Asklemmy

43831 readers

787 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy 🔍

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

Open-ended question
Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

Lemmyverse: community search
sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
!lemmy411@lemmy.ca: a community for finding communities

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~

founded 5 years ago

MODERATORS

What would you like for everyone to know about the type of job you have? (lemmy.world)

submitted 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) by theDutchBrother@lemmy.world to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

81 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Well since I've been mostly in customer service jobs I'd like for people to know that the reps don't make the rules or decisions. When there is something about a store or service that's undesirable such as prices then it's something to bring up to upper management or just let them lose you as a customer. But you can be as nice to the reps as they are to you.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] RoquetteQueen@sh.itjust.works 30 points 4 months ago (2 children)

I work on a farm. Where I live (in Canada), farm workers don't have the same rights as other workers. We don't even have to be paid minimum wage.

[–] dohpaz42@lemmy.world 30 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (2 children)

You are not entitled to:

minimum wage

daily and weekly limits on hours of work

daily rest periods

time off between shifts

weekly/bi-weekly rest periods

eating periods

three-hour rule

overtime pay

public holidays or public holiday pay

vacation with pay

WTF? That is insane what you are not entitled to. If you don’t mind my asking, can you not find another job than being a farmer?

[–] RoquetteQueen@sh.itjust.works 15 points 4 months ago

I chose to do it. I like it. I have a good boss who pays well and gives me a lot of freedom and flexibility. The vast majority of farm workers aren't as lucky.

[–] SchmidtGenetics@lemmy.world 5 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

It’s usually family business, and they have a lot of write offs and incentives usually, so it prevents abuse of the system, but it also applies to non-arms length employees since farms trade work all the time as well, so bobs mid works for me and my kid works for him.

[–] MrGG@lemmy.ca 5 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Oof! Hello, fellow Ontarian here. I had no idea this was the case for Ontario farm workers! Is it common for people to be paid less than minimum wage and not get breaks? Is it just for specific times of year (ie harvesting) or for the entire growing season?

This may sound weird, but: thanks for the work you do in agriculture and feeding us! 😛 I'm in / from Toronto, and try to buy local when I can.

[–] RoquetteQueen@sh.itjust.works 4 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I work on a small farm and am treated well but my understanding is that the big farms that supply the grocery stores employ almost exclusively underpaid temporary foreign workers (TFW). A lot of the farms that sell at farmers markers also employ underpaid TFWs or idealistic young people who will work for food, a room to sleep in, and a $50 a week allowance.

[–] MrGG@lemmy.ca 5 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Ah, TFWs. If you go by the news, neither big farms nor Tim Horton's can survive without them. I'm glad you're treated well. It pains me to think about how much exploitation is in the industry.

It's a dream of mine (and a handful of friends) to start a commune / cooperative farming thing (closer to the hobby side of things) east of Toronto once we pool enough money, so insights into the industry are fascinating to me. And yeah, we know it's going to be more work and recurring failures than we can possibly imagine (especially to start) but we're determined and going to be diligent in research and preparation before we jump into it.

[–] RoquetteQueen@sh.itjust.works 1 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

I don't really know how to feed everyone without TFWs either, to be honest. They really are so much better at this work than any local Canadians I've met, myself included. And people are only willing/able to spend so much on their food. I'm paid better than most farm workers because my boss is idealistic and willing to pay himself very little in order to pay us more and sell at a price regular people can afford, not just wealthy people. He can only get away with paying himself so little because he lives in an off-grid cabin and I'm pretty sure his parents are rich. It's a nice job for me and we do feed quality produce to people who normally couldn't afford it, but it's only about 200 people. Places like this aren't going to feed all of Canada.

I hope you get your farm one day, though. It feels good feeding people.

Editing just to clarify that I don't think it's okay to treat TFWs like we do. People need to be paid and treated properly regardless of where they come from.

[–] DessertStorms@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 3 months ago

This may sound weird

We should absolutely normalise thanking those who work to produce our food.