Imagine getting punished for spending more than 6 minutes a day in the bathroom and getting rewarded for not going at all. That's what is happening at Chicago's WaterSaver Faucet Co., says a local union.
Teamsters Local 743 alleges 19 WaterSaver Faucet employees were disciplined for “excessive” bathroom use in June,
CNN Money reported.
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An affidavit shows human resources defines “excessive use of the bathroom as ... 60 minutes or more over the last 10 working days,” which works out to 6 minutes per day.
The company tracks usage by requiring employees to swipe their ID card to get into the bathrooms off the factory floor. WaterSaver Faucet claims the policy and monitoring is necessary because workers were spending too much time away from the assembly line.
“Our point of view is that anyone can go to the washroom when they need to but what bothers us is extended periods of time and multiple trips that can cause lost productivity,” owner and president Steve Kersten told the
Chicago Tribune.
Kersten claims the company lost 120 hours of productivity in May due to unscheduled bathroom breaks. And he cited one worker who was tracked using the bathroom six times in one shift, including two minutes before his scheduled morning break.
“The company has spreadsheets on every union employee on how long they were in the bathroom,” Nick Kreitman, the union representative at WaterSaver Faucet, told CNN Money.
“There have been meetings with workers and human resources where the workers had to explain what they were doing in the bathroom,” he said.
Under the union contract employees have a 7.5-hour workday, which includes a 10-minute morning break, a 30-minute lunch break, a 15-minute afternoon break and a 5-minute cleanup period at the end of the shift, says the Tribune.
The union argues that it's unreasonable to expect the human body to perform on cue only during regularly scheduled breaks. Kreitman also points out that WaterSaver Faucet does not provide paid sick leave and sick workers reporting to work can increase bathroom usage.
In fact, Kreitman believes sick leave could be at the heart of the new bathroom policy. “It’s more than a coincidence that [the owner] started to discipline workers after we asked for paid sick leave,” he said.
Kersten suggests the unscheduled breaks have less to do with bathroom usage and more to do with personal affairs than workers care to admit.
“Our supposition is that some of the behavior is related to cell phones and texting ... although I have no hard evidence,” he told CNN Money, noting that cell phones are banned on the factory floor.
The union has filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board. Meanwhile, WaterSaver Faucet is trying to recoup lost productivity. To incentivize workers, the company is offering a gift card of up to $20 a month to those who don't use the bathroom at all during work time.
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