The Difference Between Labour Work & Slave Work

I am sure all tertiary students or graduates has gone to work during their industrial attachement before. Some will have very good experiences, some will have bad 1s. I thought mine was bad during my poly's industrial attachement but my gf's Uni 1 was even more worse. Industrial attachement is for students to gain working experiences and for the companies to have cheap labour. To gain working experiences, the student must work relevantly to his field of studies. I studied Electronics during poly but worked as a night shift production worker during my industrial attachement!

My gf received a phone call from his industrial attachement boss earlier, asking her whether she wants to return there to work. My gf nearly freaked out and my anger rose to a new level! During her time there, I could not re-call any day that she worked without OT. She was working in an office environment, so the timing should be 9-5. Honestly speaking, the salary for student labour is already very low so companies should not allow them to work OT at all. The situation is a lot more worse for my gf. There were days where she worked OT till near midnight, sometimes even over midnight. Bare in mind that she was not paid for OT. Not to mention that her work place was in an industrial park that gets very dark at night.

I do not blame the school for my gf's bad experience. I know that they cannot interfere with company policy. My gf did ask for alternatives from her Uni but things would get very complicated so my gf just had to endure it. When she arrived at her work place, there were still quite a number of employees but as time passed, the number got smaller and smaller until it left only the boss, the supervisor and my gf. Obviosuly, my gf would go too if she could. This record should show what kind of place it was like.

I was still serving NS during her ordeal. Countless nights, I spent in my camp lying in bed waiting for my gf's SMS telling me she was homed. There was 1 early nights off where I made the trip back home and decided to pick my gf up and then sent her home before I returned to my camp. Her boss told her, she could leave at 9.30pm knowing that I was picking her up. I reached her work place around 9.35pm and started waiting. She only came out at about 11pm!!! I waited for more than an hour, her boss from Taiwan, his skin was so thick that he did not mind me waiting. I was lucky that my PC was generous enough to extend my nights off from 2230 to 2359 or else the wait would be for nothing.

I remember another incident where my gf broke down and cried at her work place. This showed how much stress she was in. Her boss saw her crying and still continue to make her do those OTs. This is utterly injustice. The phone call my gf received earlier is not the 1st time. There are constant phone calls from them to ask her to go back to work after her ordeal is over, due to shortage of employees. The boss persuades her with a lot of incentives, like paying her internet bills, phone bills...etc. The fact is, she will be spending more than 12-15hrs there! This is crazy!

Honestly, I rather my gf works in Macdonald or a simple admin job because it is an honest labour work with fixed timing. Over there she is no different from a slave so are her other colleagues that quited the job.
posted by Estan @ 11:01:00 PM (GMT+08:00).