What’s the feeling in the tower today for those forcibly repatriated to the office?
9 replies (most recent on top)
Who feels pressured to come into the office?
There’s a difference between doing your job and becoming seriously ill or dying for no good reason at the behest of your employer. Even military commanders only take on risks deemed necessary and acceptable. This is neither.
I said I was able to “work under pressure” not die for your company. There’s a difference.
Why does the layoff remove posts that don’t violate its rules and are germane to the topic at hand? We aren’t able to respectfully question the morality of forcing people back to work in a risky environment? Or discuss the race to the bottom employment outlook that leads employees to accept risky conditions? Is it wrong to state that MRO is gambling with our lives for no real necessity?
In a capitalist society, someone will always be willing to do any job more cheaply and under less safe conditions than the current occupant of said job. Karl Marx and Friederich Engels identified this phenomenon and called it the "reserve army of labor" at some point prior to 1845. Marx and Engels missed the mark on most of their prescriptive solutions to the problems created by capitalism, but they were prescient in their identification of the shortcomings.
The willingness of the unemployed/underemployed to risk life and limb for mere sustenance is not under question. The question regards the morality of creating these risks where it is unnecessary to the nature of the work. Some jobs in any society involve intrinsic high risk that is impossible or at least very difficult to mitigate. Police, fire fighting, deep sea welding and others are dangerous by the nature of the jobs - the risks exist in the world and cannot be removed, yet the activity is necessary to society so the risk is tolerated, and the workers involved are compensated via a risk premium paid on labor that otherwise may be less well compensated if the dangers did not exist.
The situation at MRO is different. By forcing the employees in the tower to return in person, the execs are creating unnecessary risk where the work could be performed just as well without the risk. One definition of gambling is the creation of risk where none exists or intensification of otherwise minor risk. Theologians usually oppose gambling for this reason - it creates or increases the possibility of financial ruination without benefitting the (average) individual gambler or society in such a way as to justify the acceptance of the additional risk, even if accepting said risk is well understood and fully voluntary. By forcing the employees to return to the tower just to hold zoom meetings that can be just as well held remotely, the execs are exposing the employees to an intensification of risk for completely unnecessary reasons.
A moral society (or corporation) does not set the base terms of employment to conform to the terms that the truly desperate may accept to alleviate their desperation and achieve mere sustenance. There was a time when MRO recognized this and strove to maintain high standards of health, safety and environmental compliance in the workplace. It seems that time is past.
Damn, you sure are a bunch of whiners for people who still have jobs. Get your butts back to work and keep your damn mouths shut. I guarantee you ask the unemployed if they would do that job and if they are qualified they would say "sure, you can fire that guy and I will do it. screw the mask."
Do you think I really care about your immature name calling? This isn’t a nuisance issue like too slow at the drive through or your neighbor leaving their trash cans out. This is a life and death issue and a legal issue. Why should my life and health (or anyone’s) be threatened by your unwillingness to follow the law, scientific consensus and common sense.
I’m not happy that we are forced to work onsite, pointlessly risking our health for no good reason, but I’m damn sure not going to let others’ negligence or bad attitude expose me to more harm than the minimum required.
The number to report businesses violating the orders in Houston is:
832-839-6941
The mask and social distancing requirements apply inside the tower, too.
Remember to document it. Try to get video or pics of violators violating. If you can get video/pics, try to keep a written diary of violations - “August 12, 10AM John Doe was walking around floor 29 without a mask for 20 minutes”. Need to be able to document that violations are widespread, frequent and repetitive to prove your workman’s comp/wrongful death case.
Does the $250.00 fine in Houston for not wearing a mask count if someone isn’t wearing a mask in the building. Who can we report them to?