I would still call the phone thing exploitative behavior—massive loss on you, at most a small benefit to themselves.
On a related note, I had an ex that was prone to angry outbursts, including for things that really do not make sense for her to get upset about, with the most memorable example being that she got really upset and started kicking random objects because I was taking too long to peel some asparagus (as we had just watched a Thomas Keller video on the topic, and I was trying to do deliberate practice on my technique). She followed up with “You have no talent at cooking.”
I’d describe that and similar incidents as: she engaged in abusive behavior, but her verbal blows did not connect in the manner needed to be full abuse. By that time I had enough mental fortitude and perspective that my reaction was more “Haha, she’s getting upset over something silly and saying something that obviously does not follow from she’s seen, silly girl, kiss me in the morning” than of feeling the emotional hits that would make me abused. It would have been different if these incidents had happened a few years earlier, when I was much more fragile.
So for your situation: perhaps it would be fair to describe it as: your employer engaged in exploitative behavior, but did not successfully exploit you, because you were in a position to walk away. Someone who really did need the money may have responded differently.
I mean, I am one of the people who is claimed to have been exploited here. I think the fact that I don’t think I was should be a strong argument, if not a knockdown one.
It is very common for employers to ask things of their employees that the latter does not agree with. Sometimes the costs are disproportionately on the latter. But I still don’t think it’s a good example of exploitation. I think what I’ve described is a light shade of gray instead of pitch black.
I acknowledge that standards are subjective, and reasonable people can disagree on what counts. Sometimes exploitation and patterns of abuse are only evident in hindsight.
>So for your situation: perhaps it would be fair to describe it as: your employer engaged in exploitative behavior, but did not successfully exploit you, because you were in a position to walk away. Someone who really did need the money may have responded differently.
I genuinely disagree. I knew what I was getting into, even if I didn’t predict other issues that played into me quitting. They’d told me phones weren’t allowed before I joined, or at least severely restricted (probably the former, but memory is far from perfect). They also knew that we were going to be rather temporary employees, we said we’d probably leave in six months because of exams. We ended up leaving in 3 or 4, but not just because of the phones. Management was awful. The hours were draining (I knew this one in advance too). They knew their leverage over us was from complete, and we knew that too. Everyone agreed to shake hands at the beginning, things only soured later.
Au contraire. I generally think that, for these kinds of definitions, individual cases about how someone feels have little bearing on the definition at all. There’s a well-cited dictum in American law that I wish I could find right now, to the effect of “it would be absurd for the law to decide whether an action was tortious specifically depending on the fortitude of the recipient. ” I think the same applies to the present context. After all, several kinds of exploitative behavior are tortious (e.g.: hostile work environment) if not outright violative of labor law (e.g.: OSHA), these categories were largely not illegal 150 years ago, and there’s no fundamental reason why the law might not grow to protect against more kinds of exploitative behavior.
This is why many definitions might be phrased in terms of “a person of ordinary fortitude” or with lines like “that would cause a reasonable person to feel distress. ” This is usually applied as a razor excluding particularly fragile victims, but the razor cuts both ways.
Likewise, someone saying they’re exploited for being asked to come to work on time also has little bearing on the validity off the concept. I don’t have a real example of that at hand, but i do recall very similar examples that merely substitute the word “racist” for “exploited.” I also recall another even stronger example from another domain, but unfortunately some personal reasons make me wary of discussing that particular topic in public
In law and philosophy, definitions are oft constructed to operationalize intuition. But once constructed, the validity of the construct is scant influenced by individual cases.
That is an understandable and reasonable position, even if I retain some degree of disagreement. But I will note that the law often cuts the other way, for example the eggshell doctrine, where even unreasonable or highly unlikely negative outcomes are prosecuted maximally, despite the criminal action not being expected, at least in hindsight, to cause harm as serious as what ended up happening. Anyway, IANAL, and our views do not diverge except at edge cases for the most part.
I somehow learned about the eggshell skull doctrine long before I started more systematic study of law. If that’s also the case for you, then it seems it has some kind of virality that leads a lot of people to learn about it who have otherwise not studied tort law.
And that’s unfortunate, because it’s actually widely regarded as an exception in law, which typically requires foreseeability in tort. E.g.: a part of a mill is in for repair, repair guy is 48 hours late, mill is shut down for 48 hours because they’re waiting for the part, can they sue for the 48 hour shutdown? Answer: no, because normally mills will have an extra of such part, and there was no way for the repair guy to know that this one didn’t and therefore time was of the essence.
(IANAL, but I once had a seasoned lawyer tell me I was operating at the level of a second-year associate.)
But also, back to the object discussion: the feelings of being exploited are relevant only in that a definition of exploitation is trying to operationalize the underlying concept that causes many people to form an intuitive sense of exploitation. The primary harms of being exploited don’t actually depend on whether you feel exploited. Similarly, if you get in a cab and the cab driver demands $1000 for what should have been a $20 trip, but for some reason you don’t “feel ripped off” (because e.g. you feel like throwing around money, not because he delivered extra value by, say, being an exceptional conversationalist), you’re still out $980.
Thank you for taking the time to explain, but I am, unfortunately (no sarcasm), not American and my familiarity with your laws (if you’re talking about American laws, this is usually a justified assumption, but I’d feel bad if I made it after reminding you that I’m not American) is significantly greater than typical but far from comprehensive. I am unable to opine on standards in the UK or India either, at least not with authority.
I will refer you to a recent comment made by @Dumbledores Army which I wholly endorse. It noted that the situation I have restricted myself to describing in this essay does not meet the classic, intuitive or many formalized definitions of exploitation:
Or I would, if I could actually see a way to link to it. Sorry, but it’s right here in the comment section.
Most (but definitely not all) tort law principles are the same across common law jurisdictions, but you seem to be aware of that. I hope you found this digression interesting and relevant to the definitional discussion.
I agree that the things described at length in this post—which can largely be summed up as “being a migrant worker”—are not exploitative. But I think passport seizure is.
I would still call the phone thing exploitative behavior—massive loss on you, at most a small benefit to themselves.
On a related note, I had an ex that was prone to angry outbursts, including for things that really do not make sense for her to get upset about, with the most memorable example being that she got really upset and started kicking random objects because I was taking too long to peel some asparagus (as we had just watched a Thomas Keller video on the topic, and I was trying to do deliberate practice on my technique). She followed up with “You have no talent at cooking.”
I’d describe that and similar incidents as: she engaged in abusive behavior, but her verbal blows did not connect in the manner needed to be full abuse. By that time I had enough mental fortitude and perspective that my reaction was more “Haha, she’s getting upset over something silly and saying something that obviously does not follow from she’s seen, silly girl, kiss me in the morning” than of feeling the emotional hits that would make me abused. It would have been different if these incidents had happened a few years earlier, when I was much more fragile.
So for your situation: perhaps it would be fair to describe it as: your employer engaged in exploitative behavior, but did not successfully exploit you, because you were in a position to walk away. Someone who really did need the money may have responded differently.
I mean, I am one of the people who is claimed to have been exploited here. I think the fact that I don’t think I was should be a strong argument, if not a knockdown one.
It is very common for employers to ask things of their employees that the latter does not agree with. Sometimes the costs are disproportionately on the latter. But I still don’t think it’s a good example of exploitation. I think what I’ve described is a light shade of gray instead of pitch black.
I acknowledge that standards are subjective, and reasonable people can disagree on what counts. Sometimes exploitation and patterns of abuse are only evident in hindsight.
>So for your situation: perhaps it would be fair to describe it as: your employer engaged in exploitative behavior, but did not successfully exploit you, because you were in a position to walk away. Someone who really did need the money may have responded differently.
I genuinely disagree. I knew what I was getting into, even if I didn’t predict other issues that played into me quitting. They’d told me phones weren’t allowed before I joined, or at least severely restricted (probably the former, but memory is far from perfect). They also knew that we were going to be rather temporary employees, we said we’d probably leave in six months because of exams. We ended up leaving in 3 or 4, but not just because of the phones. Management was awful. The hours were draining (I knew this one in advance too). They knew their leverage over us was from complete, and we knew that too. Everyone agreed to shake hands at the beginning, things only soured later.
Au contraire. I generally think that, for these kinds of definitions, individual cases about how someone feels have little bearing on the definition at all. There’s a well-cited dictum in American law that I wish I could find right now, to the effect of “it would be absurd for the law to decide whether an action was tortious specifically depending on the fortitude of the recipient. ” I think the same applies to the present context. After all, several kinds of exploitative behavior are tortious (e.g.: hostile work environment) if not outright violative of labor law (e.g.: OSHA), these categories were largely not illegal 150 years ago, and there’s no fundamental reason why the law might not grow to protect against more kinds of exploitative behavior.
This is why many definitions might be phrased in terms of “a person of ordinary fortitude” or with lines like “that would cause a reasonable person to feel distress. ” This is usually applied as a razor excluding particularly fragile victims, but the razor cuts both ways.
Likewise, someone saying they’re exploited for being asked to come to work on time also has little bearing on the validity off the concept. I don’t have a real example of that at hand, but i do recall very similar examples that merely substitute the word “racist” for “exploited.” I also recall another even stronger example from another domain, but unfortunately some personal reasons make me wary of discussing that particular topic in public
In law and philosophy, definitions are oft constructed to operationalize intuition. But once constructed, the validity of the construct is scant influenced by individual cases.
That is an understandable and reasonable position, even if I retain some degree of disagreement. But I will note that the law often cuts the other way, for example the eggshell doctrine, where even unreasonable or highly unlikely negative outcomes are prosecuted maximally, despite the criminal action not being expected, at least in hindsight, to cause harm as serious as what ended up happening. Anyway, IANAL, and our views do not diverge except at edge cases for the most part.
I somehow learned about the eggshell skull doctrine long before I started more systematic study of law. If that’s also the case for you, then it seems it has some kind of virality that leads a lot of people to learn about it who have otherwise not studied tort law.
And that’s unfortunate, because it’s actually widely regarded as an exception in law, which typically requires foreseeability in tort. E.g.: a part of a mill is in for repair, repair guy is 48 hours late, mill is shut down for 48 hours because they’re waiting for the part, can they sue for the 48 hour shutdown? Answer: no, because normally mills will have an extra of such part, and there was no way for the repair guy to know that this one didn’t and therefore time was of the essence.
(IANAL, but I once had a seasoned lawyer tell me I was operating at the level of a second-year associate.)
But also, back to the object discussion: the feelings of being exploited are relevant only in that a definition of exploitation is trying to operationalize the underlying concept that causes many people to form an intuitive sense of exploitation. The primary harms of being exploited don’t actually depend on whether you feel exploited. Similarly, if you get in a cab and the cab driver demands $1000 for what should have been a $20 trip, but for some reason you don’t “feel ripped off” (because e.g. you feel like throwing around money, not because he delivered extra value by, say, being an exceptional conversationalist), you’re still out $980.
Thank you for taking the time to explain, but I am, unfortunately (no sarcasm), not American and my familiarity with your laws (if you’re talking about American laws, this is usually a justified assumption, but I’d feel bad if I made it after reminding you that I’m not American) is significantly greater than typical but far from comprehensive. I am unable to opine on standards in the UK or India either, at least not with authority.
I will refer you to a recent comment made by @Dumbledores Army which I wholly endorse. It noted that the situation I have restricted myself to describing in this essay does not meet the classic, intuitive or many formalized definitions of exploitation:
Or I would, if I could actually see a way to link to it. Sorry, but it’s right here in the comment section.
Most (but definitely not all) tort law principles are the same across common law jurisdictions, but you seem to be aware of that. I hope you found this digression interesting and relevant to the definitional discussion.
I agree that the things described at length in this post—which can largely be summed up as “being a migrant worker”—are not exploitative. But I think passport seizure is.
I’ll hop over to that thread.