Black Friday is just around the corner, and retailers such as Target, Toys “R” Us, Macy’s and others are racing to advertise deals and their extended hours. Many of the major retailers will open at midnight or earlier on Thanksgiving, which has sparked backlash from some employees. As Ashley Lutz reported:Read the rest here.
Anthony Hardwick says he resents working at Target Corp. on Thanksgiving and has garnered more than 37,000 signatures on an online protest petition.
Target, Macy’s Inc., Gap Inc., Kohl’s Corp., Toys “R” Us Inc. and Best Buy Co. all plan to open at midnight or earlier on Thanksgiving in an attempt to goose sales that the National Retail Federation says may rise just 2.8 percent this holiday season, or about half as much as last year.
Hardwick, 29, who says he has been a Target parking attendant in Omaha for three years, began the petition two weeks ago on the Web site Change.org after learning that he and his coworkers would be required to start at 11 p.m. Nov. 24 for a 10-hour shift.
“I was so disappointed the day I found out about this because I did the math in my head and I was going to have to go to bed in the early afternoon on Thanksgiving to go in and work 10 hours,” Hardwick said in a telephone interview. “Everyone at work was resigned because the economy is bad and so our employer has us over a barrel.”
Hardwick said that he hasn’t heard from Target and that he fears losing his job for starting the protest and speaking to the media.
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In contrast to most of the developed world, the US has never stopped following the plantation-slavery approach to employer-employee relations. We also have never had a solid union model in the US, such as is found in Germany, where the unions have direct say in the direction of a company.
ReplyDeleteIn the US model the employer does have us "over a barrel" and the employee has little recourse to deal with injustice. Forget HR offices where you can "voice your concerns". I've done that many times and they only pay you lip service, before firing you for being a "troublemaker". Unless you are a woman or a minority, you have little to no voice in the US workplace.