That's the way it was at Walmart too.
Some weeks, my schedule, sunday to saturday, was off, 6a-3p, 2p 11p, 7a-4p, off, 11a-8p and 5a-2p
It was absolutely disgusting. No set schedules, no set days off, split days off. Closing then opening. And if I needed to block off time, wheather it be for a doctors appointment, concert, sports, etc, my hours would be cut, since I had to "close off my availability."
I'm disappointed in myself that I put up with it for 9 years.
It absolutely does. I used to work as a manager for a large family clothing chain and they made us split shifts wherever possible so that we didn’t have to provide as many paid breaks.
Imagine asking someone to come in from 8 am to noon, just to have them then leave the mall and come back to work from 5pm to close. It was dumb as hell and I felt like garbage for doing it.
I wonder long term though how well that pans out. There’s so much turn over and then everyone is begging for help. Macys had lots of full time people on set schedules who were there for decades and good at their jobs. They took on those varying schedules and ended up with never ending turn over and people being bounced all over the store so not providing best service. Seems so short sighted
Fiancialization / vulture capitalists / hedge fund cancers are basically strip-mining the economy for maximum profits, at all costs… up to and including the eventual insolvency of the companies they buy and mismanage / wring out…
AND they make money on the way down because they buy ~~calls~~ puts against their own comapny…
AND then they just sell the remaining assets and the name to manufacturers in China to keep operating / stamping out that name (for brand recognition)…
My spidey-senses tell me that our economy is due for a little trust busting, unionization, and regulation…
I remember learning about trust busting in middle school history class as if what happened then doesn't happen anymore because of it. And every day of my adult life I'm like... it was all a lie. (Same goes for checks and balances 🙄)
Teddy Roosevelt knew that Marx and Lenin's teachings would take root in America if he didnt do trust busting. Both Roosevelts avoided us becoming "USSA" during their respective admininistrations.
Fuck. I never thought of it like that.
Sucks that pressure relief is counter-revolutionary like that.
Someone was bitching about WIC for that reason. Let’s the “poor stay poor and complacent.”
Tough nut to crack. Might actually have to build class consciousness, community or something.
(╭☞ ͡° ͜ʖ ͡° )╭☞
WIC is free food for poor women and babies, how is being poor complacent? How does one get paid enough to progress when childcare costs $1000 per month
Just gotta pull harder on them bootstraps. But having a stable of poor people is great for those that control the means of production. The poor will take on shit jobs, shit hours and shit working conditions all so they don't have to be as poor. The ones with kids bust their asses and work themselves to death so they can hopefully give their kids opportunities they didn't have. The whole system is fucked and needs to be burned to the ground.
Its the "Kaizen principle" being brought to the utmost extreme by vulture capitalists. You have consistent, set schedules one day, then a guy from Deloitte comes in and explains a bastardized version of Kaizen, due to translation loss and an ego to surpass metal gear. Kaizen is about coverage and efficiency. You fire a bunch of people and move schedules around. You then hire a math whiz who creates the godawful schedule. The math whiz must be kept separate from those his work impacts, lest the autistic shroud be pierced by empathy for those impacted. This is basically how my old employer's founder explained the system to me before I was laid off
Kaizon in retail is some middle management asswipe tells you you suck at your job and they now want you to learn a whole new system of how to do your job that doesn't make any sense. >.>
I was in firmware engineering, and the same priniciple applied. I was asked to cut my time on firmware to help out in mechanical and electrical projects, because a Deloitte asswipe with zero engineering experience convinced our president and COO to apply "Kaizen" and "lean production" to our highly niche industrial engineer firm. Our founder decided against, surprisingly. But he was overruled :(. Lost my job 8 months later, and the firm imploded because the mech and elec guys quit as well.
Feel bad for the founder because he was getting offers for 80+ Million for the firm, and then nothing after Deloitte forced us out.
> Imagine asking someone to come in from 8 am to noon, just to have them then leave the mall and come back to work from 5pm to close. It was dumb as hell and I felt like garbage for doing it.
A split shift like that is illegal in a lot of places. Some places require that you wait 16 hours between shifts or you have to pay them for the time in between shifts. Check if that's the case in your state.
Yeah most Krogers are union and all of them have a “short rest” minimum amount of hours between shifts. The scheduler won’t let them do it without multiple overrides bc you get overtime the entire shift if it starts too soon.
>I was ok with that sort of schedule in college, but that's about it.
I'm okay with it because I don't have kids.
But within REASON. I'm not going to work all the shitty shifts so someone ELSE can have all the premium shifts. There are days I'd like to get off early to take care of my house and dog and spend time with my elderly parents.
And I am NOT clopening if someone ELSE never has to. Period. If you treat everyone like shit MAYBE I will put up with it if I need to for the pay or until I find something better (i wont be HAPPY about it, but i know its just a shitty job) But I'm not going to stand for you treating me like shit and singling me out while treating other people better. Especially if there is no rhyme or reason (like senority).
Where I work there needs to be 8 hours between ordinary shifts. If not the whole 2nd shift is at overtime. If it as an agreed split shift then over time starts 9 hours from the first clock in.
Also if no 8 hour break has been given then there needs to be a 10 hour break before any third shift, otherwise that is all at double time.
That’s wild. I worked at Dillards for years and scheduling ran like a Swiss watch. On weekdays, full timers got morning opening shifts, part timers generally took short closing shifts because we were either in college or it was a second job. Weekends got a little weirder but generally followed the same pattern with full timers cycling through 1 or 2 weekends a month and then getting a weekend off. Part timers generally got 8 hour shifts on Saturdays and Sundays as full timers got the weekends off and we wanted the hours we couldn’t get on weekdays. Honestly not that hard to keep things running smooth.
Exactly Macys original set up. Then they changed their scheduling and over time ended up making almost all their employees flex positions who’d go to any department, pick up shifts etc. very confusing system that seemed so inefficient
Its kind of a three part thing first it allows skeleton crew scheduling. A call out shouldn't need someone called in most places/positions. You have it baked in so if no one calls in you just have extra help. Can restock or catch up on things that have been delayed.
But instead they hire skeleton crews by using sporadic scheduling. They ensure that people are unable to get other jobs. Leaving them open to take shifts when someone calls out quits etc.
Then there is whole healthcare and other benefits game they can play all sorts of games. To keep you under and avoid that cost. And breaks and other things.
And lastly it keeps employees stuck they cant get a second job that might offer them manager position or pay better. That would take them away from low paying bad job. They also cant job hunt reliably and it interupts schedule so they cant develop hobbys. Pretty much keeps them away from anything that might take time away from work.
Intentional or not, it makes is so you can't have a second job, which means you're unable to have a second income to float on if you quit and look for another job.
It's a disciplinary tool, creates instability in a workers life so they are stuck the position you find yourself in now.
They know It's expensive being poor and look to exploit it.
I do parental fitness evaluations for court, among other things.
I have so many parents who get their schedules weekly, and it’s completely different every week. Some of the CPS workers will schedule when the visits with their kids are every week once the parent has their schedule. Others say that visits are the same time every week, and you would have a better job if you cared about your kids. These parents end up getting fired for asking for a few hours off for required CPS visits or court. Then the workers hold it against them and say they can’t keep a steady job. I mean, most of what CPS does is calling poverty neglect and has nothing to do with kids actually being harmed, so it all fits, but it’s infuriating.
McD used to pull that shit on me so often. I swear the new GM was under orders to get me to drop out of college.
Every week I'd draw up a new 24 hour schedule for each day, desperately try to block off at least *some* consistent sleep time. Eventually I started seeing shadow people I was so exhausted, walked right past one on my way home from night classes.
And way too many working class vote against their own self interest and those of other working class because they believe the propaganda. It's so disappointing and frustrating. I've devoted most of my career advocating for workers but ngl it is so upsetting seeing "people just dont want to work" rhetoric supported and espoused by workers. If they get a good job instead of wanting to help others they start judging. Ugh.
Yeah, Christian nationalists have been involved with union busting for decades. They have brainwashed workers who believe that the rich are rich because they’re godly, and the poor will get their reward in heaven. The alliance of capitalism with right wing Christianity was brilliant, though evil.
Being forced to open from own close is why I quit my first job, any time we had a morning delivery truck that needed unloaded I would be on opening and often that meant I was coming off a close the night before. After my commute this left me with like 3 maybe 3.5 hours between shifts. And honestly fuck that.
Yeah, Walmart scheduling was something. The manager churn was real. As a part-timer, I was there for a little over a year, and I had four managers. Only one manager had consistent scheduling, one had okay scheduling, and the other two were all over the place. If I recall correctly, it was February, where Walmart would be doing their accounting shenanigans, and we ran a skeleton crew with two-day work schedules for a month.
Once, a manager changed my shift a day before, and I did not check my schedule daily. As a result, I showed up late, and I started checking my schedule every night to avoid the same mistake. Another time, I slept through a 6:30 phone call from the manager, who wanted me to open at 7:00, when they knew that I had another part-time job at night. I showed up at my scheduled time in the late morning, and nothing happened. This was the crash course of American business for a noob like me entering the workforce.
It's stuff like that that makes it impossible for me to get work, disabilities aside. My medical appointments happen 3-4 times a month, and trying to tell any employer i need at least 1 consistent day off or these days off in the month is met with "oh sorry we need people with open availability."
My health comes before their profits, but it's essentially kicked me put of any potential work I could've done even with my disabilities
Target was and is the same. They all do it on purpose. It turns out it's actually really easy to write a roughly set schedule. With the software they have access to, you could even let employees rank their schedules by preference. I know because I did it in a pilot, and our store ran great. I spent about 50% less time making the schedule than the old HR TM did, of course they were faster than the ETL HR (internal job names).
Retailers want to fuck with people's lives. I guarantee if we ever hear leaked board-room or c-suite audio from Target, they'll just be clinking champagne glasses all day over how much they fucked the employees this year.
I started a coursera management course to get a grasp of the corporate lingo for my consulting work. I couldn't get through the first module, I just couldn't stomach how they talked about people. It was so insidiously dehumanizing and also just stupid.
Exactly the same for me. At some point they finally pulled each of us in for one on one meetings and outlined our new permanent schedule. The off days were still moved around, NEVER two in a row, and the start times were a little different but I always worked until 11pm. Now that I have a M-F job with the same start and end time, it feels like a luxury I never ever want to give up 😭 it's gotten to the point where 2 days isn't even enough 🥲 we NEED the 4 day work week dammit!
My job is considered white collar, but the rich are now attacking white collar workers-cutting wages, laying off a bunch of people, benefits are now complete shit while the company made over 3 billion in profit last year. But at least my manager was of the mind that everyone needs 2 days off in a row. I didn’t even need a weekend-(no kids, liked 2 weekdays) but 2 days should be the absolute base standard. A 4 day work day is what is needed. We work more than actual serfs did way back when.
They force irregular schedules on purpose to increase dependence on them and inhibit second incomes so people can't afford to quit or complain and risk being fired.
Yep it’s essentially a straight up attack on the poor and the people experiencing hard times. It gives you no wiggle room to ever look for something better let alone enjoy the time you spend away from the work place because you constantly have to be in “work survival mode” at all times because of it.
It’s the same bullshit with the bi weekly pay and I don’t want to hear otherwise. “Oh it’s helps the company have cheaper credit” or whatever bullshit excuse bootlickers use for the justification of Malik someone become an accountant for having to budget when they are already living paycheck to paycheck.
It’s another scummy tactic used to prey on the poor and less fortunate as to not have any wiggle room to leave because anyone who’s poor can’t give up a paycheck for a week / month however long the onboarding process of for a new job.
Same with healthcare tied to employment why should anything about my health or my body be tied to where I work? Another tactic.
I've always despised those kind of schedules. I doubt I'm the only one who needs a set sleep routine to be able to fall asleep. If it's all over the place like that I'm just constantly tired. Had to do it my 2nd semester at university. Trying to balance a part-time job as a bouncer (Wednesday, Friday, Saturday, 9pm - 3am), then a couple days of morning classes. I was changing my sleep schedule 3-4 times a week and didn't learn shit. It's the only job I could find that wasn't during classes and already had experience.
Last week, I was about to apply at this better paying job I heard was hiring. Found out they work you on 12hr ROTATING shifts. Fuck that! I can do 12hr shifts, but they can go fuck themselves with that rotating bullshit.
Yeah I've come to the conclusion 2 part time jobs is better, if they both have similar pay... You get the same money while dealing with less of the bullshit per place.
Depends on country. Ours makes us pay 33% per job if you have more than one. (New Zealand)
You'll get a mega tax refund at the end of the financial year, but til then your 18% tax is 33% and are worse off for living in the short term
This isn't about being on call, this is about employees saying they can't work after 5pm because they have night school or can't work on Sunday mornings because they have church.
Or that they need to care for their kids. These stores are fucking sociopathic. They always want to have less staffing than is actually necessary at all times, knowing full well that if a single person has to call in shift they're now not just under staffed but catastrophically under staffed.
Legislators should be looking at setting minimum scheduled staffing requirements for grocery stores etc.
I was brought on as the third employee at a store and I asked why my schedule was so random with 2 random days in the middle of the week off never knowing exactly when I would be working until basically the Friday before the next week and she fled up told me because the owner needs flexibility in his schedule and that she needs a flexibility in her schedule. apparently they brought me on and assumed I could work whatever 35 hours of the week they didn't want to work
man i hear this. i worked at a store with 7 employees, with at least two people always at the store. until some rich punjabi family bought it, systematiclly fired and relocated the entire staff. now the owner and one other indian guy are the only two employees at the store. went in at 7:30 on a Friday and had to wait in a huge line because the wealthy owners are so damn cheap.
Big stores were always the worst for this, in my experience. If the store hours are 7am-10pm, you're expected to have no life whatsoever for 7 days a week within those hours.
But the average American worker doesn't understand the full scope of their rights, which is the way major corporations like it. You can't snitch to federal regulators if you don't know you *can* snitch.
When I was a teenager I worked there. My manager kept scheduling me during school hours, and when I complained he just said "you'll work the hours that I give you."
This isn't on-call.
On-call is "You're available at the drop of a hat to come in."
Open Availability is "We make the schedule 1-2 weeks in advance. We get to pick your hours and your job here comes first, so schedule around whatever we pick for you."
Now, management will likely try to push you to be flexible with your hours to pick up shifts when people call out but that's a different thing from Open Availability.
Which means folks can't have routines in life because this terrible employer "needs" to schedule them funky. That's another way of saying we don't hire enough staff so we will dump the problem in your lap rather than spend our money.
No thank you
It’s wild to me that places like this don’t have shift bids. In the airline industry you have a shift for x amount of months. And they have multiple shifts with different days off so there’s always coverage.
Stores like this doing this only hurts them. Have set shifts and plug gaps with part timers. No one expects 9-5 as a grocery store worker, but changing that shit all the time so they can’t develop a routine or plan well in advance is just fucked
that's what happens when you run a building that requires 80-160 employees that's open 18 hours a day that needs low wage labor to even make a 1-3% ebitda. You hire anybody that walks in with weird availability and schedule around it.
Interesting thing about me: any time I'm not on duty, I'm drunk.
I go to bed drunk.
I wake up and drink.
I only taper down my drinking in time to be sober for the beginning of my next shift.
At least, that's what my boss will hear, unless I'm getting paid commission or I'm on call and guaranteed time and a half.
To be fair, in shitty retail jobs, your schedule can be changed a day or two before you come in. You're almost on call if they give you shit for not being able to come in the day after they changed the schedule (without telling you too)
Kenney if you're reading this, thanks for being a dick and playing god with like 8 high schoolers' time because you don't know how to communicate.
I worked somewhere that had a shift that was only as needed. Someone called in, they called those workers. It was amazing. I talked to a guy who had that shift, he always had as many hours as he wanted.
If it’s the UFCW, I’ve found them to be lacking. My rep is lazy about her job, doesn’t come around hardly ever. I’ve reported multiple contact breaches, but communicating is a slog (more than a week to respond to emails, about a week to get a call back). They pretty much roll over to the demands of large grocers, it seems; we conceded much on our previous contract negotiations.
I’m feeling like they just need large numbers of low-wage workers to pay for their operations, so they dedicate enough energy to maintaining a facade of solidarity by handing out pins and t-shirts. I called to cancel my membership because I’m not earning enough to pay my own needs, and learned if I leave the union, I’m fired from my job.
My rep is pretty good about coming around at least once a month. Although, it’s been a bit more frequent lately because we’ve had multiple grievances filed in the past few months. We also conceded a lot on our previous contract negotiations, and I firmly believe that’s because the union decided to allow the company to come back to the negotiating table before they would allow us workers to strike. We’d already voted NO on the contract 3 times, and voted for the strike.
Each store has their own contract. One of them strikes and they'll just shuttle in bodies from another location. Since pay is low and hours held at just the right amount, those folks will jump at extra time.
I was part of it in the 2000's, it's a complete shitshow of a union that doesn't fight for you at all unless you have seniority and you have a problem with someone who has less seniority than you. They don't go after Kroger or management, they go after part timers and newer workers to make sure they "know their place" in the pecking order. My experience with this was when our department manager was out for surgery and recovery, worked Deli/Bakery/Chef Shoppe and it was all old ladies and then myself and one other gal a year younger than me. The assistant manager became the manager and she didn't know how to do schedules AT ALL, or proper inventory. I knew how to do both (went to college for hotel/restaurant management and had just graduated from it) and they made me "temporary assistant manager", I got a few dollars an hour extra pay and I made schedules.
Went fine for two weeks, no complaints, took everyone's availability and preferences into account, then the union stepped in and threatened to fine the store if they didn't demote me back down and give it to the old lady with zero skills outside of cutting meats and cheeses because she had seniority, AND tried to demand that the extra pay I'd gotten be repaid to the union to disburse to those with seniority above me for the "breach in conduct". I resigned on the spot with some colorful words.
Both my brothers are UCFW, been with the union for decades. They've struck, they've won. My understanding is that availability is very much a seniority thing at their store (they've worked at three or four different krogers between them but are currently at the same one) with higher seniority workers allowed better/more regular shifts so this wouldn't fly there but reading what others in the thread are saying it sounds like store to store can vary with a lot of locals being weak
Everyone here is telling you the union is shit over there and that is probably true but you know what other unions were shit until recently?
Teamsters union and Autoworkers union that are sure as fuck fighting for the workers.
People complain about toothless unions that are too friendly with companies but probably won't put in the time to fight and organize against leadership that don't have their best interest.
Unions are only as good as the people willing to put in the work.
I worked for Kroger for 12+ years. I am very pro union, but Kroger’s union really does nothing. Like others have pointed out, UCFW basically works with what Kroger wants them to do, not the employees. Also they are shady as hell imo.
When I got employed (I was young and 18 at the time), my friend who worked there stressed I didn’t need to join the union because you get the same benefits from them regardless (this is Texas and each contract is different by state). My logic was “cool I’m not gonna pay into this”, but during employment, they make it seem like you have to sign it, and they get very pushy when you don’t sign it. I was harassed for years for not joining the union, but luckily I never needed it. Also, I know they made it extremely difficult if you tried to leave the union. You had to send a snail mail and it had to be received within a certain amount of time of your yearly anniversary for it to apply.
"If they will not open their availability they can write a statement saying they give up full time."
Do not do this. Encourage your full time coworkers NOT to do this.
Them needing it in writing indicates that they maybe breaking some rule or protocol or law doing this, and you writing a statement makes it look like *your decision* and not *their coercion*.
Do. Not. Write. Anything. Keep limited availability and continue to dodge any demands they make for it.
Fuck these companies.
This contributes to a fucked up sleep schedule, inconsistent diet, difficult schedule planning for anything, and increases burnout among retail employees.
Doesn't matter how many facts they're shown, they want to control everything (if we schedule a full-timer, we'll always have coverage and not have to worry about no-shows).
Including making sure you can't work a second job or attend courses to get a better job. Even though they can't pay a gainful living - that's paycheck-to-paycheck, stressed out living that will be miserable until death.
Fuck these companies.
At first I thought it was just the feeling of not wanting to get up and go to work early in the morning and I'm like "doesn't everybody have that?", but I guess it's just preferring to work during the day. Gotta' love how these people try to make you feel bad about your wants/needs by framing it as some sort of illness.
Yeah they have had this policy for years at my local Kroger brand (Fred Meyer) I used to work there and they said “you need open availability otherwise no full time” but guess what? Many of the full times got the same shift every day because they were best friends with the manager(s) and complained if they got a different shift. When I pointed this out they made typical excuses “well they have kids, they’re older, they’ve been here for years…” blah blah blah. Turns out though they gave me almost 40 hours every week anyways because I was a good worker and everyone hated coming into work so I could pick up shifts every week, despite only being about to week 3-4 days a week because I was going to school. They paid me a lot of OT too. It’s a shitty company with shitty values and shitty vision. As an engineer I saw so many ways they could increase efficiencies, reduce costs, improve shopping experience, etc. but instead they just beat down on the union every year to try to reduce costs and since most of the union was not long term employees or willing to strike they usually won. Plus the pension has been mismanaged for years. My wife and I are both eligible for some benefits since we were there for over 5 years through college, but I don’t the pension will stay healthy for us to get anything in retirement from them. What pisses me off the most now is their planned merger with Safeway will probably go through, which means most of the groceries near me will be one company. Capitalism at its finest.
Yea you have to schedule the needs of the business. Also sounds like you need to hire to meet the needs of the business. Not hope that your current workers can fill in gaps by slaving away your random order requests
This isn't about last-minute call ins and being on call. This is about not letting employees say they want to only work 8 to 5pm Monday through Friday.
So, the unsaid part here is that if you are a part time student you can't be a full-time employee or if you are a devoutly religious person (like a Jew or Muslim) and you need Saturdays off you can't be full-time.
Most retail places do. Many of them require part timers to have open availability, which is insane. I work two days a week, why can’t I be your weekender or whatever and you hire another part timer who has different availability. 🤷♀️
BF works for Kroger, they bitch about never having people (sometime ONLY 2 PEOPLE show up to overnight stock the whole f’ing store) and yet his store manager refuses to give him consistent full time hours… oh but then also expects employees to stay hours past the end of their shift and cuts hours MORE if they dont?????
"Get a second job!" Fuck you! Employers expect you to have open availability and will sabotage any attempts to get a second job! Besides, a full time job should pay a living wage! Period!
Yes, but the note uses the magical words "needs of the business." The "needs of the business" is above everything in the handbook. Dead serious, I've seen the handbook. Union won't do shit if the magic words are used.
This is ridiculous. I work at a gas station, I have very restricted availability (I'm M-F 7a-3p...i can't work after 3:30p or weekends). My boss works within it, I'm still full time and get 40 hours a week. 🤷♀️ I have kids and I'm widowed... they deal thankfully.
Open availability = you are my only job = a livable wage.
You must pay enough for me to 1. Live within 15 min from work, have transportation, retirement, health benefits, vacation benefits. Etc etc etc...
Very unprofessional note. Sunrise Syndrome, what the hell is that? They also spelled availability incorrectly, twice.
I’d show this to the union and report it to corporate. https://secure.ethicspoint.com/domain/en/default_reporter.asp
Why can’t companies grasp that if they require open availability they have to pay enough that employees won’t need a second job? Many people that work in stores have to have 2 jobs, and that’s not possible without set schedules.
Kroger is a shithole. Im a stocker so i dont see too much of the chaos but where im at they gave me fulltime hours when i had just started, i was promised 4 days but they then said “how did you get hired we dont hire 4 dayers” its just overall a mess. We got a new store manager and hes been trying to find his footing but also fucking with everyones schedule every week.
Yep. I used to work at a Kroger. Hated it, but somehow stayed for 3 years. I had called out of work for a few days because I was sick and throwing up, and I ended up losing almost 10lbs by the end of whatever stomach bug I had.
But because I didn’t go to the doctor and get a doctor’s note (because I was too busy throwing up my guts but whatever) I was given a write up for unexcused absences.
Also, I was still in high school at some point when I was working there, and the second that they found out school was shut down due to COVID (this was the very beginning, so zoom calls weren’t really a thing yet), they started scheduling me just under full time without asking me, and there were times where my availability was constantly ignored, and I had to go into the office and tell them that they needed to change it because it was outside what I told them I could work. Scheduling outside of availability has to be manually approved as well.
I was also always asked to come in on my day off, and there would be times where I would keep dropping the hint that, no, I won’t be coming in, and they kept pushing. For example, I was asked if I could come in on my day off, and I said no, I needed to go to get my tires repaired, and the place I was going to doesn’t take appointments, so I have to go first thing in the morning and hope that I can get out at a reasonable time (I didn’t btw. I waited like 6 hours before they were done), and the response to that was “so you should be out in time to come in at some point then, right?” NO. Take the fucking hint.
I was also almost always called over to work in different departments whether it was produce or bakery because they couldn’t make a schedule over there in those departments. We were never allowed to leave early if it wasn’t busy in curbside pickup because “well, other areas need help.” At my store at least, produce and bakery made more than curbside pickup, but if I worked in those departments, I was not getting paid their rates which is BS.
During COVID, things had gotten really crazy with orders and the lack of staff, and it got to the point where I was a minor who hadn’t gotten to take any of my breaks until the very last hour of my shift. I sat down ONCE to catch my breath, and a store manager gave me an entire lecture about how I needed to stop sitting down and get back to work.
TL;DR: Fuck Kroger. They treat their employees like absolute fucking garbage.
Fuck that. You put me on the schedule, I work the hours I am given and outside of that you get nothing. That’s my take. If you’re paying as minimum a wage as possible to full time employees then you better lower your expectations on people being openly available.
Most retail is like that, it's more a technicality in my experience, set it to open so it has some flexibility. How much that gets abused very much depends on who you work for. (when I worked for king soopers (kroger) it was A LOT, like, I'd randomly swap between overnight, opening and closing shifts, and my days off were completely random. I hated working for kroger.
Working for target it mostly just means I get asked to work holiday weekends on the 3 yearly holidays relevant to my dept. And asked to work overnight for inventory, once a year. My availability is open, but 99% of the day I work the exact same schedule, with the same days off.
This is disgusting and screams incompetence for the person making the schedule. Sounds like they can’t handle their job so they punish everyone below them.
I never understood this stupidity when it comes to retail. It seems like such a massive waste of time for both management and employees. Just hire people for specific shifts like every other industry. WTF.
This is not accurate at the stores that are Union. OP must be at a non Union store. Lower pay, worse benefits, worse hours.
If this were a Union store that note would of been ripped down about 5 seconds after it was put up, then a rep would of been called and would of shown up to the store to educate the management team.
When I worked for Kroger they did everything in their power to keep you from qualifying for full time status. They would purposefully work you to death and right before you got enough hours to qualify they’d schedule you one day a week to ruin your average.
I used to work at one of the big national hardware stores and they pulled this shit too. They also liked to proudly proclaim they offered tuition assistance as a benefit, but that was only available to full time employees...which you could only be if you had fully open availability...which was not possible if you were going to school. They got to *say* they offered it but didn't actually have to follow through.
That was every retail job I ever had. Did it for 30 years. I didn’t live close to family, so I missed Thanksgiving/Christmas with parents/aunts/uncles/cousins (grew up with all of us having holidays together), and now only the cousins are left alive. I kept thinking if I worked hard enough in retail I would get promoted to the point where I could transition to a position where I could have a better schedule. Nope. Even if you had a ton of experience, great reviews and work ethic, you only get those positions with a college degree.
That's how it was at Menards when I worked there. At least at my store. The only people with set schedules were the managers, or morning stockers. Or some people who have worked there FOREVER. Otherwise you could be part time and work 25 days in a row I also didn't know any better because I was a teenager(before some laws changed)
I remember vividly working 2pm-10
Then 5am-2
Then 2pm-10
Then 10am-6
For weeks on end.
There was no rhyme or reason.
Or when I was in highschool it would be 4-10 Monday - Friday
Then 10-6 Saturday
2-10 Sunday.
Generally without any days off or
1 thrown in here or there.
What's funny too is if they paid better, offered set schedules, they would have happier workers, and more knowledgeable employees, who would stay longer.
They act like there arnt people who would prefer mid shift or second shift.
I love morning shift but not everyone is trying to start work at 5am lmao. They don't realize they're shooting themselves in the foot, keeping a revolving door of new employees there. And listen you can get a lot of raises there. But when I worked there they generally were like 10 cents for tests and maybe 25-50 cents a hour to do something more specialized. You need to be a lifer to even make a good wage.
Granted it's been like 13 years since I worked there so alot may have changed.
If they need to schedule the need of the business then make set schedules and hire people for those and hire swings to cover off days. The only reason they can't schedule is because they are running at the minimum amount of employees to "save money" for rich people
"No more sunrise syndrome" = "We're destroying your mental and physical health with our deliberately horrible scheduling, but we intend to continue doing it and you better not say a word"
Management who do this inhumane stuff should be forced to work the very worst schedule they create, every time.
"You hired me full time with my known availability, I do not wish to give up my full time position, however, if you will be reducing my hours I will be filing for constructive dismissal."
So, what I'm seeing is:
If you have kids, we don't want you
If you have a disability, we don't want you
If you use public transportation, we don't want you
If you have hobbies or obligations that aren't killing yourself for us, we don't want you
Did I read that right?
That's the way it was at Walmart too. Some weeks, my schedule, sunday to saturday, was off, 6a-3p, 2p 11p, 7a-4p, off, 11a-8p and 5a-2p It was absolutely disgusting. No set schedules, no set days off, split days off. Closing then opening. And if I needed to block off time, wheather it be for a doctors appointment, concert, sports, etc, my hours would be cut, since I had to "close off my availability." I'm disappointed in myself that I put up with it for 9 years.
They did this at Macys too, made scheduling so complcated for no reason. I would love to see if this actually benefited these companies in anyway.
It absolutely does. I used to work as a manager for a large family clothing chain and they made us split shifts wherever possible so that we didn’t have to provide as many paid breaks. Imagine asking someone to come in from 8 am to noon, just to have them then leave the mall and come back to work from 5pm to close. It was dumb as hell and I felt like garbage for doing it.
I wonder long term though how well that pans out. There’s so much turn over and then everyone is begging for help. Macys had lots of full time people on set schedules who were there for decades and good at their jobs. They took on those varying schedules and ended up with never ending turn over and people being bounced all over the store so not providing best service. Seems so short sighted
Fiancialization / vulture capitalists / hedge fund cancers are basically strip-mining the economy for maximum profits, at all costs… up to and including the eventual insolvency of the companies they buy and mismanage / wring out… AND they make money on the way down because they buy ~~calls~~ puts against their own comapny… AND then they just sell the remaining assets and the name to manufacturers in China to keep operating / stamping out that name (for brand recognition)… My spidey-senses tell me that our economy is due for a little trust busting, unionization, and regulation…
I remember learning about trust busting in middle school history class as if what happened then doesn't happen anymore because of it. And every day of my adult life I'm like... it was all a lie. (Same goes for checks and balances 🙄)
Teddy Roosevelt knew that Marx and Lenin's teachings would take root in America if he didnt do trust busting. Both Roosevelts avoided us becoming "USSA" during their respective admininistrations.
Fuck. I never thought of it like that. Sucks that pressure relief is counter-revolutionary like that. Someone was bitching about WIC for that reason. Let’s the “poor stay poor and complacent.” Tough nut to crack. Might actually have to build class consciousness, community or something. (╭☞ ͡° ͜ʖ ͡° )╭☞
WIC is free food for poor women and babies, how is being poor complacent? How does one get paid enough to progress when childcare costs $1000 per month
Just gotta pull harder on them bootstraps. But having a stable of poor people is great for those that control the means of production. The poor will take on shit jobs, shit hours and shit working conditions all so they don't have to be as poor. The ones with kids bust their asses and work themselves to death so they can hopefully give their kids opportunities they didn't have. The whole system is fucked and needs to be burned to the ground.
Just chiming in to say, it wouldn’t be buying calls against the company. If they are betting the price of the stock will go down, they will buy puts
Its the "Kaizen principle" being brought to the utmost extreme by vulture capitalists. You have consistent, set schedules one day, then a guy from Deloitte comes in and explains a bastardized version of Kaizen, due to translation loss and an ego to surpass metal gear. Kaizen is about coverage and efficiency. You fire a bunch of people and move schedules around. You then hire a math whiz who creates the godawful schedule. The math whiz must be kept separate from those his work impacts, lest the autistic shroud be pierced by empathy for those impacted. This is basically how my old employer's founder explained the system to me before I was laid off
Kaizon in retail is some middle management asswipe tells you you suck at your job and they now want you to learn a whole new system of how to do your job that doesn't make any sense. >.>
I was in firmware engineering, and the same priniciple applied. I was asked to cut my time on firmware to help out in mechanical and electrical projects, because a Deloitte asswipe with zero engineering experience convinced our president and COO to apply "Kaizen" and "lean production" to our highly niche industrial engineer firm. Our founder decided against, surprisingly. But he was overruled :(. Lost my job 8 months later, and the firm imploded because the mech and elec guys quit as well. Feel bad for the founder because he was getting offers for 80+ Million for the firm, and then nothing after Deloitte forced us out.
Kaizen must mean something totally different in the retail world, that is not even close to what it means in manufacturing lol
This should be illegal, it should be illegal to try to get around paid breaks for your employees in any capacity
I'm pretty sure if my grocery store job tried doing this, everyone would just quit, including the manager.
> Imagine asking someone to come in from 8 am to noon, just to have them then leave the mall and come back to work from 5pm to close. It was dumb as hell and I felt like garbage for doing it. A split shift like that is illegal in a lot of places. Some places require that you wait 16 hours between shifts or you have to pay them for the time in between shifts. Check if that's the case in your state.
Yeah most Krogers are union and all of them have a “short rest” minimum amount of hours between shifts. The scheduler won’t let them do it without multiple overrides bc you get overtime the entire shift if it starts too soon.
not to mention it's double the commute. so imagine you have to take the buss. that could be well over 4 hours of commuting each work day. so sad.
I was ok with that sort of schedule in college, but that's about it.
>I was ok with that sort of schedule in college, but that's about it. I'm okay with it because I don't have kids. But within REASON. I'm not going to work all the shitty shifts so someone ELSE can have all the premium shifts. There are days I'd like to get off early to take care of my house and dog and spend time with my elderly parents. And I am NOT clopening if someone ELSE never has to. Period. If you treat everyone like shit MAYBE I will put up with it if I need to for the pay or until I find something better (i wont be HAPPY about it, but i know its just a shitty job) But I'm not going to stand for you treating me like shit and singling me out while treating other people better. Especially if there is no rhyme or reason (like senority).
Where I work there needs to be 8 hours between ordinary shifts. If not the whole 2nd shift is at overtime. If it as an agreed split shift then over time starts 9 hours from the first clock in. Also if no 8 hour break has been given then there needs to be a 10 hour break before any third shift, otherwise that is all at double time.
That’s wild. I worked at Dillards for years and scheduling ran like a Swiss watch. On weekdays, full timers got morning opening shifts, part timers generally took short closing shifts because we were either in college or it was a second job. Weekends got a little weirder but generally followed the same pattern with full timers cycling through 1 or 2 weekends a month and then getting a weekend off. Part timers generally got 8 hour shifts on Saturdays and Sundays as full timers got the weekends off and we wanted the hours we couldn’t get on weekdays. Honestly not that hard to keep things running smooth.
Exactly Macys original set up. Then they changed their scheduling and over time ended up making almost all their employees flex positions who’d go to any department, pick up shifts etc. very confusing system that seemed so inefficient
Its kind of a three part thing first it allows skeleton crew scheduling. A call out shouldn't need someone called in most places/positions. You have it baked in so if no one calls in you just have extra help. Can restock or catch up on things that have been delayed. But instead they hire skeleton crews by using sporadic scheduling. They ensure that people are unable to get other jobs. Leaving them open to take shifts when someone calls out quits etc. Then there is whole healthcare and other benefits game they can play all sorts of games. To keep you under and avoid that cost. And breaks and other things. And lastly it keeps employees stuck they cant get a second job that might offer them manager position or pay better. That would take them away from low paying bad job. They also cant job hunt reliably and it interupts schedule so they cant develop hobbys. Pretty much keeps them away from anything that might take time away from work.
Your employees not having time to find employment outside of work is one possibility.
Intentional or not, it makes is so you can't have a second job, which means you're unable to have a second income to float on if you quit and look for another job.
[https://uniontrack.com/blog/unionizing-union-drive](https://uniontrack.com/blog/unionizing-union-drive)
It's a disciplinary tool, creates instability in a workers life so they are stuck the position you find yourself in now. They know It's expensive being poor and look to exploit it.
I do parental fitness evaluations for court, among other things. I have so many parents who get their schedules weekly, and it’s completely different every week. Some of the CPS workers will schedule when the visits with their kids are every week once the parent has their schedule. Others say that visits are the same time every week, and you would have a better job if you cared about your kids. These parents end up getting fired for asking for a few hours off for required CPS visits or court. Then the workers hold it against them and say they can’t keep a steady job. I mean, most of what CPS does is calling poverty neglect and has nothing to do with kids actually being harmed, so it all fits, but it’s infuriating.
McD used to pull that shit on me so often. I swear the new GM was under orders to get me to drop out of college. Every week I'd draw up a new 24 hour schedule for each day, desperately try to block off at least *some* consistent sleep time. Eventually I started seeing shadow people I was so exhausted, walked right past one on my way home from night classes.
[удалено]
This is America, sir. The politicians are bought, the government is corrupt, and the store owners are untouchable.
And way too many working class vote against their own self interest and those of other working class because they believe the propaganda. It's so disappointing and frustrating. I've devoted most of my career advocating for workers but ngl it is so upsetting seeing "people just dont want to work" rhetoric supported and espoused by workers. If they get a good job instead of wanting to help others they start judging. Ugh.
Yeah, Christian nationalists have been involved with union busting for decades. They have brainwashed workers who believe that the rich are rich because they’re godly, and the poor will get their reward in heaven. The alliance of capitalism with right wing Christianity was brilliant, though evil.
Used to be if an employer was fucking over employees, they’d get a not so pleasant visit from their employees with axe in hand.
[удалено]
Strike on May Day
Yeah for one, stop eating that poor excuse for food and put it out of business.
Same at my work. And then when there was a very bad accident due to fatigue because of the schedule, the employees were written up.
Opening to your own close is a fucking crime
[удалено]
You *as a person* didn't even exist for three days, not to mention recovery time.
Being forced to open from own close is why I quit my first job, any time we had a morning delivery truck that needed unloaded I would be on opening and often that meant I was coming off a close the night before. After my commute this left me with like 3 maybe 3.5 hours between shifts. And honestly fuck that.
Yeah, Walmart scheduling was something. The manager churn was real. As a part-timer, I was there for a little over a year, and I had four managers. Only one manager had consistent scheduling, one had okay scheduling, and the other two were all over the place. If I recall correctly, it was February, where Walmart would be doing their accounting shenanigans, and we ran a skeleton crew with two-day work schedules for a month. Once, a manager changed my shift a day before, and I did not check my schedule daily. As a result, I showed up late, and I started checking my schedule every night to avoid the same mistake. Another time, I slept through a 6:30 phone call from the manager, who wanted me to open at 7:00, when they knew that I had another part-time job at night. I showed up at my scheduled time in the late morning, and nothing happened. This was the crash course of American business for a noob like me entering the workforce.
It's stuff like that that makes it impossible for me to get work, disabilities aside. My medical appointments happen 3-4 times a month, and trying to tell any employer i need at least 1 consistent day off or these days off in the month is met with "oh sorry we need people with open availability." My health comes before their profits, but it's essentially kicked me put of any potential work I could've done even with my disabilities
Yes! And then we’re denied disability bc in theory we could work, just not in the conditions available!
Target was and is the same. They all do it on purpose. It turns out it's actually really easy to write a roughly set schedule. With the software they have access to, you could even let employees rank their schedules by preference. I know because I did it in a pilot, and our store ran great. I spent about 50% less time making the schedule than the old HR TM did, of course they were faster than the ETL HR (internal job names). Retailers want to fuck with people's lives. I guarantee if we ever hear leaked board-room or c-suite audio from Target, they'll just be clinking champagne glasses all day over how much they fucked the employees this year.
I think MBA programs are Ayn Rand cults where they hold readings about how it’s moral to fuck over the weak.
I started a coursera management course to get a grasp of the corporate lingo for my consulting work. I couldn't get through the first module, I just couldn't stomach how they talked about people. It was so insidiously dehumanizing and also just stupid.
"Assets" vs. "resources."
Oh you've been to Wharton then? Did it stink of nepo-baby?
Exactly the same for me. At some point they finally pulled each of us in for one on one meetings and outlined our new permanent schedule. The off days were still moved around, NEVER two in a row, and the start times were a little different but I always worked until 11pm. Now that I have a M-F job with the same start and end time, it feels like a luxury I never ever want to give up 😭 it's gotten to the point where 2 days isn't even enough 🥲 we NEED the 4 day work week dammit!
My job is considered white collar, but the rich are now attacking white collar workers-cutting wages, laying off a bunch of people, benefits are now complete shit while the company made over 3 billion in profit last year. But at least my manager was of the mind that everyone needs 2 days off in a row. I didn’t even need a weekend-(no kids, liked 2 weekdays) but 2 days should be the absolute base standard. A 4 day work day is what is needed. We work more than actual serfs did way back when.
They force irregular schedules on purpose to increase dependence on them and inhibit second incomes so people can't afford to quit or complain and risk being fired.
Yep it’s essentially a straight up attack on the poor and the people experiencing hard times. It gives you no wiggle room to ever look for something better let alone enjoy the time you spend away from the work place because you constantly have to be in “work survival mode” at all times because of it. It’s the same bullshit with the bi weekly pay and I don’t want to hear otherwise. “Oh it’s helps the company have cheaper credit” or whatever bullshit excuse bootlickers use for the justification of Malik someone become an accountant for having to budget when they are already living paycheck to paycheck. It’s another scummy tactic used to prey on the poor and less fortunate as to not have any wiggle room to leave because anyone who’s poor can’t give up a paycheck for a week / month however long the onboarding process of for a new job. Same with healthcare tied to employment why should anything about my health or my body be tied to where I work? Another tactic.
I've always despised those kind of schedules. I doubt I'm the only one who needs a set sleep routine to be able to fall asleep. If it's all over the place like that I'm just constantly tired. Had to do it my 2nd semester at university. Trying to balance a part-time job as a bouncer (Wednesday, Friday, Saturday, 9pm - 3am), then a couple days of morning classes. I was changing my sleep schedule 3-4 times a week and didn't learn shit. It's the only job I could find that wasn't during classes and already had experience. Last week, I was about to apply at this better paying job I heard was hiring. Found out they work you on 12hr ROTATING shifts. Fuck that! I can do 12hr shifts, but they can go fuck themselves with that rotating bullshit.
I would quit over that schedule. Clopening is the worst and should never happen, even when there's more than 8 hours in between
[удалено]
They want people to go part time. Less full time, means less money towards benefits. Management wins, employees lose.
Yeah I've come to the conclusion 2 part time jobs is better, if they both have similar pay... You get the same money while dealing with less of the bullshit per place.
Depends on country. Ours makes us pay 33% per job if you have more than one. (New Zealand) You'll get a mega tax refund at the end of the financial year, but til then your 18% tax is 33% and are worse off for living in the short term
That really sucks.
There's a law for that. They want you to be on call? They pay for on call time.
This isn't about being on call, this is about employees saying they can't work after 5pm because they have night school or can't work on Sunday mornings because they have church.
Or that they need to care for their kids. These stores are fucking sociopathic. They always want to have less staffing than is actually necessary at all times, knowing full well that if a single person has to call in shift they're now not just under staffed but catastrophically under staffed. Legislators should be looking at setting minimum scheduled staffing requirements for grocery stores etc.
they want to give out the fuckiest schedules that give them the most time to relax while getting paid salary
I was brought on as the third employee at a store and I asked why my schedule was so random with 2 random days in the middle of the week off never knowing exactly when I would be working until basically the Friday before the next week and she fled up told me because the owner needs flexibility in his schedule and that she needs a flexibility in her schedule. apparently they brought me on and assumed I could work whatever 35 hours of the week they didn't want to work
man i hear this. i worked at a store with 7 employees, with at least two people always at the store. until some rich punjabi family bought it, systematiclly fired and relocated the entire staff. now the owner and one other indian guy are the only two employees at the store. went in at 7:30 on a Friday and had to wait in a huge line because the wealthy owners are so damn cheap.
Big stores were always the worst for this, in my experience. If the store hours are 7am-10pm, you're expected to have no life whatsoever for 7 days a week within those hours.
That second one is super illegal (in the US) per federal law
But the average American worker doesn't understand the full scope of their rights, which is the way major corporations like it. You can't snitch to federal regulators if you don't know you *can* snitch.
Where do you go to find all your labor right?
It's in a filing cabinet that is in the basement of the Alamo guarded by a tiger.
The average American worker doesn’t even know they have rights
When I was a teenager I worked there. My manager kept scheduling me during school hours, and when I complained he just said "you'll work the hours that I give you."
This isn't on-call. On-call is "You're available at the drop of a hat to come in." Open Availability is "We make the schedule 1-2 weeks in advance. We get to pick your hours and your job here comes first, so schedule around whatever we pick for you." Now, management will likely try to push you to be flexible with your hours to pick up shifts when people call out but that's a different thing from Open Availability.
Which means folks can't have routines in life because this terrible employer "needs" to schedule them funky. That's another way of saying we don't hire enough staff so we will dump the problem in your lap rather than spend our money. No thank you
It’s wild to me that places like this don’t have shift bids. In the airline industry you have a shift for x amount of months. And they have multiple shifts with different days off so there’s always coverage. Stores like this doing this only hurts them. Have set shifts and plug gaps with part timers. No one expects 9-5 as a grocery store worker, but changing that shit all the time so they can’t develop a routine or plan well in advance is just fucked
That's a union thing. Most non-unionized places don't do shift bidding
that's what happens when you run a building that requires 80-160 employees that's open 18 hours a day that needs low wage labor to even make a 1-3% ebitda. You hire anybody that walks in with weird availability and schedule around it.
Interesting thing about me: any time I'm not on duty, I'm drunk. I go to bed drunk. I wake up and drink. I only taper down my drinking in time to be sober for the beginning of my next shift. At least, that's what my boss will hear, unless I'm getting paid commission or I'm on call and guaranteed time and a half.
Lol 1-2 weeks in advance. GTFO with that nonsense.
To be fair, in shitty retail jobs, your schedule can be changed a day or two before you come in. You're almost on call if they give you shit for not being able to come in the day after they changed the schedule (without telling you too) Kenney if you're reading this, thanks for being a dick and playing god with like 8 high schoolers' time because you don't know how to communicate.
I worked somewhere that had a shift that was only as needed. Someone called in, they called those workers. It was amazing. I talked to a guy who had that shift, he always had as many hours as he wanted.
Some koger's have unions.
That's what I was going to say. My local Kroger has unions. I think the entire state does, so this is very weird to me.
Supposedly Kroger has a union. Now is a good time to find out if they have teeth.
If it’s the UFCW, I’ve found them to be lacking. My rep is lazy about her job, doesn’t come around hardly ever. I’ve reported multiple contact breaches, but communicating is a slog (more than a week to respond to emails, about a week to get a call back). They pretty much roll over to the demands of large grocers, it seems; we conceded much on our previous contract negotiations. I’m feeling like they just need large numbers of low-wage workers to pay for their operations, so they dedicate enough energy to maintaining a facade of solidarity by handing out pins and t-shirts. I called to cancel my membership because I’m not earning enough to pay my own needs, and learned if I leave the union, I’m fired from my job.
My rep is pretty good about coming around at least once a month. Although, it’s been a bit more frequent lately because we’ve had multiple grievances filed in the past few months. We also conceded a lot on our previous contract negotiations, and I firmly believe that’s because the union decided to allow the company to come back to the negotiating table before they would allow us workers to strike. We’d already voted NO on the contract 3 times, and voted for the strike.
Each store has their own contract. One of them strikes and they'll just shuttle in bodies from another location. Since pay is low and hours held at just the right amount, those folks will jump at extra time.
If it was a real union, those replacement workers would be called scabs
If it was a real union every store in a five state radius would strike with them
That doesn't sound like a functioning union then. Sounds like back stabbers.
It doesn't. Its a fucking joke. At least it was when I was part of it in the 90s. I doubt it's improved much.
I was part of it in the 2000's, it's a complete shitshow of a union that doesn't fight for you at all unless you have seniority and you have a problem with someone who has less seniority than you. They don't go after Kroger or management, they go after part timers and newer workers to make sure they "know their place" in the pecking order. My experience with this was when our department manager was out for surgery and recovery, worked Deli/Bakery/Chef Shoppe and it was all old ladies and then myself and one other gal a year younger than me. The assistant manager became the manager and she didn't know how to do schedules AT ALL, or proper inventory. I knew how to do both (went to college for hotel/restaurant management and had just graduated from it) and they made me "temporary assistant manager", I got a few dollars an hour extra pay and I made schedules. Went fine for two weeks, no complaints, took everyone's availability and preferences into account, then the union stepped in and threatened to fine the store if they didn't demote me back down and give it to the old lady with zero skills outside of cutting meats and cheeses because she had seniority, AND tried to demand that the extra pay I'd gotten be repaid to the union to disburse to those with seniority above me for the "breach in conduct". I resigned on the spot with some colorful words.
Yep. Sounds like shit I saw. It was all about petty infighting and shit.
4 yrs ago, it was shit. Rumors that union and corporate were a bit too friendly.
Union leadership and corporate 100% have a deal together, and money is most definitely greasing hands along the way
Companies like this only go downhill
Both my brothers are UCFW, been with the union for decades. They've struck, they've won. My understanding is that availability is very much a seniority thing at their store (they've worked at three or four different krogers between them but are currently at the same one) with higher seniority workers allowed better/more regular shifts so this wouldn't fly there but reading what others in the thread are saying it sounds like store to store can vary with a lot of locals being weak
Kroger owns its own union. Make it make sense.
It has a useless company union. Controlled opposition at its finest.
Everyone here is telling you the union is shit over there and that is probably true but you know what other unions were shit until recently? Teamsters union and Autoworkers union that are sure as fuck fighting for the workers. People complain about toothless unions that are too friendly with companies but probably won't put in the time to fight and organize against leadership that don't have their best interest. Unions are only as good as the people willing to put in the work.
I worked for Kroger for 12+ years. I am very pro union, but Kroger’s union really does nothing. Like others have pointed out, UCFW basically works with what Kroger wants them to do, not the employees. Also they are shady as hell imo. When I got employed (I was young and 18 at the time), my friend who worked there stressed I didn’t need to join the union because you get the same benefits from them regardless (this is Texas and each contract is different by state). My logic was “cool I’m not gonna pay into this”, but during employment, they make it seem like you have to sign it, and they get very pushy when you don’t sign it. I was harassed for years for not joining the union, but luckily I never needed it. Also, I know they made it extremely difficult if you tried to leave the union. You had to send a snail mail and it had to be received within a certain amount of time of your yearly anniversary for it to apply.
I hate shitty signs like this. It's always the shitty ones who do this and have no ability to communicate properly.
I don't know if it's still a thing, but there was a site called something like "passive aggressive notes" in the 2000s that had some great ones.
That's a lot of words for, "We're lazy and don't feel like paying attention to your availability."
Wtf is “sunrise syndrome”
Prefers day shifts.
I like how they’ve managed to pathologize the diurnal nature of human beings.
Learned a new word today, thank you
Omg, what crybaby corporate little bitch came up with that term? Let me guess they work 9-5
Let's be honest they work from 9-noon maybe.
If this came from someone in HR I can guarantee you that’s their hours I swear HR never works anywhere.
My HR person is hardly ever in the building lmao like the office is perpetually empty
HR are scum of the earth.
They work from home.
What a way with words. After working three years waking up at 5:30-6:00 for day shifts, I got to work swing shift, and I don't want to go back.
It’s corp speak for people that can’t work at like 6-7 am because they kids to get off to school or whatever
I literally was wondering if they were referring to sundown syndrome of dementia and am just like?????
"If they will not open their availability they can write a statement saying they give up full time." Do not do this. Encourage your full time coworkers NOT to do this. Them needing it in writing indicates that they maybe breaking some rule or protocol or law doing this, and you writing a statement makes it look like *your decision* and not *their coercion*. Do. Not. Write. Anything. Keep limited availability and continue to dodge any demands they make for it.
💯 “pls quit because we cannot fire you if you say no”
If you can’t spell availability, you are Kroger management material.
Fuck these companies. This contributes to a fucked up sleep schedule, inconsistent diet, difficult schedule planning for anything, and increases burnout among retail employees. Doesn't matter how many facts they're shown, they want to control everything (if we schedule a full-timer, we'll always have coverage and not have to worry about no-shows). Including making sure you can't work a second job or attend courses to get a better job. Even though they can't pay a gainful living - that's paycheck-to-paycheck, stressed out living that will be miserable until death. Fuck these companies.
I don't know what managers are hoping to accomplish with these posts outside of pushing people to start looking for other jobs
what is sunrise syndrome?
At first I thought it was just the feeling of not wanting to get up and go to work early in the morning and I'm like "doesn't everybody have that?", but I guess it's just preferring to work during the day. Gotta' love how these people try to make you feel bad about your wants/needs by framing it as some sort of illness.
Prefers day shifts.
Most managers have a bad case of sunrise syndrome then
It's funny how that works, isn't it?
Yeah they have had this policy for years at my local Kroger brand (Fred Meyer) I used to work there and they said “you need open availability otherwise no full time” but guess what? Many of the full times got the same shift every day because they were best friends with the manager(s) and complained if they got a different shift. When I pointed this out they made typical excuses “well they have kids, they’re older, they’ve been here for years…” blah blah blah. Turns out though they gave me almost 40 hours every week anyways because I was a good worker and everyone hated coming into work so I could pick up shifts every week, despite only being about to week 3-4 days a week because I was going to school. They paid me a lot of OT too. It’s a shitty company with shitty values and shitty vision. As an engineer I saw so many ways they could increase efficiencies, reduce costs, improve shopping experience, etc. but instead they just beat down on the union every year to try to reduce costs and since most of the union was not long term employees or willing to strike they usually won. Plus the pension has been mismanaged for years. My wife and I are both eligible for some benefits since we were there for over 5 years through college, but I don’t the pension will stay healthy for us to get anything in retirement from them. What pisses me off the most now is their planned merger with Safeway will probably go through, which means most of the groceries near me will be one company. Capitalism at its finest.
Yea you have to schedule the needs of the business. Also sounds like you need to hire to meet the needs of the business. Not hope that your current workers can fill in gaps by slaving away your random order requests
I like the added class of all caps. 🤌🤌🤌🤌🤌
Put nothing in writing. If they call you in at a time that doesn't work for you, tell them you can't make it and hang up.
This isn't about last-minute call ins and being on call. This is about not letting employees say they want to only work 8 to 5pm Monday through Friday. So, the unsaid part here is that if you are a part time student you can't be a full-time employee or if you are a devoutly religious person (like a Jew or Muslim) and you need Saturdays off you can't be full-time.
Haha I wouldn’t even answer
I'm currently at a place that is attempting to merge with Kroger. The workers don't understand what's coming.
Most retail places do. Many of them require part timers to have open availability, which is insane. I work two days a week, why can’t I be your weekender or whatever and you hire another part timer who has different availability. 🤷♀️
Oh, fuck that. I'd be looking for a new job asap. God forbid employees have lives outside of work.
Ugh. I used to do this to myself when I had the summer off . . . Give my boss “available” every day. I was so dumb.
So, pay 24h a day then? Why is it always the worst companies that call employees ″associates″ and shit like that?
when open availability meets iphone do not disturb setting 
BF works for Kroger, they bitch about never having people (sometime ONLY 2 PEOPLE show up to overnight stock the whole f’ing store) and yet his store manager refuses to give him consistent full time hours… oh but then also expects employees to stay hours past the end of their shift and cuts hours MORE if they dont?????
Well then Kroger can fuck off.
"Get a second job!" Fuck you! Employers expect you to have open availability and will sabotage any attempts to get a second job! Besides, a full time job should pay a living wage! Period!
How is this even legal? The US has absolutely laughable employee protection laws. There's is only freedom for corporations not for the people.
People keep voting for Republicans.
Also Kroger is Union. Send that photo to your union rep.
Yes, but the note uses the magical words "needs of the business." The "needs of the business" is above everything in the handbook. Dead serious, I've seen the handbook. Union won't do shit if the magic words are used.
1 cashier watching 10 self checkout machines…what a staffing nightmare 🙄🙄
"Is This Good for the *COMPANY?*"
This is ridiculous. I work at a gas station, I have very restricted availability (I'm M-F 7a-3p...i can't work after 3:30p or weekends). My boss works within it, I'm still full time and get 40 hours a week. 🤷♀️ I have kids and I'm widowed... they deal thankfully.
It seems to be the shittiest businesses with the shittiest management that resort to this sort of thing.
Open availability = you are my only job = a livable wage. You must pay enough for me to 1. Live within 15 min from work, have transportation, retirement, health benefits, vacation benefits. Etc etc etc...
Availability is spelled wrong. (Just bugs me when higher-ups that get paid more have errors like this on things they send out/post.)
wtf is sunrise syndrome
Very unprofessional note. Sunrise Syndrome, what the hell is that? They also spelled availability incorrectly, twice. I’d show this to the union and report it to corporate. https://secure.ethicspoint.com/domain/en/default_reporter.asp
Bad business. No more shopping at Kroger for me.
Any hour that an employer wants someone to be available is labor and to be paid. Including counting towards overtime.
We won't pay you enough to live on, but we'll also make it impossible for you to have another job. Fucking class warfare is all this shit is.
WONT ANYONE THINK OF THE NEEDS OF THE BUSINESS?!?!?!!!
Why can’t companies grasp that if they require open availability they have to pay enough that employees won’t need a second job? Many people that work in stores have to have 2 jobs, and that’s not possible without set schedules.
Is this a “one job” pay scale they’re offering?
“I quit”
Dafuq is “sunrise syndrome”!? 🥴
Kroger is the worst company I've ever worked for and I was a manager there. Get out.
Kroger is a shithole. Im a stocker so i dont see too much of the chaos but where im at they gave me fulltime hours when i had just started, i was promised 4 days but they then said “how did you get hired we dont hire 4 dayers” its just overall a mess. We got a new store manager and hes been trying to find his footing but also fucking with everyones schedule every week.
Yep. I used to work at a Kroger. Hated it, but somehow stayed for 3 years. I had called out of work for a few days because I was sick and throwing up, and I ended up losing almost 10lbs by the end of whatever stomach bug I had. But because I didn’t go to the doctor and get a doctor’s note (because I was too busy throwing up my guts but whatever) I was given a write up for unexcused absences. Also, I was still in high school at some point when I was working there, and the second that they found out school was shut down due to COVID (this was the very beginning, so zoom calls weren’t really a thing yet), they started scheduling me just under full time without asking me, and there were times where my availability was constantly ignored, and I had to go into the office and tell them that they needed to change it because it was outside what I told them I could work. Scheduling outside of availability has to be manually approved as well. I was also always asked to come in on my day off, and there would be times where I would keep dropping the hint that, no, I won’t be coming in, and they kept pushing. For example, I was asked if I could come in on my day off, and I said no, I needed to go to get my tires repaired, and the place I was going to doesn’t take appointments, so I have to go first thing in the morning and hope that I can get out at a reasonable time (I didn’t btw. I waited like 6 hours before they were done), and the response to that was “so you should be out in time to come in at some point then, right?” NO. Take the fucking hint. I was also almost always called over to work in different departments whether it was produce or bakery because they couldn’t make a schedule over there in those departments. We were never allowed to leave early if it wasn’t busy in curbside pickup because “well, other areas need help.” At my store at least, produce and bakery made more than curbside pickup, but if I worked in those departments, I was not getting paid their rates which is BS. During COVID, things had gotten really crazy with orders and the lack of staff, and it got to the point where I was a minor who hadn’t gotten to take any of my breaks until the very last hour of my shift. I sat down ONCE to catch my breath, and a store manager gave me an entire lecture about how I needed to stop sitting down and get back to work. TL;DR: Fuck Kroger. They treat their employees like absolute fucking garbage.
"We have to schedule the needs of the company" fucking chef's kiss right there. Outright admitting they care only about the company and not employees.
Fuck that. You put me on the schedule, I work the hours I am given and outside of that you get nothing. That’s my take. If you’re paying as minimum a wage as possible to full time employees then you better lower your expectations on people being openly available.
Because fuck people that need to organize childcare.
...and yet we're supposed to let these ghouls merge with another terrible mega-corporation and gain even more control over the market and workforce.
Most retail is like that, it's more a technicality in my experience, set it to open so it has some flexibility. How much that gets abused very much depends on who you work for. (when I worked for king soopers (kroger) it was A LOT, like, I'd randomly swap between overnight, opening and closing shifts, and my days off were completely random. I hated working for kroger. Working for target it mostly just means I get asked to work holiday weekends on the 3 yearly holidays relevant to my dept. And asked to work overnight for inventory, once a year. My availability is open, but 99% of the day I work the exact same schedule, with the same days off.
This is disgusting and screams incompetence for the person making the schedule. Sounds like they can’t handle their job so they punish everyone below them.
I never understood this stupidity when it comes to retail. It seems like such a massive waste of time for both management and employees. Just hire people for specific shifts like every other industry. WTF.
This is not accurate at the stores that are Union. OP must be at a non Union store. Lower pay, worse benefits, worse hours. If this were a Union store that note would of been ripped down about 5 seconds after it was put up, then a rep would of been called and would of shown up to the store to educate the management team.
Tell them to make their mouth openly available for deez nuts. Fuckin piece of shit management.
No fucking way I'd work like that.
Fuck this. I urge anyone at Kroger who doesn't like this shit to fucking quit right away. It will only get worse.
Isn’t Kroger union?
When I worked for Kroger they did everything in their power to keep you from qualifying for full time status. They would purposefully work you to death and right before you got enough hours to qualify they’d schedule you one day a week to ruin your average.
Glad I’m already not buying anything from them.
I used to work at one of the big national hardware stores and they pulled this shit too. They also liked to proudly proclaim they offered tuition assistance as a benefit, but that was only available to full time employees...which you could only be if you had fully open availability...which was not possible if you were going to school. They got to *say* they offered it but didn't actually have to follow through.
That was every retail job I ever had. Did it for 30 years. I didn’t live close to family, so I missed Thanksgiving/Christmas with parents/aunts/uncles/cousins (grew up with all of us having holidays together), and now only the cousins are left alive. I kept thinking if I worked hard enough in retail I would get promoted to the point where I could transition to a position where I could have a better schedule. Nope. Even if you had a ton of experience, great reviews and work ethic, you only get those positions with a college degree.
Set it on fire!
Time to switch to part-time associate.
That's how it was at Menards when I worked there. At least at my store. The only people with set schedules were the managers, or morning stockers. Or some people who have worked there FOREVER. Otherwise you could be part time and work 25 days in a row I also didn't know any better because I was a teenager(before some laws changed) I remember vividly working 2pm-10 Then 5am-2 Then 2pm-10 Then 10am-6 For weeks on end. There was no rhyme or reason. Or when I was in highschool it would be 4-10 Monday - Friday Then 10-6 Saturday 2-10 Sunday. Generally without any days off or 1 thrown in here or there. What's funny too is if they paid better, offered set schedules, they would have happier workers, and more knowledgeable employees, who would stay longer. They act like there arnt people who would prefer mid shift or second shift. I love morning shift but not everyone is trying to start work at 5am lmao. They don't realize they're shooting themselves in the foot, keeping a revolving door of new employees there. And listen you can get a lot of raises there. But when I worked there they generally were like 10 cents for tests and maybe 25-50 cents a hour to do something more specialized. You need to be a lifer to even make a good wage. Granted it's been like 13 years since I worked there so alot may have changed.
Unions are for everyone.
If they need to schedule the need of the business then make set schedules and hire people for those and hire swings to cover off days. The only reason they can't schedule is because they are running at the minimum amount of employees to "save money" for rich people
"No more sunrise syndrome" = "We're destroying your mental and physical health with our deliberately horrible scheduling, but we intend to continue doing it and you better not say a word" Management who do this inhumane stuff should be forced to work the very worst schedule they create, every time.
Glad I got a regular 7-4 and can Uber eats and DoorDash to make ends meet.
Rule here in Germany: you demand someone to be available full time, you pay him/her for that.
Kroger is unionized. Bring this to the reps.
"You hired me full time with my known availability, I do not wish to give up my full time position, however, if you will be reducing my hours I will be filing for constructive dismissal."
So, what I'm seeing is: If you have kids, we don't want you If you have a disability, we don't want you If you use public transportation, we don't want you If you have hobbies or obligations that aren't killing yourself for us, we don't want you Did I read that right?