Retail

...but of course no "plans" for store closures is different than saying there will be no closures. Brandworkers will be watching. Home Depot announced fifteen store closings earlier in the year. As always, workers with questions about their options and their rights can access Brandworkers Legal Defense-Plus.

New York City Central Labor Council leader, Ed Ott, names retail workers among the low-wage workers needing support from labor unions. Mr. Ott argues that an underclass of neglected non-union workers could create a constituency unsympathetic to organized labor. (New York Times)

Victorious worker Glenda Allen:

“After beating all the odds -- surviving my injury when not expected to survive, walking again when told that I would never walk again, and returning to work where I received excellent performance evaluations and consistent merit increases -- I was devastated to have the rug pulled out from underneath me simply because Wal-Mart could ‘no longer accommodate my handicap needs.’ I am hopeful that this settlement will make Wal-Mart take a closer look at its policies and practices with respect to the employment of individuals with disabilities so that what happened to me will not happen to someone else.” (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission)

Two recent New York Times articles paint a picture of Wal-Mart as experiencing a turnaround in its battered public image. Wal-Mart apparently sells a lot of energy efficient light bulbs and has allegedly made marginal improvements to its stingy health care plan.

But there's a problem (among many others) with the idea of a Wal-Mart on the up-and-up: the world's largest company still has shown zero respect for the right under international and domestic law to form a labor union.

Given that to this day not a single Wal-Mart worker in the United States has the benefits of union membership and that Wal-Mart has demonstrated absolutely no sign of easing its rabid hostility to union organizing, we should cast a skeptical eye to Wal-Mart's token improvements.

Joining a labor union is the best way retail workers can exercise their right to free association on the job and articulate an independent voice in society.

Superficial improvements by Wal-Mart designed in large part to provide cover for its union-busting agenda should not distract people of conscience from holding the company accountable for its misconduct.(Wal-Mart’s Detractors Come In From the Cold) and (Smiles All Around at Wal-Mart’s Annual Meeting)

Home Depot, Borders, and Target are among the large retailers getting attention from hedge funds and private equity groups. This is an ominous sign for workers as these lightly regulated investment vehicles have a track record of disregard for labor rights and community impact. (The Deal.com)

But Olbermann is not satisfied yet. He's going after Wal-Mart to compensate Debbie Shank for her legal nightmare.

Go Keith Go!

If you missed the CNN piece breaking the story of Debbie Shank, it's here.

March 25, 2008

By Kathleen Salmon

In 2006, the Retail Action Project (RAP) initiated a multi-faceted campaign to protest workplace injustices at Yellow Rat Bastard (YRB), a chain of clothing stores in the Soho neighborhood of New York.

RAP started by surveying YRB workers which revealed wage and hour violations, verbal abuse and unhealthy working conditions, such as rats in the stores. They found that YRB owner Henry Ishay violated the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) by not awarding overtime for work weeks lasting up to 70 hours and disregarding the then-minimum wage of $6.75 an hour. New workers were found to receive as little as $5.25 an hour. These results prompted RAP to organize workers to remedy these injustices.

A project of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU) and a community group called GOLES (Good Old Lower East Side), RAP built a coalition of sympathetic community groups, religious organizations, workers' home communities, unions and student groups. The coalition proceeded to carry out colorful public protests and elevate their message into the media.

Kris Maher of the Wall Street Journal has an excellent article on the growth of insecure part-time jobs with constantly changing work hours and reduced wages and benefits. Fluctuating work schedules with no guaranteed hours each week are major detriments to the quality of life for retail workers and their families. Here's how it often works at the retail and food chains:

Every week or two, employees will find out their work schedule. Not only do days off change week-to-week, so do the start and end times of shifts. One week you might have Monday and Thursday off and then the following week you'll get Tuesday and Saturday. You might start a week off with a 9am-3pm shift, then do a 1pm-9m shift the next day, only to wake up the following day for another morning shift. You also don't know how many hours you'll get each week, so your precise monthly income is very much up in the air.

The basic idea here from the perspective of workers is that the regular rhythms of family life are seriously disrupted. What time you work each week and on what days is dictated by a computer scheduling system which seeks to deploy labor the way companies deploy other resources - just-in-time for when the company wants them. But despite the treatment they often receive from the corporate giants, human beings are not soy beans or electricity or Barbie dolls.

Workers deserve to be able to schedule their lives around predictable hours of work and predictable monthly incomes. The corporations are pushing in the other direction. The preferred frame of the retailers, their lobbyists, and their public relations firms is the mantra of "flexibility". Flexibility in the 21st century workplace is a convenient frame which seeks to avoid the inconvenient topics of reduced wages, lowered benefits, and schedules which stress flexibility all right, but "Flexibility For Whom", as Professor Elaine McCrate recently titled an academic article on the deleterious effects of schedules over which workers have no control.

In Europe, a public discourse regarding the degraded state of many once secure jobs has emerged under the banner of precarity. Whatever term advocates in other parts of the world choose, a robust public debate including the voice of retail and food workers is needed.

A pressing task ahead for retail workers and their allies is a push back against the tyranny of constantly fluctuating and insecure work schedules. Family life and personal wellbeing is too important to be subjected to the whims of computer scheduling systems and the greed of corporate executives.

Cutting Costs, Destroying Lives: The Circuit City’s of Yesterday Live On

--This March will mark the one-year anniversary of Circuit City’s laying off of 3,400 employees nationwide. What is especially disturbing about this ‘cost-cutting’ crusade—besides its scale--was its explicit targeting of higher-paid employees. And after being told literally on the day of in some cases, workers were told that they could re-apply for open positions after a ten-week “cooling off” period. The audacity of this measure nearly escapes words: experienced workers could re-apply—after ‘waiting’ two and half months--for lousier positions, and work lousier hours for lousier pay? The fact that such a measure was taken—and that it was so sparsely covered in the media—is highly indicative of the often-demoralized and neglected state of retail workers today.