[nabnob]

Who decides whether blue collar workers deserve bathroom breaks? Why do you treat the free market as the sole authority on what working conditions people "deserve"?

You're arguing that shaving off a couple minutes a day is worth the loss of human dignity that these workers experience.

[me_me_me]

That's the problem with economies at scale, a bathroom break for small store owner is not an issue. When you have 1000's of stores its a massive saving area, where its much easier to justify pissing bottles. Any small trivial thing at scale can cost or save huge amounts money.

And when we talk huge sums of money, morality often is tossed out of the window first.

[jlmorton]

You're suggesting that for a small business, because the value of five minutes of a single employee's time is trifling, the small business does not care to regulate bathroom breaks.

I don't really see it that way. In my view, small businesses abuse their employees just dramatically more than large businesses.

For a small business, a single employee may be the only person working the till. The employee simply won't be allowed to go to the bathroom at all except during designated times.