Flexibility...a fuzzy word

[lapsedmodernist]

Unsurprisingly, Walmart finds new ways to screw its employees.

Wal-Mart Seeks New Flexibility In Worker Shifts

By KRIS MAHER (Wall Street Journal)
January 3, 2007; Page A1

...Early this year, Wal-Mart Stores Inc., using a new computerized scheduling system, will start moving many of its 1.3 million workers from predictable shifts to a system based on the number of customers in stores at any given time. The move promises greater productivity and customer satisfaction for the huge retailer but could be a major headache for employees.

The change is made possible by a software system that can crunch an array of data, part of a shift toward computerized management tools that can help pare costs and boost companies' bottom lines. But it also could demand greater flexibility and availability from workers in place of reliable work shifts -- and predictable paychecks...

But while the new systems are expected to benefit both retailers and customers, some experts say they can saddle workers with unpredictable schedules. In some cases, they may be asked to be "on call" to meet customer surges, or sent home because of a lull, resulting in less pay. The new systems also alert managers when a worker is approaching full-time status or overtime, which would require higher wages and benefits, so they can scale back that person's schedule.

That means workers may not know when or if they will need a babysitter or whether they will work enough hours to pay that month's bills. Rather than work three eight-hour days, someone might now be plugged into six four-hour days, mornings one week and evenings the next...

Paul Blank, campaign director for WakeUpWalMart.com, funded by the United Food and Commercial Workers union, says the new scheduling system has "devastating implications" for employees. "What the computer is trying to optimize is the most number of part-time and least number of full-time workers at the lowest labor costs, with no regard for the effect that it has on workers' lives," he says.

Comments

[flintultrasparc.livejournal.com]

Taylorism for retail. Wonderful.

Up against the wallmart when the revolution comes.

[legitimatelove.livejournal.com]

Well, it looks like I just made my last visit to Walmart tonight.

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

I wonder who they will have left working for them...this schedule "adjustment" makes it impossible to work for single moms, or even non-single moms with working partners, students, or anyone holding another job. I guess old people who need income so badly they don't have a choice in the matter.

[tamperevident.livejournal.com]

wow... Walmart employee policy has just reached a brand new level of disgustingness previously nonexistand in nature.
excuse me while i go throw up.

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

I know, right?

I mean, I always get a sick kind of feeling whenever I shop at any megacorporation, I know that they all exploit workers and union-bust, but man, Walmart always manages to take the cake for screwing their workers in the worst, most inhumane way possible. I guess on some ideological level, they are just the most transparent example of how the system works, but in practice it's so much worse on their poor indentured servants.

[flintultrasparc.livejournal.com]

They also get their products from somewhere.

You don't want to know.

[theophile.livejournal.com]

I've been wondering what Soylent Toilet Paper, Clearance T-Shirts, and Christmas Decorations are made out of!

[the-macnab.livejournal.com]

Never have I been so glad to be legally banned from entering a Wal-Mart store.

The bit about announcing when an employee is approaching full-time or overtime status isn't, alas, that new. Wal-Mart currently sets maximum hours for employees, capping many at 39 hours (for obvious reasons); having such an indicator is more an adaptation of that shitty policy to this "flexible" work schedule than it is a new shitty policy.

Sending home employees when work is slow is also, sadly, not new there. Wal-Mart has used it in the past, as has McDonalds, CVS and almost every other part-time retailer. (You probably know this.) What *is* particularly new and disturbing in this proposal is putting employees on call for specified periods with no or a nominal guaranteed payment for that time. If you've ever had to work on call, you know how devastating it can be.

...By the way, this is JP; we met at thoroughbass's on New Year's Day. You have been friended. Consider yourself warned.

[atalanta.livejournal.com]

Hi - I wandered over here through friends and wanted to comment ..
This isn't new and it sure isn't just Wal-Mart. The only thing that's new about this is the computerization of the system, but it's already been done at local manager level for just about every major retailer that hires low-skilled workers (food stores, big box stores, mall stores ..)
No one gets to reach full time or overtime hours. People were always sent home unexpectedly during lulls or had shifts cut with no notice. Individual people used to monitor it; Wal-Mart's just automating. (Disclaimer: by always, I mean "over the last 15 years at the very least and probably before")