> We had to be in Avail status at the exact start of our shift or be counted late. For example, if I was scheduled to be in at 10am, I had to be in Avail at 10a

> We had to be in Avail status at the exact start of our shift or be counted late. For example, if I was scheduled to be in at 10am, I had to be in Avail at 10am. Meaning I had to take care of booting up computer, etc. before then. Reminds me of the work I did for a major car company in sub-manufacturing. We had to be at our stations by the time our shift-start buzzer went, with the machine running. Machine status was logged and visible on displays from every corner of the plant so there was no slipping in a minute late. A second late meant 15 minutes docked pay. Keeping in mind the trip from the locker room to many of the stations in my department took several minutes to walk. Similarly for breaks—the machine had to run until the break buzzer, then you had to lock everything down for safety, record your numbers, then walk to the break room if you wanted a snack, a smoke—whatever. You also had to be back, machine spun up and running by the time the buzzer went for the end of the break. The breaks were 10 minutes long, and lunch was 20. In reality, if you were quick, you got about five minutes of your break and about 10-15 of your lunch. (Also keeping in mind the work was dirty and potentially poisonous so you had to be sure to wash thoroughly before eating anything). These stringent rules resulted in many shouting matches between some of the management and a few staff members. It also resulted in a big campaign by the CAW (Canadian Auto Workers union) which in turn resulted in a propaganda campaign by the company and threats of shutting down to move. This plant also paid a good $10 an hour less than their unionized counterparts and competitors. Thankfully, we did have good supportive supervisors—the smallest of buffers. Don't get me started on the quotas and their arbitrary increases to beyond the machine's production capacity... FWIW: The larger company has a good reputation—their subsidiaries, however, were different.