Why not both? I've met my share of idiots measuring productivity wrong, and there needs to be a chain of idiots all the way up to let this escalate to a lawsuit (chains of idiots I've also seen). But I've also seen cruelty on occasion, and you need to have no empathy with your workers to have made this call in the first place.

In the case of James Dyson it's almost certainly pure malice. Horrible man.

people who lack imagination. Its much easier to believe that people are out to get you as opposed to facing your own failed decisions.

Employers are not always very smart. It took humanity half a millennium to realise slavery is inefficient and ditch it. Go figure.

It's a demonstration of power. Which is exactly why it needs fighting against, because these people (i.e. Dyson) must not have power.

Coincidentally in Eastern Germany they (or so I heard) had a "keys to the toilet" trope, meaning that whoever managed to obtain any kind of position (being entrusted with controlling access to a vital facility) could and often would then go and take advantage of it by expecting bribes-in-kind from people.

There are countries where white collar office workers are banned from having drinks, including even a bottle of water at their desks.

You'd be amazed what is legal or at least normalized/tolerated when regulations are weak.

Like someone mentioned already, it's a demonstration of power. But it goes well beyond that: it's about domination, discipline, constant monitoring, the reduction of individual agency, humiliation (you need permission for a basic human need) etc. The labour process theory says that that management systems are not only about coordinating work but about securing control over workers, that the drive for efficiency is also a drive for managerial control, including monopolising judgement and pacing work from above [0]

In many cases it's an intentional dehumanisation of the workers - they're seen as assets or numbers, as a type of machines that should be worked to their maximum physical and mental capacity and that are not owed any dignity [x], as if work is nothing more than mechanics. Foucault (in his "Discipline and Punish") speak about how disciplinary power produces "docile bodies" by making bodies more useful and easier to control, breaking functions and movements into optimised segments. [1] This is consistent with how the capitalist workplace normally operates, where employers want to control workers' time and actions, not just the finished product. We could see the toilet restriction just as an extreme, contemporary expression of the same thing. [2] For example, dodgy Amazon does that by making bathroom use hard and uses strict worker monitoring mainly as control/discipline thing, a sort of integrated control architecture (crazy pace + surveillance + comparison + dystopian ranking and whatnot) [3][6]

For all his faults, Heidegger's point (especially in his writing on technology) is relevant here, as he claims that modern systems tend to treat everything as a resource to be ordered, measured, and used. He says that things and people get turned into "standing-reserve" (basically stock to be managed) [4]

Many employers believe that loo breaks should happen in a workers' own time [5], which is both ridiculous and an shirking of responsibility towards society from businesses (which has always been the case).

What is certain is that this is certainly not as a serious productivity argument, despite what predatory companies like Amazon claim [z], because this kind of treatment can have (and often does, like the article shared above shows as well) severe consequences for health, dignity, and productivity. [7]

The fact that regulatory bodies like OSHA in the US, and especially in the EU, recognise the abuse pattern shows it's not just anecdote or rhetoric (like the Economist and similar papers often suggest), or that it applies to countries that aren't as developed as we like to think we are in the US and the UK, but a real issue that's rather common.

Also relevant: https://www.un.org/en/observances/toilet-day

[0] https://academic.oup.com/cpe/article/43/1/61/7684997

[1] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/foucault/

[2] https://academic.oup.com/past/article-abstract/38/1/56/14546...?

[3] https://cued.uic.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/219/2023/10/Pa...

[4] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/heidegger/

[5] https://www.tuc.org.uk/research-analysis/reports/give-us-loo...

[6] https://tribunemag.co.uk/2023/09/they-treat-us-worse-than-an...

[7] https://sif.org.uk/why-workplace-toilet-access-matters/

[x] https://www.theguardian.com/money/2018/nov/19/thousands-uk-w...

And to prove it is possible to have a profitable vacuum cleaner manufacturing business that makes its machines in the UK - long live Henry!

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2021/jul/24/how-hen...

And unlike Dyson they are almost indestructible!

I'm nearly certain he believed/believes in the Britannia Unchained folks type nonsense. Brexit, then ECHR exit, deregulate like crazy and exploit everyone and their mum. So long as GDP goes up.

Is it? Can we be a just society if we allow any company to close their eyes to bad things in their supply chain? Should we not just call this "failure of due diligence"?

Otherwise none of our environmental and worker protection laws make any sense. Anyone can just do the unethical thing and move everything to a country that does not care about the rights we have set over here. Do our values not apply to any human? Including to those that happen to live outside our rough geographical area?

There were two reasons the Court of Appeal hearing held that the complaint could be heard in UK courts:

1. They relate to alleged harm caused by decisions and policies made centrally by Dyson UK companies and personnel

2. There was substantial risk that they would not be able to access justice in the Malaysian courts

Both seem reasonable. The UK personnel may have engaged in an activity they knew were illegal. Foreign citizen can generally sue in another country, if they must establish that the court has jurisdiction over the matter -- which they seem to have done.

If anything, it should make the anti-slavery mandates of manufacturers, particularly fashion, sit up straight.

No, it's bizarre that this isn't normal.

The law is an expression of our desire that our industry doesn't exploit forced labour. The fact that this mostly only counts when the forced labour takes place in our own country is a weird historical detail, long outdated by globalisation.

Either you think that forced labour in Malaysia is OK in which case this seems bizarre, or you think it's not OK in which case we need a way for the law to discourage forced labour in Malaysia. The only way it can do that is through the supply chain.

If you can't globalise without maintaining standards then don't globalise. If you do, that's your liability.

Otherwise it's "just slavery with extra steps"