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Dyson settles forced labour suit in landmark UK case
- direwolf20 7mo agoWhy do employers deny their employees toilet breaks? Do they actually believe it makes the employees more productive, or are they just cruel people?
- ben_w 7mo agoWhy not both? I've met my share of idiots measuring productivity wrong, and there needs to be a chain of idiots all the way up to let this escalate to a lawsuit (chains of idiots I've also seen). But I've also seen cruelty on occasion, and you need to have no empathy with your workers to have made this call in the first place.
- badgersnake 7mo agoWhat was that recent Microsoft quote, something about "we believe with Copilot one developer can produce 1m lines of code per month"?
- trollbridge 7mo agoI could produce way more than 1m lines of code in far less than a month, and wouldn't even need Copilot. I'm actually a bit terrified of the amount of code being cranked out. We worked on some code generators yesterday (not vibe-coded with AI, but yes, AI assistance was used heavily throughout) that generated thousands and thousands of lines of code. So we looked really really productive yesterday...
- jermaustin1 7mo agoMy sub-contracting/consulting career started 20 years ago writing code generators for SharePoint. Using the WSDL to generate DTOs and Service/Repository classes for them to power brochureware websites for a large luxury rentals firm. When we got a new customer that wanted a similar setup but they used WordPress, I then modified that generator to work off Custom Post Types. It could output to C# and to PHP. The customer never used the tools, my bosses never used the tools, they were for me to work more efficiently.
- dsr_ 7mo agoSo can I, and so can any man, but will they be useful lines?
- drcongo 7mo agoIn the case of James Dyson it's almost certainly pure malice. Horrible man.
- Quarrelsome 7mo agopeople who lack imagination. Its much easier to believe that people are out to get you as opposed to facing your own failed decisions.
- cynicalsecurity 7mo agoEmployers are not always very smart. It took humanity half a millennium to realise slavery is inefficient and ditch it. Go figure.
- speedgoose 7mo agoSlavery is unfortunately still a thing in too many parts of the world.
- Schmerika 7mo agoIncluding the US. And 68% of American adults don't even know it [0]. Not to mention all the foreign slavery in the supply chain, or all the slavery we've directly enabled by 'toppling dictators' who wouldn't give us their shit. 0 - https://www.merkley.senate.gov/is-slavery-still-legal-in-the-us-yes-under-the-13th-amendment-exception/ https://www.merkley.senate.gov/is-slavery-still-legal-in-the...
- n4r9 7mo agoIs that why slavery was banned?
- GaryBluto 7mo agoSlavery wasn't inefficient and was highly profitable for slaveholders.
- robtherobber 7mo agoNot contradicting the second part, but I want to emphasise that they are different things. Slavery (and capitalism) can be extremely inefficient and simultaneously wildly profitable.
- n4r9 7mo agoSurely it's meaningless to compare the efficiency of slavery vs other systems, since your set of resources is completely different.
- steve1977 7mo agoIt's a demonstration of power. Which is exactly why it needs fighting against, because these people (i.e. Dyson) must not have power.
- thegreatpeter 7mo agoBut why only demonstrate power over 12 people and not the alleged 1200+ that work there?
- speed_spread 7mo agoTell me when Justice condemns a corrupt billionaire to piss himself.
- graemep 7mo agoNot actually Dyson, one of their parts suppliers. The significance of this ruling is that a British company can be held liable for its suppliers' treatment of workers in anther country.
- graemep 7mo agoTo add, what I wrote in parent is very brief and superficial. There is at least one comment here with more detail about when they can be liable, and why Dyson was liable in this case.
- DemocracyFTW2 7mo agoCoincidentally in Eastern Germany they (or so I heard) had a "keys to the toilet" trope, meaning that whoever managed to obtain any kind of position (being entrusted with controlling access to a vital facility) could and often would then go and take advantage of it by expecting bribes-in-kind from people.
- steveBK123 7mo agoThere are countries where white collar office workers are banned from having drinks, including even a bottle of water at their desks. You'd be amazed what is legal or at least normalized/tolerated when regulations are weak.
- robtherobber 7mo agoLike someone mentioned already, it's a demonstration of power. But it goes well beyond that: it's about domination, discipline, constant monitoring, the reduction of individual agency, humiliation (you need permission for a basic human need) etc. The labour process theory says that that management systems are not only about coordinating work but about securing control over workers, that the drive for efficiency is also a drive for managerial control, including monopolising judgement and pacing work from above [0] In many cases it's an intentional dehumanisation of the workers - they're seen as assets or numbers, as a type of machines that should be worked to their maximum physical and mental capacity and that are not owed any dignity [x], as if work is nothing more than mechanics. Foucault (in his "Discipline and Punish") speak about how disciplinary power produces "docile bodies" by making bodies more useful and easier to control, breaking functions and movements into optimised segments. [1] This is consistent with how the capitalist workplace normally operates, where employers want to control workers' time and actions, not just the finished product. We could see the toilet restriction just as an extreme, contemporary expression of the same thing. [2] For example, dodgy Amazon does that by making bathroom use hard and uses strict worker monitoring mainly as control/discipline thing, a sort of integrated control architecture (crazy pace + surveillance + comparison + dystopian ranking and whatnot) [3][6] For all his faults, Heidegger's point (especially in his writing on technology) is relevant here, as he claims that modern systems tend to treat everything as a resource to be ordered, measured, and used. He says that things and people get turned into "standing-reserve" (basically stock to be managed) [4] Many employers believe that loo breaks should happen in a workers' own time [5], which is both ridiculous and an shirking of responsibility towards society from businesses (which has always been the case). What is certain is that this is certainly not as a serious productivity argument, despite what predatory companies like Amazon claim [z], because this kind of treatment can have (and often does, like the article shared above shows as well) severe consequences for health, dignity, and productivity. [7] The fact that regulatory bodies like OSHA in the US, and especially in the EU, recognise the abuse pattern shows it's not just anecdote or rhetoric (like the Economist and similar papers often suggest), or that it applies to countries that aren't as developed as we like to think we are in the US and the UK, but a real issue that's rather common. Also relevant: https://www.un.org/en/observances/toilet-day https://www.un.org/en/observances/toilet-day [0] https://academic.oup.com/cpe/article/43/1/61/7684997 https://academic.oup.com/cpe/article/43/1/61/7684997 [1] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/foucault/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/foucault/ [2] https://academic.oup.com/past/article-abstract/38/1/56/1454624 https://academic.oup.com/past/article-abstract/38/1/56/14546...? [3] https://cued.uic.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/219/2023/10/Pain-Points_Final_Oct2023.pdf https://cued.uic.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/219/2023/10/Pa... [4] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/heidegger/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/heidegger/ [5] https://www.tuc.org.uk/research-analysis/reports/give-us-loo-break https://www.tuc.org.uk/research-analysis/reports/give-us-loo... [6] https://tribunemag.co.uk/2023/09/they-treat-us-worse-than-animals-working-without-water-at-amazon https://tribunemag.co.uk/2023/09/they-treat-us-worse-than-an... [7] https://sif.org.uk/why-workplace-toilet-access-matters/ https://sif.org.uk/why-workplace-toilet-access-matters/ [x] https://www.theguardian.com/money/2018/nov/19/thousands-uk-workers-denied-toilet-access-unite https://www.theguardian.com/money/2018/nov/19/thousands-uk-w...
- blell 7mo agoIt could be that they are complete psychopaths with no respect for human life, or it could be that a minority of employees abuse toilet breaks but labour protection laws make them unfireable.
- maccard 7mo agoA combo of management control and a very tiny number of people who abuse any freedom given to them, then blame you for not telling them they couldn’t do it, and then blame you for singling them out. As an anecdote - we had no sick leave policy at a previous job. It was just tell us when you’re sick and you won’t be in. One guy joins and starts calling in on Mondays, or Fridays of bank holiday weekends. He eventually got caught saying he had been on a trip on one of those weekends and was called up on it. He told everyone it was bulshit because he was being singled out and targeted unfairly. Then we got a sick leave policy that applied to everyone. Unsurprisingly, this guy was also the reason we needed permission to WFH, had formal expense limits when travelling, and core working hours during the day. He ruined it for 30 other people because he took advantage of every flex we had.
- x187463 7mo agoHe didn't ruin it for everybody. Management decided to punish the collective rather than deal with an employee who is acting in bad faith.
- gwd 7mo agoIn a lot of places, you can't fire people unless they've violated written policy.
- maccard 7mo agoHe did ruin it for everyone. Management called him up on the sick days. he responds by saying that there's no policy for sick days, and to show him in the handbook where it says he has a limited number of sick days, or that he needs to notify someone. They can't, because we don't have one. When he's told this isn't acceptable, he pushes back saying that he's being singled out.
- direwolf20 7mo agoYou're in America, right? At–will employment? The manager could have simply terminated that employee, citing no reason?
- mytailorisrich 7mo agoIt's low trust and they want to avoid abuse of toilet breaks so they set rules on number of breaks and duration...
- globular-toast 7mo agoSome people can't give without taking. They see the world purely as zero sum. They can't win without someone else losing. So, yeah, if they feel like they're "giving" to someone by paying them minimum wage they'll try to take as much as they can in return, including that person's dignity.
- n4r9 7mo agoJames Dyson advocated for Brexit on the basis of supporting British industry, and shortly afterwards migrated the company HQ to Singapore.
- klelatti 7mo agoAnd to prove it is possible to have a profitable vacuum cleaner manufacturing business that makes its machines in the UK - long live Henry! https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2021/jul/24/how-henry-vacuum-cleaner-became-accidental-design-icon https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2021/jul/24/how-hen... And unlike Dyson they are almost indestructible!
- n4r9 7mo agoGreat article. Especially loved this > “I love you,” Jess said above his cot one evening before lights out. “I love Henry,” came the reply.
- klelatti 7mo agoWe have a pre-schooler and am happy to confirm that our Henry is a favourite member of the family. Just as important he's sufficiently strong to withstand our boy's curiosity :)
- drcongo 7mo agoOur Henry is the moral enemy of both our dogs. They don't like vacuum cleaners anyway, but when it can look at them, it's even worse.
- _joel 7mo agoFew years back (before covid) I splashed out on a fancy Dyson. Worst vacuum cleaner ever. I'm sporting a Vax now, quite good, even runs VMS.
- osrec 7mo ago
- martiuk 7mo agoWhy is Dyson being sued for actions taken by their suppliers? This is setting a bizarre precedent.
- teekert 7mo agoIs it? Can we be a just society if we allow any company to close their eyes to bad things in their supply chain? Should we not just call this "failure of due diligence"? Otherwise none of our environmental and worker protection laws make any sense. Anyone can just do the unethical thing and move everything to a country that does not care about the rights we have set over here. Do our values not apply to any human? Including to those that happen to live outside our rough geographical area?
- xyzzy123 7mo agoWhy not push it all the way to the consumer? Why shouldn't you be liable if you buy a wrench, but actually the worker who made it was mistreated? That would make people think twice before buying products of unknown provenance and supporting slavery.
- KineticLensman 7mo agoIn the UK, if a homeowner (customer) pays a company to clear domestic rubbish, and the company illegally fly-tips it, it's the homeowner who gets chased. The law requires them to check that the company is legit.
- randlet 7mo agoI considered this too, but I think it's unreasonable in the end, since there seems to be a fundamental difference/motive between an individual consumer and an entity trying to generate profit. A consumer should be able to trust that the product they're buying was manufactured in an ethical manner.
- belorn 7mo agoThe customer is sometimes liable for a purchases. If a person go and buy a known stolen item, pay money to known criminal activity/terrorists, then they may end up being punished for it. The relevant question is what knowledge the buyer had, which the Court of Appeal did consider. Dyson UK companies and personnel was aware of the crime being done by the supplier. The general legal question is not if a customer can be held liable for purchases. They can. It is how much due diligence is expected before someone should be held liable.
- xiphias2 7mo agoI understand that there's a precedent here, but isn't normally the precedent for the opposite in contract law? And if UK is precedent based, how come the previous precedents don't apply here? I agree that no toilet breaks is cruel, but the problem here is knowing about the supplier using it? There was not much about the legal bases in the article.
- jt2190 7mo agoThe U.K. Supreme Court case [1]: > This appeal is not about the merits of the workers’ claims, but rather whether England or Malaysia is the appropriate forum (ie. the proper place) in which the claims can and/or should be determined. The first and second Appellants, Dyson Technology Limited and Dyson Limited, are English companies. The Respondents commenced proceedings against the English companies in England. However, the English companies sought a stay of proceedings on the grounds that England was not the appropriate forum to determine the claims. The third Appellant, Dyson Manufacturing Sdn Bhd, a Malaysian company, was joined to the proceedings on the basis that it is a necessary and proper party to the claims. The Respondents have also indicated their intent to join the Malaysian employer, ATA/J, to proceedings. The BBC article didn’t say, but this is presumably a civil (not criminal) case and, should the plaintiffs have prevailed, would have resulted in a financial award. The settlement basically gets to the same outcome, just faster. I’m not certain that allowing the plaintiffs to sue the parent company directly is really that big of a logical leap. The court should be an accessible venue for dispute settlement in general. Supposedly the plaintiffs would have had a chance to argue that the parent company had insufficient oversight of labor practices at their suppliers. We didn’t get a ruling on that. [1] “Limbu and others (Respondents) v Dyson Technology Limited and others (Appellants)” https://supremecourt.uk/cases/uksc-2025-0019 https://supremecourt.uk/cases/uksc-2025-0019
- Cytobit 7mo agoCan it really be a landmark case if they settled? Settlements don't make case law.