Many non-union companies, such as Dickâs Sporting Goods consider full time to be 28 hours and keep all workers below that. In nearly all their stores the only full time salaried employees are the manager and assistant managers. Everyone else in the store is part-time, minimum wage, without benefits, and suffer from on call scheduling.
On call scheduling means employees have no set hours and must be available 24 hours a day and must call every day to see what they are scheduled for. If they canât make it for any reason they are fired. This makes it impossible to have any life outside of work. Employees can not pursue an education, attend family functions, or even have another job to make up for the low pay. While most stores are typically open to customers from 9-9 the workers are called in before the sun rises to unload thousands of pounds of merchandise from delivery trucks and place that merchandise on the shelf. Others are kept overnight to reset or move shelves, which weigh hundreds of pounds and is done by hand. Overnights come without warning and employees can be fired for refusing and often come at the end of an already full day.
Verbal, psychological, and emotional abuse on the part of managers takes place all day long and in public. Managers at store, district, and regional levels get bonuses for keeping wages low and keeping scheduled hours under budget when possible. To make matters worse employees are often denied hours without warning if a manager is looking for a bonus or needs extra help in certain departments only. Some employees just arenât scheduled for days or even weeks and obviously are not paid during this time. That can also be used as a tool to fire someone as the employee has their hours cut until they are forced to voluntarily seek other employment.
Anyone who complains within a store or to government agencies about anything is let go with prejudice. There is no recourse for the poor. While many falsely believe there is recourse, severance, or legal aid for exploited or terminated employees this just isnât so. Some states do have very limited, and overburdened, programs for members of marginalized communities but for the average low wage worker there is nothing. If you have nothing and no income you have no way to take on a corporation or even the time to wait for aid.
Retail is brutally hard on its employees and many of the jobs require some level of skill and education but are not compensated for it thanks to the corporate owned Republikkkan âright to workâ laws. Republikkkans do not only resist raising the minimum wage, but as we are seeing, Republikkkan governors are reversing local increases in the minimum wage.
Post anything about raising the minimum wage and Republikkkan trolls will descend with their ignorant and uniformed black hearted comments. Further others will chime in with their asinine comments and anecdotal stories about how their part time jobs werenât all that bad. Millions suffer under the tyranny of Republkkkan imposed minimum wages but few care. Raising the minimum wage isnât as sexy as the issues most progressives, liberals, and democrats champion. Sad.