Archived Union time?

Union time?

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lolaboss

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Long time lurker first time poster. When I first started working at target, I was all for not having a union. Happy I didn't have to pay dues and felt the union only protected the lazy workers. Half a year later my view on this stance has flipped completely. Just some of the events that have changed my mind on this is :

My store actually calling up employees the day they are scheduled to work to tell them not to come in( opening cart attendant and opening electronics). These members are already only scheduled for a small amount of hours, so having work call you to tell not to come in doesn't sit well with me.

Yesterday the closing food ave worker showed up to work at 4(shift start) only to be told they would close food ave at 6 and he would have to leave than. Cutting hours I understand,but doing so the day of just isn't right. People at my target and I'm sure targets everywhere live off a budget that is based how many hours they are scheduled for, so cutting peoples hours like this is low.

An employee has been trying to apply for new positions at other targets. You know trying to better himself and advance his career. Problem is the internal job board on ehr gets an error when trying to look at open positions. He has contacted the help line only to be told to send an email with the problem to a certain email. He did this and got an email back saying this is a jas system problem and to talk to you etl-hr with the problem. So, he talks to the etl and it has been a month since the problem has not been fixed. Target is about to lose one of their best employees who is also college educated because he is starting to apply other places.

Go ahead and post why target needs a union!
 
Target irrc was hard anti-union just a couple years back, likely still is today just not as public. Unions have their benefits and detriments in general when done in the right spirit it creates an environment to which everyone knows the rules by which they work. In the worst light, it just gets in the way of doing work it is all a matter of how things are set up.
 
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I don't see how these two events warrant needing a union. A union probably wouldn't even fix the second problem. What a union would do to Target is make it hemorrhage even more money, make the workplace extremely less efficient, and take money from your paycheck. There was a time and place when unions were very necessary, and in places they still are, but Target isn't one of those places. The bad things that would come out of unionizing would far outweigh the benefits.
 
PugMuffin said:
I don't see how these two events warrant needing a union. A union probably wouldn't even fix the second problem. What a union would do to Target is make it hemorrhage even more money, make the workplace extremely less efficient, and take money from your paycheck. There was a time and place when unions were very necessary, and in places they still are, but Target isn't one of those places. The bad things that would come out of unionizing would far outweigh the benefits.
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In general most of target's employees don't have special enough skills or the job being hazardous enough to warrant a union.
 
@PugMuffin a union would defiantly help in the situations I provided. I have worked a union job at a grocery store and upper management telling people not to come in for their shift that day would never fly.

When I worked at the grocery store(union) I hated paying the dues and felt it was no benefit to me because I was a hard worker and didn't fear for my job. However, with these things target consistently continue to do to their employees I have took a drastic change on if target needs a union.
More things that wouldn't fly at my old union job:

Waiting to be let out of the building after being clocked out.( some times waiting 15 min)

Also, my work has been " testing" 3 team members for team lead positions for 2 months now.They are all vying for one tl position. For the last 2 months they have each been doing the team lead job, but without the pay. I guess the way management sees it is if these peons will keep doing the work why pay them the team lead pay.
 
Food for thought:

We could only offer the option of not coming in, we couldn't flat out say don't come in. If the TM still wanted to work we couldn't stop them.

We couldn't tell TMs to go home early - we could only offer it. If they refused we couldn't stop them.

We also couldn't, and didn't, hold it against TMs for wanting their scheduled hours. We could only tell TMs to clock out after their scheduled time.

Maybe this is company wide or just our store. Seems like your store is bad a managing payroll.
 
My store is much the same way. However at times they do make it seem like you cant say no.
 
Mhugh220 said:
Food for thought:

We could only offer the option of not coming in, we couldn't flat out say don't come in. If the TM still wanted to work we couldn't stop them.

We couldn't tell TMs to go home early - we could only offer it. If they refused we couldn't stop them.

We also couldn't, and didn't, hold it against TMs for wanting their scheduled hours. We could only tell TMs to clock out after their scheduled time.

Maybe this is company wide or just our store. Seems like your store is bad a managing payroll.
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@Mhugh220 I agree with what you are saying and have always been told this is how it should work. However, I know that in my store its no where near like this. I get the point of having to cut hours but them standing around and laughing about it while others are worried how they will make ends meet always seems so cold hearted.
 
Oh, you can still come in if they ask you not to. But expect to have the same amount of hours cut from your schedule next week. It's called retaliation.

My personal favorite is how on each week of the schedule, there is a cover page that states, "Please check your schedule, it may be changed." Every week.

It's ridiculous. I don't even know why they bother writing a schedule.

I've watched people try to click in. The clock goes beep beep beep. They check the schedule. Look confused. Then get told, "Oh, we changed your schedule."

Lol. I love that one.
 
My store does. After hr-etl had changed the schedule on a weekend shift & made the flow/dayside teams wait an 1/2 hour before they could punch in at tsc, on Monday morning. That was an ugly morning., the team's were not called.
 
I have been told before that they are cutting my hours, "COninja, we are over on payroll. We need to cut your Thursday shift."

It wasn't presented as an option, I was flat out told. Once, they phoned me and left a message and cut my shift without my responding to the voicemail.

Recently, I overheard our HR ninja tell our other CO, "we are over on hours, after your CO shift you can just punch out." It used to be presented as an option, not anymore! If they are cutting hours, you will be cut no matter what you say in return.
 
Anybody who has been on here very long knows how I feel about unions.
Short and sweet, unions are what made this country strong and we are weaker without them.

That said, they don't solve all problems.
Cutting hours might be one of those.
I suspect a strong union would keep this kind of dreck from happening and back in the old days the grocery union wouldn't stand for it.
I'm not so sure about nowadays.
I'd hope not but it's always possible that they might decide that something like decent health insurance was a more important fight and not push this issue.
Unions have to pick their battles too.

You might notice though that in areas that are heavily unionized that Spot isn't as likely to pull stunts like this.
The unions still have strength in that way if nothing else.
 
If there were enough people from a large amount of stores on the union train they wouldn't be able to shit all those stores :)
This movement would have to get started through the internet obviously. Get employees to sign anonymously so corporate can't retaliate until there is to many of us.
 
lolaboss said:
If there were enough people from a large amount of stores on the union train they wouldn't be able to shit all those stores :)
This movement would have to get started through the internet obviously. Get employees to sign anonymously so corporate can't retaliate until there is to many of us.
Click to expand...
I'd love to see that, but not every team member knows of this site and many wouldn't be willing to risk their jobs to try to start a union.
 
I have a second job with Meijer, which is a UFCW union shop.

I don't get the appeal from a PT employee standpoint, but I can how it could be nice for longer-term employees with FT hours who need a little bit more job protection.

Having said that, I think the Union doesn't do much... People still get written up and terminated without much fuss. You have the right for a union rep to be present, but that's about it. And oh, you can have a peer review of a corrective action, if your store director allows it.

It is nice to get a raise after so many hours worked... But the union dues are annoying. And oh, we get a free baby car seat :p

TL's aren't unionized and salaried. Minimum of 50 hours per week. Most TLs aren't internal hires either. Really no promotion potentional, if you were someone who wanted to grow
 
I think this is an interesting subject. Having worked at Target for 3 years and then spending a year at a union Kroger, I have gained a little insight.
The union at Kroger definitely worked for me. In my 3+ years at Target I worked over 6500 hours and was making $9.28/hr. The job at Kroger (nightcrew) started at $9.13 but the union got me $14.00 because of my experience. The union dictates the wages, wage progression, etc. Which means no carrot dangling. You know exactly what you're going to get and when you'll get it.
In certain ways, I think the union has helped Kroger albeit indirectly. Think of it this way, the union decides wages and benefits, they decide the amount of full-time (guaranteed full 40) and part-time (guaranteed minimum of 20). If Kroger wants to decrease expense by cutting payroll it's not as simple as decreasing raises or just cutting hours and positions week to week like Target does. So to remain competitive, Kroger has to look elsewhere to decrease expenditure. One way they do this is by expecting more productivity out of their employees. Another way is by decreasing backroom size. They also invest in technology to simplify processes. The truck at Kroger is completely sorted and palletized by technology at the warehouse. So all we have to do is pull the pallets off the truck and take them to the correct aisle. It's why we're able to unload, stock, and face a 2500 piece grocery truck with less than 10 people and 70-80 hours of payroll with an average hourly wage of $17.06.
Oh, also Kroger isn't allergic to OT like many companies are. They seem to understand its better to have a dedicated employee work 1 hour of overtime to complete a task than to have a useless employee work 4 regular hours to do the same job the wrong way.
As far as dues go, if you worked 40 hours it came out to about $0.35/hr. when I went back to school I was making $17.56 and quite simply 17.56-0.35 is still a lot more than 9.28 so that didn't really bother me. Also my healthcare was only $5/week so that pretty much pays for it right there.
Keep in mind unions differ from region to region so its possible and entirely likely that a union store near you will not get you the same pay and benefits.
 
Were you full time at Kroger? I've worked in a union grocery store before and the only way that wages shoot up like that is if you are lucky enough to be full time. And since the number of full time positions in built into the contract, it usually won't go up much if at all...and you have no new full time openings due to people staying on and enjoying the benefits for many years.

Part-timers started slightly above minimum wage and it went up between 10 and 25 cents for every 1040 hours worked. And in this contract, there were no minimum weekly hours for part-timers. At one point, the store switched to an automated sales forecast type of scheduling system (similar to myTime) that cut some people to less than 8 hours per week.

And when the contract is up, the store will almost always get what it really wants and let the union claim some small victories. Want to strike to try and change it? Good luck...the stores will find a way to operate with just ETLs and temporary help. It won't be pretty, but they can last longer than the people striking and not earning a paycheck can.

The anti-union video they show during orientation is 95% bullshit, but some parts are actually sort of accurate (like how many things are based on seniority, not who can to the job best).
 
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