Democracy ends when Americans' work hours begin: NYT

WASHINGTON - Most people in the United States, as workers, are subject to the nearly unmediated authority of their employers, which can discipline, sanction or fire them for nearly any reason at all, said The New York Times in an opinion.

Americans are at the mercy of what the philosopher Elizabeth Anderson calls "private government," a workplace despotism in which most workers "cede all of their rights to their employers, except those specifically guaranteed to them by law, for the duration of the employment relationship," the article published on Tuesday said.

"For a vast majority of Americans, democracy ends when work hours begin," it noted, adding that the bosses and managers who wield that authority can force workers into deadly environments and life-threatening situations, or force them to remain in them.

That is what appears to have happened on Friday at the Mayfield Consumer Products factory in Kentucky, which makes scented candles. There, more than 100 people were on the night shift, working even after tornado sirens sounded outside the facility.

It was reported that as many as 15 workers beseeched managers to let them take shelter at their own homes, only to have their requests rebuffed. The tornado claimed at least eight workers' lives that night.

These disasters cannot be separated from the overall political economy of the United States, which is arguably more anti-labor now than it has been at any point since Franklin Roosevelt signed the Wagner Act in 1935, the Times said.