Olen: Apparent toilet hoax hits nerve

The Internet exploded in a rare moment of horrified unity this month, after Wired UK published an article about a new toilet supposedly being promoted to workplaces. Wired said the creator of the StandardToilet told them that it is slanted at a 13-degree downward angle designed to put pressure on the legs and make remaining on the loo painfully uncomfortable after about five minutes. The goal: Eliminate employee lollygagging in the restroom.

Joking about this is all too easy — toilet humor, as anyone who’s ever enjoyed regular contact with preschoolers can attest, is all but universal and primal. It’s also easy to wonder whether the StandardToilet was ever more than a stunt designed to go viral. Yes, there is a patent application, but as Joe Pinsker at the Atlantic noted, the premise does seem reminiscent of the Comedy Central small-business comedy “Nathan for You.”

But there may be a reason the story caught fire on social media and with news outlets. In a world where employers can monitor worker computer keystrokes in an effort to improve productivity, and financially penalize their employees if they don’t take part in health-care wellness programs that can invade their privacy, the idea of the StandardToilet resonated widely. It tapped into not-very-funny concerns about authority and privilege, and also served as a reminder that the struggle for employee potty rights in the workplace is far from over.

Workplaces in the United States were not required to have toilets until the early 1970s, and then businesses didn’t actually need to grant their employees access to them. This changed after the 1998 publication of the book “Void Where Prohibited: Rest Breaks and the Right to Urinate on Company Time,” which publicized the issue and caused the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to fix the loophole.

Give them a break

Yet toilet access remains a serious and significant issue in many blue-collar workplaces. In 2016, Oxfam America found poultry plant workers reported not receiving adequate bathroom breaks, leading to people urinating while working on production lines. Others reported wearing adult diapers to work and limiting how much liquid they drank on workdays. The Government Accountability Office discovered a year later that the bathroom requests of assembly-line employees at meat and poultry plants were often “delayed or denied” and some reported fearing punishment if they took too many such breaks. Amazon has had its own share of reported warehouse bathroom-break discouragement, which the company has denied.

There are similar issues in fast food settings, too. This fall, a former McDonald’s employee filed a lawsuit against the company after she was denied a break, which led to her soiling her clothing.

Other attempts at control are simply insulting — Uber, already facing disputes over whether its drivers are employees or freelancers — recently got snagged for forcing corporate employees and Uber drivers to use separate bathrooms at a Rhode Island office. “Siri, show me what classism looks like,” tweeted Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y.

Helaine Olen is an opinion writer for The Washington Post.