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Comment by bell-cot | Hacker News Reader

Gut Reaction: In what ways is this different from woman nurses in American hospitals regularly working 12-hour (or longer) shifts?

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Hospitals are a little different in that society has more of an incentive for longer shifts since shift changes end up killing people as the knowledge transfer isn't perfect from one shift to the next. That incentive makes it reasonable to treat healthcare workers a little differently from a legal perspective when compared with jobs with less societal benefit like making iPhones.

The shift change problem can be eliminated by having shifts overlap, hospitals just don't want to hire more staff to make that happen.

Exactly; this idea that we HAVE to overwork our medical professionals is just outdated, and especially since COVID, actively detrimental to our healthcare systems.

Hire more people, pay them more, and give them time off so they don't burn out or get sick themselves.

> Hire more people

Sure. Where are all of these medical professionals who are looking for work?

A reasonable percentage may consist of immigrants who qualify to practice in their native countries but do not in America. I think that’s a thing.

Fun fact, the American Medical Association artificially limits the number of doctors that can go through residency programs each year. The limit is actually lower than the number of medical school graduates, forcing some small number of new doctors to leave the country because they aren't allowed to become licensed.

We should be aggressively recruiting and training folks to go into the medical professions, and paying for their training so you don't have to go into huge debt to become a doctor.

An overlap improves things slightly, but it isn't a magic solution. If it was that easy to transfer knowledge during an overlap, then they could also document that knowledge for the next shift without any overlap. And if your suggestion really just amounts to hiring more staff improves patient outcomes, I don't think anyone would disagree with you.

We (the US) are in the top 10 when it comes to hours worked / overworked. Nurses are probably within the top 10 overworked professions within the US. High rates of burnout and stress.

> High rates of burnout and stress.

Not to mention an elevated rate of medical errors caused by tired and overworked hospital staff.

Nurses take care of people

But yeah we also have 12 hours shift in the west in some industries, I don't feel like it's a goal to strive for though

Well, there’s no shift manager walking the hallways in hospitals with clubs threatening you to work faster or suffer punishment. And the nurses can quit without fear of violence or imprisonment.

Gut Reaction - How short of shifts would make those things okay? 10 hour? 8 hour? 6 hour?

You know that I never said those things were OK. So maybe think for a moment before posting gut reactions.

My point is that the horrible sorts of working conditions which you mention are orthogonal to the shift length. EDIT: So if they are doing the things you mention (or exposing workers to asbestos, or paying starvation wages, or whatever), then that would be the real problem, which needs to be treated as such.

Perhaps it's not worse, but why do we reflexively set the bar at the worst working conditions we can think of?

If tens (or hundreds?) of thousands of rather well-paid American professionals are also working in the conditions mentioned (12-hour shifts), then I assume that the headline is "anything that says 'Apple'" clickbait.

Or a symptom of sheltered & pampered western office workers - who at times seem to view normal, physical work as a human rights violation.

I used to do 12 hour shifts in EMS, where men and women are on the same shift system, so no issue with the hours. But factory work (which I've also done, 8 hour shifts) is constantly intense across the whole shift and I wouldn't want to do it for 12 hours.

Not trying to justify the 12 hour shift, but I imagine work at an electronics factory would be less stressful than your typical factory job.

All production line work is intense. You're going to be doing the same small task, to quota, the whole shift.

My mother did twelve-hour shifts as a nurse because that was her preference. There were plenty of opportunities for more traditional shifts but because most nursing jobs with twelve-hour shifts are working seven days straight and then have seven days off, she liked it better having those long stretches of uninterrupted days off when she could pursue her personal interests. My siblings and I adapted pretty quickly and learned to hold anything that wasn't an emergency or needed immediate attention until her days off.

Yes it's just as bad. Long shifts are hard on the mind and body regardless of profession

The username fits the sentiment

Do they work 12 hours every day (mon-fri), every week?

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