Wow, that's nuts. At least the manufacturing jobs I see around me are just 4on 4off 12hr shifts, which still sucks IMO, but isn't abusive to employee's mental well being.

We still got shift differential on swing shift. I did it for 7 years. It maximizes 24/7 coverage with less crews, but it has a side effect of the end users of the schedule developing severe alcohol abuse and depression.

Sat - Friday 8 hours day

Wednesday - Tuesday 8 hours night

Friday - Thursday 8 hours second

The pay period was separated in such a way that you would not get double time even though you are scheduled 7 days in a row every week.

I messed the schedule up so I fixed it. And yes, there was only 1 day off between second shift and day shift rotation.

I work some where that does double shift which is mornings one week and afternoons the next. It's OK but id prefer standard days, I have however done triple shift for a year at one job and it completely messed me up, and to this day I blame it for giving me super high blood pressure I didn't have before I started it. It all comes down to profits, why buy another machine to manufacture whatever it is you do when you could simply run the same machine 24/7. Although it inevitably leads to disaster one machine doing all the work as triple shifts leave little time for maintenance and seeing managers flap about because a machine broke down because you were allowed to shut it down to grease the bearings once a week is hilarious.

The rotating to an earlier shift is even more insane. Maybe I'm wrong but I imagine almost everyone finds it easier to push through and stay up later than try to go to sleep 7 hours early.

Companies now want 24 hour productivity, which means they will abuse their workers to keep that cycle going. Worker healthy is probably not even a thought, just: how do we get more out of them?

They probably want to maximise the uptime of the machinery

My theory is so you cant work a second job thus reducing risk of accidents. Just a theory though.

Possibly so they don't have to pay night shift more?

They want to keep production rolling continuously to avoid the lag of shutting down and starting the machinery back up again, but they also know how few people are around who'll willingly work the graveyard shift so they're basically trying to package it into the job no matter what so that they don't have to negotiate for volunteers, because now it's part of the job description contract you signed!

Too many billionaires

Are there no shift differentials? This is probably a way to avoid paying a bump to fill off-peak shifts.

I would assume it's because each hour an expensive machine is not being used is going to waste and if machine goes obsolete in 10 years and being replaced - there is a difference between it doing 30k hours of work and 90k. I'm not sure if that's the reason, but that would make sense to me personally.

Too tired to look for a better job?

No one wants to work constant nights, but plants need to run constantly, so you get this bullshit.

Jeez. Rotations like that exist in "Western Countries" since what, 50 years? 60? That's not new and the "surprise" here shows that you, dear poster, must be new to the game.

Anyhow, where i live and work (somewhere in Germany) you get paid extra for night and extra extra if shift is during the night on a week end.

Is that shit nice? Ok, no. Does it pay? Fuck, yes. All of my colleagues doing this since 20ish years bitch BUT have a house, two cars, fly to vacations to turkey and shit.

Your learning?

1. Accept, that this shit exists and will always exist.

2. Unionize. Have companies pay you fairly for what you do.

3. Stop whining. As long as you whine, you are a victim. Victims dont act or unionize or take things into their hands. Victims cry, roll on their tears and get fucked. THATS what companies like, cause you're easy to deal with.

I don't know either, but there were so so many jobs I didn't even apply for because of this very thing. Seems like more places need unions

By keeping you rotating they don't have to pay you extra.

The managers schedule at a trader Joe's is Start the week working 4am to 2pm. End the week working 2 pm to midnight. Every week.

The second bullet point is called the DuPont Schedule and has been around for decades