• commentary
  • TUESDAY NOVEMBER 22 2011 11:02 AM

Corporate America Says No Thanks, No Giving

Submitted by Hoodoo4102

Edited by nicole_powers

Tags: Blog, Activism, black friday, Politics, Thanksgiving

by Hoodoo4102


[Above: Noemie in Kawaii Bunga]

Employees of Target and Best Buy are voicing their opinions, trying to get a message across to the CEOs of their companies before they’re robbed of their time with family. One in particular, Anthony Hardwick of Omaha, NE, has voiced his displeasure at his employer, Target, and has become the featured petition on Change.org. And while I'm writing this blurb, the petition has just jumped up from a staggering 170,000 to 180,000 signatures of its 200,000 goal. A similar petition inspired by Hardwick’s, posted by Rick Melaragni of Tampa, FL, concerning Best Buy’s opening hours is currently sitting at 14,550 of its 15,000 goal.

Anthony's message is quite clear, and well put:

"A midnight opening robs the hourly and in-store salary workers of time off with their families on Thanksgiving Day. By opening the doors at midnight, Target and Best Buy is requiring team members to be in the store by 11 p.m. on Thanksgiving Day. A full holiday with family is not just for the elite of this nation -- all Americans should be able to break bread with loved ones and get a good night's rest on Thanksgiving! Any team member not present for their shift will receive a final warning, or termination of their employment."



While all's quiet on the Target front, Best Buy CEO Brian Dunn writes a heart warming message to Employees and Customers saying*:

"Our customers and employees are, first and foremost, people. We acknowledge that each one is an individual with hopes, dreams, passions, talents, experiences, cultures, faith and loved ones. People don’t celebrate a ‘Happy Holiday’ – they have their own cultural, religious and family traditions. So, why shouldn’t we value and embrace that same level of individuality during the Holidays?"



Thank YOU Brian! It's always so touching to see a CEO open his mouth wide enough just in case he may need to have a Thanksgiving foot for dinner with a side of trimmins'.

So what does this mean for those hard working hourly employees of corporate America? Thanksgiving breakfast, black out curtains, no booze (since getting a DUI on the way to work would make for a whole different kind of Black Friday!), and beddie bye at noon-o-clock so the board can eat meat, slog brew, and belch their American spirit to the tune of Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade and ESPN's Thursday Night Football -- all for one hour of over time.

If you would like to join Anthony's cause you can do so at www.change.org.

*Since time of writing, Brian Dunn has deleted his own post on his Corp Blog as quoted above and replaced it with another expressing his thanks to the company and his employees for sacrificing their holiday for the company.

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Comments
Thistle

Thistle

SUICIDEGIRL

California, USA

NOV 24, 2011 06:39 PM

Yeah, I dunno. While I agree with the general idea that workers are constantly fucked over in favor of the bottom line, I just don't think working on a holiday is that big a deal. If Thanksgiving is important to someone they do have the option of celebrating on a different day, or doing their big dinner before or after their shift. I think very few people end up scheduled to work the entire day of Thanksgiving or Christmas. It is nice to have the same day to celebrate as everyone else, but the celebration can be just as special if it's on Friday or Wednesday instead of Thursday.

Volkov

Volkov

New York, NY
OLD SKOOL

NOV 24, 2011 06:46 PM

honestly, I'm more pissed off about it as a shopper. What the hell do you mean I have to wait outside in the dark in a parking lot at midnight to get a great deal on a [insert item]?!?!? Why the fuck can't you just open at 8am like a normal fucking workday so I can go out tonight, get a little lit, get home, sleep it off, get up in the morning at a reasonable hour, have some coffee and a bagel, and THEN go to the store and fight a bunch of discount crazed shoppers for that last Xbox for 25 cents deal?

hor

hor

I'm lost
June 2005

NOV 24, 2011 07:28 PM

PaulNikon said:
In my opinion, everyone except hospital, police and fire/rescue should have the day off.


Fascist.

hor

hor

I'm lost
June 2005

NOV 24, 2011 07:29 PM

Thistle said:
If no one shopped on Thanksgiving or went out to dinner or to the movies, businesses would not be open.


Unless the businesses are hardcore masochists. Or sadists.

minimalism

minimalism

Argentina
OLD SKOOL

NOV 24, 2011 07:34 PM

Wade_Allen said:
It may be just me, but this sounds more like part of a larger problem than being actually awesome. Sure as the employee its great to do a couple of hours of work at $250/hr but its things like this that make companies uncompetitive and sour myself and many other people on the concept of unions. I work for myself as a freelancer and when I don't work I don't get paid. I find the sense of entitlement in union environments quite disturbing. I agree working holiday's certainly deserves cash incentives such as time and a half or double time and without certain protections employees can and do get screwed over. I assume $500 is more than you would make on a regular work day and to get that for 2 hours of work, is in my opinion the flip side of that same coin, you screwing over your company. Good on your union for negotiating such a lucrative contract. Remember that when the Rail Line goes out of business because they couldn't compete.

minimalism said:
There are no holidays on the railroad. 3 shifts a day, every day. However there is double time and half for working a holiday.

I worked a Christmas night shift starting at 11:30 on the 25th. Because of those 30 minutes before the hour the entire shift was overtime. And since the work load was so slow that night we were finished in 2 hours and allowed to go home. Over $500 for 2 hours work. That's the power of having a union.





Stiles said:
You're missing some pertinent information here - due to logistics management and planning the railroad gives the employees a specific list of tasks to accomplish every day, and only those tasks (build this mile long train, get it out of the yard, for example, or do the daily pickups from your regular customers).

Thus, the railroad sometimes schedules people to work on holidays when there isn't a full load of work to do. How many businesses are loading boxcars on thanksgiving or Christmas day? If the crew completes their assigned work quickly and correctly, they are being efficient and productive and can sometimes go home early. What the union does for them is that they get a full shift of pay for being called out on a holiday, and they get paid a holiday rate.

The company knows all this full well, and chooses to offer service on those holidays. They also know they are pulling in a crew for a full shift that may well have a short task list that day. It's fair to the employees, who otherwise might be called away from their families Christmas day to drive two hours round trip in order to do an hours' work for an hours' pay. It's also fair to the employer because they can handle as much (or as little) work over the holidays as is needed, and not be short of employees willing to do that work.

minimalism can correct me if I've gotten anything wrong here.



CSX profits going through the roof.

Nothing to correct. You explained it perfectly. What I will add is that yes, we get 8 hours pay for showing up. That means that if I as a conductor come in to work and they are short an engineer and I can't do my job I go home with a days pay for fulfilling my obligation to the carrier. I was available, willing and ready to work.

Likewise, if I come in and they don't have 8 hours worth of work for me, I'm not getting screwed by the company and paid only two hours for two hours work. And believe me they would love to do that. Again I showed up, I did what was asked of me, and I have a contract that says I get paid 8 hours minimum for that.

If you want to bash unions feel free to do so, but in the end all you are doing is letting corporations treat you like a whore otherwise. They'll use you for their needs and dump you off when they have no use for you.

Cigarette

Cigarette

Cleveland, OH
April 2004

NOV 24, 2011 08:23 PM

One of the things I find most telling is that the companies with the most to lose by closing for a day, the mom and pop shops and restaurants and so forth in my neighborhood, are the ones closed today and not doing outrageous marketing stunts tomorrow. It's only the national corporations that feel the need to start the shopping season the minute dinner is over.

So it was 6am when I was at Old Navy two or three years ago. It's midnight now. Any guesses pn whether there's a limit on pushing up Black Friday or have we hit an equilibrium?

Confession: I stopped to get gas this morning on the way to Grandma's. Though I resisted the urge to go in and buy a drink.

blckshep11

blckshep11

USA
May 2010

NOV 24, 2011 08:50 PM

If you don't support trier view... Don't spend your $$ there!!!!!

Aaron

Aaron

Shakopee, MN
July 2004

NOV 24, 2011 09:06 PM

Living in Minnesota there are a lot of Best Buy stores. I drove by three of them on my way home the parking lots in all of them were jam packed, and there were lines all the way around each store. The people have spoken, they don't give a shit about retail slaves and their holidays. End of story.

CoyoteMike

CoyoteMike

Iowa City, IA
May 2006

NOV 24, 2011 09:18 PM

Aaron said:
Living in Minnesota there are a lot of Best Buy stores. I drove by three of them on my way home the parking lots in all of them were jam packed, and there were lines all the way around each store. The people have spoken, they don't give a shit about retail slaves and their holidays. End of story.



Turns out Americans are assholes when 3rd tier useless crap goes on sale.

Canadian_Coat

Canadian_Coat

Brockville, ON
September 2008

NOV 24, 2011 09:25 PM

Coyotemike said:

Aaron said:
Living in Minnesota there are a lot of Best Buy stores. I drove by three of them on my way home the parking lots in all of them were jam packed, and there were lines all the way around each store. The people have spoken, they don't give a shit about retail slaves and their holidays. End of story.


Turns out Americans are assholes when 3rd tier useless crap goes on sale.


I think I read that on a T-shirt

Priapos

priapos

San Angelo, TX
October 2005

NOV 24, 2011 09:46 PM

Thanks for reminding me why I celebrate Buy Nothing Day every year.

FreakPirate

FreakPirate

Canada
November 2002

NOV 25, 2011 01:00 AM

Priapos said:
Thanks for reminding me why I celebrate Buy Nothing Day every year.



You like meaningless gestures?

CoyoteMike

CoyoteMike

Iowa City, IA
May 2006

NOV 25, 2011 07:19 AM

Canadian_Coat

Canadian_Coat

Brockville, ON
September 2008

NOV 25, 2011 09:03 AM

Coyotemike said:
Woman uses pepper spray in Walmart to keep other people away from the cheap crap she wanted

It was just a vegetable, essentially.


I heard this this morning on the radio. All I could think of was "what the fuck?"

Necia

Necia

San Francisco, CA
August 2005

NOV 26, 2011 11:55 AM

noSOULrobot said:
this is the wrong time to complain. a LOT? of people can't afford a normal thanksgiving dinner due to the unemployment situation.*deaf ears*



And a lot more people can't afford to spend all goddamned night shopping for deals on oversized flat-panel LCD TVs. Call me nuts, but I'm siding with the employees who have to give up their holiday time because Target needs to make a few more bucks off of spend-zombies who honestly think that lining up outside a store waiting for it to open at midnight so they can trample one another trying to get to the lastest videogame system being sold for a couple bucks cheaper than it sold for the day before (and no cheaper than it'll be sold for the day after) is a normal, okay thing to do.

I'm pretty gainfully employed, thankfully, and I still can't afford to stay up all night on a spending rampage. What's falling on deaf ears on this end is the argument that this is something employees of Target/Best Buy/Wal-Mart/etc. have no right to be complaining about because the economy's bad and, you know, at least you have a job and it's not like the store could just open at 4AM like it did last year so you could maybe get in a little time with your family before having to go to bed to rest up a tiny bit before your shift.

For the record: the Target employee who delivered that petition to corporate headquarters on Monday? He was scheduled for a 4AM to 10AM shift on Thanksgiving and then had to be back at Target by 11PM to start the 12AM Friday shift, and he's getting paid $0.25 more an hour than I did working for Target in the exact same position and in the exact same regional market a full decade ago. I'd be curious to know how many of you "these whiners should be thankful that they have a job at all!" types are working double overnight shifts on holidays for just a hair over the federal minimum wage.

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