since we're talking Politics... Like Dianne Skoll said, no "capitalist conspiracy" required. It's more like convergent evolution, same result. * Thankfully we didn't follow the lead of Britain with our senate. Can you imagine where we'd be with a hereditary house of lords? The dominant influence has shifted over the years to the US. * Legislative capture has been accomplished by various means in different locales in the capitalist world. In Canada and the US lobbying, campaign funding, a domesticated and compliant media, and after politics career perks, to name a few, have worked just fine for the moneyed class. * Minimum wage is a subsidy to big business. MacDonalds, Walmart, Amazon, et al, have workers that depend on the taxpayer funded social safety net. Privatize profits, socialize costs. (who says oligarchs don't believe in Socialism.) * One of capitalism's features is that your business is allowed to fail, i.e. competition weeds out the bad ideas. Unless you get bailed out by the government. Too many examples to list. Where does one start! Vive la revolutione! Ian MacWilliam On 8/7/26 06:10, Stephen M. Webb via linux wrote: > On 8/6/26 23:55, Eric Marceau via linux wrote: >> Nowadays, *every* forum where you can get advice is fair game when you don't know where to go to get necessary >> information or guidance. >> >> That despicable approach regarding number of hours per shift (short), and number of shifts (always less than 10), is an >> American mentality that has crept up into Canada as a means to prevent fiduciary obligations towards employees at >> layoff, pre-conditions for termination, designation as full-time vs part-time and the obligation of providing benefits >> and vacation for those that fall into the full-time category. >> >> Please not that such mentality has infected management at OC Transpo, where driver shifts for new drivers are >> deliberately defined this way, for the purposes expressed above. > Well now, that's just blatantly untrue. The number of hours per shift, their maxima and rates, came out of labour > relations over the last 300 years. Almost every labour regulation came out of negotiation between organized labour and > employers, or organized labour and political partisanship. There are limits to the number hour hours one can work in a > day and in a week as a result of labour activism after deaths, not because some cigar-smoking backroom boys wanted to > limit liability when they increase slack by streamlining. Canada has pretty much followed Britain's lead because Britain > had about a century and a half running head start in industrialization. > > In union shops a "shift" is strictly determined by the wording of the collective agreement. For example, I worked in a > union shop where the collective agreements was for 12 hour shifts 3 days on 2 days off. Nasty job but it paid well. As I > understand it hospital nurses have similar shifts. Elsewhere its maxima are determined by the provincial labour laws. In > law there is no minimum, but there is a determination between "part time" and "full time" for the purposes of certain > mandatory benefits and it's based on the number of worked hours per week. > > The case of a transit property like OC Transpo is special, because of the changing need for drivers during the day. More > buses need to be driven at peak hours (AM and PM rush), so drivers often have to work split shifts where they come in > and drive a shift from, say 06:00 to 09:00 and again from 15:00 to 18:00. They get paid a premium for the swing (the > time between shifts) and get a guaranteed minimum even if the actual hours behind the wheel don't add up. They can also > get paid to go on standby during their swing, so they could be driving and earning extra hours during their time off. > The drivers get to pick their shifts according to seniority and the seniors usually pick early-morning straights so > these split shifts are usually run by the most junior drivers. Again, this is the result of contract negotiations > between the union and the employer. > > tl;dr there is no capitalist conspiracy. Most labour regulations are because that's the way the workers want them. > > -- > Stephen M. Webb <stephen [ dot ] webb [ at ] bregmasoft [ dot ] ca> > > To unsubscribe send a blank message to linux+unsubscribe [ at ] linux-ottawa [ dot ] org > To get help send a blank message to linux+help [ at ] linux-ottawa [ dot ] org > To visit the archives: https://lists.linux-ottawa.org > To unsubscribe send a blank message to linux+unsubscribe [ at ] linux-ottawa [ dot ] org To get help send a blank message to linux+help [ at ] linux-ottawa [ dot ] org To visit the archives: https://lists.linux-ottawa.org