Involuntary cutting of TM hours

Joined
Dec 1, 2016
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In my DC things got slow in Jan, of course. MBP A1 (my key) seems to be by far the worse dept as even in the midst of fall season we were even running out of work on saturdays and sundays.

However up till last week the "feeling" was target couldn't FORCE you home, as a matter of policy. They could cajole, beg, whatever, but push came to shove they'd put people sweeping and cleaning and not force them home if a few employees absolutely did not want to leave after pick plan was done etc.

All that changed we got a new OM last week (covering for the regular) and he's forcing people home when plan is done. Forcing. There's a few die hards who need their money and always stayed. Naturally several people got upset and went to HR. I didn't, but supposedly HR said yes, when there's no work we can be forced home.

What really gets my goat is ever since I have been there they always overhire drastically. When anyone with two brain cells could see we have too many people. To add insult to injury, THEY ARE HIRING MORE PEOPLE IN THE DEPT NEXT MONTH (February). When there's not nearly enough work for the people already there! Not only is this not surprising, it's par for the course.

I mean, there's a bunch more issues here:

Past (current when he returns) OM always let people stay if they wanted. Fill in OM currently while regular OM is on vaca (but he's mid shift, and seeing how target goes through OM's could be next in line to be our regular OM) is the one who both on A2 and now A1 does the force people home thing. How is that acceptable for people's livelihoods to be affected based on whether you have a certain OM or not?

How is it acceptable for different depts and keys to be treated differently in this respect? (doubt they ever force B1 with all the old time cranky employees home).

How can one new hire set foot in the building when we don't have close to enough hours for current employees? It's absurd.

We pretty much NEVER have enough work on Sat or Sun. So if the this is the new standard, might as well say goodbye to 36 hours, ever. Or at least a good 9 months of the yr due to target always over hiring.

Regular OM somehow manages things such that it wasnt a problem, though? All who wanted to stay could.

Among other stupid things, they dont manage correctly. For example they might send hardcoded VNS at start of shift, but not ask for any other volunteers, even though some people might want to leave. Then, we hit plan by 2, and there's no more work for those who do want to stay all day. Why not ask everybody at startup, and maybe again at 1st break, who wants to leave? So the others can stay. Instead everybody held there until 2, or whatever time. Of course this doesnt address the issue there's too many employees and not enough work, and they're HIRING MORE, but it's at least a helpful band aid.

I feel like target corporate higher up above our DC wouldn't approve of this, it might be against some labor law or at least tradition, etc etc. Anybody? What can we do? I dont think anybody has gone to the GM, yet...
 
I haven't heard of anyone being forced yet. We are still hiring as well. I can only assume they expect things to pick up. 2018 they didn't hire enough so I think they learned a lesson. While I'm not advocating for a union I assume Spot can pretty much make up rules under the guise of building needs because there is no binding contract to keep them from doing it. Just tell them you can't afford to go home today, but you'll go home tomorrow (even if it's a Monday)... I think they'll get the drift.
Kind of like... free beer! Tomorrow.
 
My understanding when they rolled out MyTime was that nobody is supposed to be asked if they want to leave, either they signed up or they didn’t. If someone wants to leave after a break then they can still sign up on their break (except A2 if it’s a break after midnight). Once the people who have signed up are all gone, then they gotta do what they gotta do.
If they have enough people cross trained to shift people around and not force anyone to leave I think that’s the preferred route, but I don’t know that it’s necessary.
They may be hiring into your department because MBP is supposed to run auto-rebin once it’s up I believe.
 
We had an announcement a couple weeks ago about them being able to force you home. I believe they said you are guaranteed 3 hours of pay. They are supposed to go through the app list, then volunteers, the. They force people reverse alpha order. Hasnt happened so far as there are enough volunteers, but that’s b1 and the drops seem bigger, as well as bigger daily drops.
 
Yeah, MBP at my building gets sent home constantly as well. The warehouse workers get the option to flex to IB or WHSE, but the packers just get forced out on saturdays and sundays.

Did they ever say why NWA'd people can't use vacation to cover the hours? Is it just spite for people not volunteering to leave early?
 
Yeah, MBP at my building gets sent home constantly as well. The warehouse workers get the option to flex to IB or WHSE, but the packers just get forced out on saturdays and sundays.

Did they ever say why NWA'd people can't use vacation to cover the hours? Is it just spite for people not volunteering to leave early?
You should be able to backfill any time you are scheduled to work that they don't cover you for.

Might as well offer the packers the same level of pay as everyone else too. It's like all warehouse workers in all departments make the same... except the poor packers. Just make them equal. The people feeding the packers are making more than the packers! I know. I filled in for a lady that didn't want to flex over to do it one time.
 
Damn I wish we had some VLE this year. Every day our plans have been close to fall season level. They announced to us last year that they put into place No Work Available NWA and can force people home min 3 hrs paid. But with all due respect that is just the nature of how Packing works. Summer time you basically never have to work a single day. Same is just as true for B1 at my DC. But we are a Miniload DC so at least those who want to stay have more options to do extra tasks without necessarily flexing to other departments.
You need to firmly get confirmation if they are officially calling a NWA, and if he says no then inform him you will be staying.
 
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