https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2021/jul/24/how-hen...
And unlike Dyson they are almost indestructible!
So after going through a few hoovers at home from different brands, I bought a Henry for £100 3 years ago. The nose/hose detached after a few months. Not ideal, but I've fixed that in minutes with a bit of superglue. No other issues since then, no indications that it's about to fail.
I don't know if quality is still exactly the same as before, and they're certainly a bit heavier and noisier than some alternatives, but if you want something that lasts, get a Henry, not a Dyson.
> “I love you,” Jess said above his cot one evening before lights out. “I love Henry,” came the reply.
As an anecdote - we had no sick leave policy at a previous job. It was just tell us when you’re sick and you won’t be in. One guy joins and starts calling in on Mondays, or Fridays of bank holiday weekends. He eventually got caught saying he had been on a trip on one of those weekends and was called up on it. He told everyone it was bulshit because he was being singled out and targeted unfairly. Then we got a sick leave policy that applied to everyone.
Unsurprisingly, this guy was also the reason we needed permission to WFH, had formal expense limits when travelling, and core working hours during the day. He ruined it for 30 other people because he took advantage of every flex we had.
The significance of this ruling is that a British company can be held liable for its suppliers' treatment of workers in anther country.
You'd be amazed what is legal or at least normalized/tolerated when regulations are weak.
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 if UK is precedent based, how come the previous precedents don't apply here?
I agree that no toilet breaks is cruel, but the problem here is knowing about the supplier using it?
There was not much about the legal bases in the article.
> This appeal is not about the merits of the workers’ claims, but rather whether England or Malaysia is the appropriate forum (ie. the proper place) in which the claims can and/or should be determined. The first and second Appellants, Dyson Technology Limited and Dyson Limited, are English companies. The Respondents commenced proceedings against the English companies in England. However, the English companies sought a stay of proceedings on the grounds that England was not the appropriate forum to determine the claims. The third Appellant, Dyson Manufacturing Sdn Bhd, a Malaysian company, was joined to the proceedings on the basis that it is a necessary and proper party to the claims. The Respondents have also indicated their intent to join the Malaysian employer, ATA/J, to proceedings.
The BBC article didn’t say, but this is presumably a civil (not criminal) case and, should the plaintiffs have prevailed, would have resulted in a financial award. The settlement basically gets to the same outcome, just faster.
I’m not certain that allowing the plaintiffs to sue the parent company directly is really that big of a logical leap. The court should be an accessible venue for dispute settlement in general. Supposedly the plaintiffs would have had a chance to argue that the parent company had insufficient oversight of labor practices at their suppliers. We didn’t get a ruling on that.
[1] “Limbu and others (Respondents) v Dyson Technology Limited and others (Appellants)” https://supremecourt.uk/cases/uksc-2025-0019
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.
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?
Well, instead of using North Sea oil in the UK we buy it from Norway, who got it from the North Sea. We have hilariously high energy prices because of green energy policies, so we import more and more things from other countries that have workable energy policies.
So - yeah.
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.
It would be an interesting poll to see what the populace actually things about this statement...
