d be able to get home,” he added. “So I was one of the lucky ones. I at least got four hours off on my weekends.” Since then, he has transferred to a different department that affords him more time with his 1-year-old son.

I guess some of the links in the OP mention the strike, but for some reason the OP doesn't discuss it.

Posted: **Thu Jul 29, 2021 10:26 am**

Neutraligon wrote:
Kerwa wrote:There’s alternatives to everything PepsiCo makes. And you probably shouldn’t eat that way in the first place.

True, if you want to avoid them, remember to avoid Quakers.

Avoiding an entire religious group seems a little excessive.

Posted: **Thu Jul 29, 2021 10:27 am**

I'm surprised Sai of all people would cover this. Sai seemed to love to appeal to industry titans through free market policies so they'd support his fascist state.

Posted: **Thu Jul 29, 2021 10:28 am**

GuessTheAltAccount wrote:or the idiots who tarnished progressivism's credibility by presuming these market-worshippers not to care about the poor, even though some of them are poor. :/

What do you mean?

Posted: **Thu Jul 29, 2021 10:32 am**

Diarcesia wrote:
GuessTheAltAccount wrote:or the idiots who tarnished progressivism's credibility by presuming these market-worshippers not to care about the poor, even though some of them are poor. :/

What do you mean?

Some people conflate "worship of the free market" with not caring about the poor. While they're playing right into the rich's hands, there are way too many of them, especially in low-income districts, for them all to "not to care about the poor", and even if they weren't poor, it's entirely possible for the rich and poor to genuinely be wrapped up in this idea that regulating the free market is wrong by definition, no matter the consequences of refusing to do so. Look at the precedent religion set with saying only the Bible can provide morality. If they so mistrust their own moral judgment as to say only the Bible can provide morality, what's stopping them from mistrusting their own moral judgment such that some politician can tie the Bible to capitalism? Especially when the people who object are the same people falsely accusing them of not caring about the poor?

Posted: **Thu Jul 29, 2021 10:50 am**

84 hour work week is way too much for warehouse work. Full support to the workers on strike.

Posted: **Thu Jul 29, 2021 10:52 am**

USS Monitor wrote:84 hour work week is way too much for warehouse work. Full support to the workers on strike.

Eighty-four hour work weeks are way too much for any kind of work. I pulled a few 84 hour weeks during graduate school and it was not healthy. Even 60 hour weeks aren't healthy. Forty hour weeks are borderline "too much work".

Posted: **Thu Jul 29, 2021 10:52 am**

GuessTheAltAccount wrote:
Diarcesia wrote:What do you mean?

Some people conflate "worship of the free market" with not caring about the poor. While they're playing right into the rich's hands, there are way too many of them, especially in low-income districts, for them all to "not to care about the poor", and even if they weren't poor, it's entirely possible for the rich and poor to genuinely be wrapped up in this idea that regulating the free market is wrong by definition, no matter the consequences of refusing to do so. Look at the precedent religion set with saying only the Bible can provide morality. If they so mistrust their own moral judgment as to say only the Bible can provide morality, what's stopping them from mistrusting their own moral judgment such that some politician can tie the Bible to capitalism? Especially when the people who object are the same people falsely accusing them of not caring about the poor?

Tarring everyone with the same brush is almost never constructive.

Posted: **Thu Jul 29, 2021 10:52 am**

Kerwa wrote:PepsiCo is a shitty outfit. I wish people would boycott them and the things they sponsor. Won’t ever happen though.

Things they sponsor, you mean the Democratic Party?

Posted: **Thu Jul 29, 2021 10:57 am**

Vana Ptang wrote:
Kerwa wrote:PepsiCo is a shitty outfit. I wish people would boycott them and the things they sponsor. Won’t ever happen though.

Things they sponsor, you mean the Democratic Party?

The GOP won't help the workers either.

Posted: **Thu Jul 29, 2021 11:03 am**

Dakini wrote:
USS Monitor wrote:84 hour work week is way too much for warehouse work. Full support to the workers on strike.

Eighty-four hour work weeks are way too much for any kind of work. I pulled a few 84 hour weeks during graduate school and it was not healthy. Even 60 hour weeks aren't healthy. Forty hour weeks are borderline "too much work".

It's not something I would want to do in any kind of work, but you will physically wreck people working those hours in a warehouse setting.

Posted: **Thu Jul 29, 2021 11:07 am**

Sounds like a workmans comp, disability claim by the employee

And yes making sure the guy is as injured as they claim is fairly typical

Posted: **Thu Jul 29, 2021 11:13 am**

Diarcesia wrote:
GuessTheAltAccount wrote:Some people conflate "worship of the free market" with not caring about the poor. While they're playing right into the rich's hands, there are way too many of them, especially in low-income districts, for them all to "not to care about the poor", and even if they weren't poor, it's entirely possible for the rich and poor to genuinely be wrapped up in this idea that regulating the free market is wrong by definition, no matter the consequences of refusing to do so. Look at the precedent religion set with saying only the Bible can provide morality. If they so mistrust their own moral judgment as to say only the Bible can provide morality, what's stopping them from mistrusting their own moral judgment such that some politician can tie the Bible to capitalism? Especially when the people who object are the same people falsely accusing them of not caring about the poor?

Tarring everyone with the same brush is almost never constructive.

Might I ask what you're referring to as an example of that, then?

Posted: **Thu Jul 29, 2021 11:15 am**

USS Monitor wrote:
Dakini wrote:Eighty-four hour work weeks are way too much for any kind of work. I pulled a few 84 hour weeks during graduate school and it was not healthy. Even 60 hour weeks aren't healthy. Forty hour weeks are borderline "too much work".

It's not something I would want to do in any kind of work, but you will physically wreck people working those hours in a warehouse setting.

You'll physically wreck anyone with those kinds of hours. You can get repetitive strain injuries from office work, but also, those kinds of hours don't leave enough time to eat properly, sleep sufficiently, the stress of working that much will physically and mentally destroy you.

NationStates

Frito-Lay ruins employee's life.

Frito-Lay ruins employee's life.