OPINION: Every Big Box Store Multi Billion Dollar Retailer (For Example Amazon, Walmart, Kroeger) Purchase Where You Save Money? Taxpayers Like You Pay For That Savings In SNAP/ Medicaid Employee Subsidies
More Perfect Union reporting backs up what Senator Sanders has been saying: these companies hire people with the promise of hours and work – which never materializes. Instead they are stuck in a vicious cycle of poverty where they are constantly hungry and under nourished – with nothing they can do about it.
Can they even get extra hours?
These companies actually use technology to vary weekly hours specifically so that the worker will be stuck, having to use SNAP benefits to finance their lives – while the CEOs of these very same companies take home millions in salaries, bonuses, and stock.
The reasons given are that the company needs to have the workers there at the ideal time – but it considers nothing but the company’s bottom line, whether it’s fair or not. And if workers don’t like it, it’s an employers’ world right now, where there aren’t enough jobs for every person that wants or needs one. It can often take months to find a new job, depending on the skill level and income ceiling for any particular job.
If you have seen our article recently by Senator Sanders, he discusses how Amazon, Walmart, Dollar General, and other large companies are literally subsidized by taxpayers (because they give their workers too few hours to have a livable wage, keeping them under the threshold for SNAP and Medicaid – so they can save money on these costs that are necessary to life – on the taxpayer’s dime), you should know that if they were unionized, these practices would not be accepted anymore. But those companies have been practicing union-busting for years and in some cases decades, because they want to continue to treat their workers however they want without recourse by the employees.
The companies mentioned above, which does not include LIDL, in its recently opened location on Staten Island, also use alogrithmic or volatile scheduling, so that they keep a worker in the same place for their whole career. At these companies, employees must declare they have ‘open availability,’ and they are given completely different schedules every week, often only a day or two before any scheduled shift. This makes it impossible for them to even think of getting a second job to supplement their income, locking them into unpredictability and poverty. This is especially the case in lower skilled jobs, where they all demand open availability.
Trying to juggle two jobs with unpredictable hours is impossible. Most states don’t offer much in the way of job placement help for those who are looking for work but are unskilled, nor do they protect their workers from these practices.
However, New York has just changed that for those interested in changing careers to an AI adjacent one, where any resident can go to school for an Associates degree, even if they’ve already attained a bachelor’s degree. In NYC, the aforementioned scheduling options do not exist. Employees must be notified at least 72 hours before their week begins of their schedule. In addtiion, in this city, clopenings (working the closing shift followed by the next morning’s opening shift) and shift volatility have become regulated, so these companies will not be able to do this kind of thing to New Yorkers as easily as they can in other places.
Other states, though, are not leading the way, and companies are causing people to go hungry, live out of their cars or trailers, and need government assistance. This is while they are working, and they do sometimes have more than one job nevertheless, but the second job might be a gig, like a delivery driver or a cab driver. In those industries, some workers want to choose their own schedule on the fly, and so in those states with scheduling volatility, this exists as an option (for those who can afford to purchase, register, insure, and maintain a car, since these types of jobs require cars).
However, for those without a vehicle and on public assistance, they make a minimal amount of money each week and all while the CEOs rake in millions. And it is the workers who do most of the work and are most responsible for the gains in productivity – but they are not rewarded for it. The CEOs, who have little to do with the productivity gains, are the ones that benefit the most.
It should be noted that these laws apply to the city of New York only. They include 72-hour advance scheduling notice, no clopenings, and no “on-call” shifts. Workers work only the days and times they have been scheduled for in advance, allowing them to coordinate schedules with multiple employers, get off SNAP and afford food, and finally lift themselves out of poverty.
However, as a consequence of these volatile hours and wage practices by many big retailers, nearly all of the money that consumers save by shopping at these conglomerate giants is an illusion. You are subsidizing their super low wages and working conditions with your taxes. And this will not stop anytime soon, because the billionaire business owners are the ones paying for the campaigns for the politicians – who then will not make laws against these practices. But the way to get around these is to call for them all to unionize, to support their workers, and to vote for unionization with your dollars.
Banner Image: Union worker. Image Credit – Erik Mclean
