Friday Speak Out Round Up: We’re Not Gonna Take It Edition

The week has come and gone, and as always, we have collected the best stories sent to us from employees all over the country about their experiences at Wal-Mart.

The following stories are full of raw and honest commentary from past and current employees regarding everything from cut hours to poor work environments.

This week, we heard from employees about the daily struggles associated with a low wage position, how managers are manipulating hours, and how a lack of air conditioning can lead to unbearable working conditions.

Our first story comes from an anonymous employee in Iowa:

This is an interesting web site. I visit daily and read the associate letters. One reason I do is so I can find out if the rules/hours/pay… whatever...changes are really coming from home office or they are just our management making changes. I am a LONG term assoc. and have had this game played on me a lot in the last 20+ years. The new one now is the total overhaul of our scheduling. People being slotted to work where they have no training. For example, IMS slotted to CSM...and being made to do so with no idea how to do the job. Floor assoc. put up on the registers who don’t even have sign on numbers and have never run a register. Seems like they are setting people up to fail. We are told home office is making the schedule and management has no control. Hours are being slashed. I have seen sales slump for a while before and they cut us all back for a while but I’ve never seen a response like this. The management team we have in our store is so under trained.

Our store manager has to be the worst I’ve seen. The store has turned into a mess. We used to have an outlet to voice concern but with the new “Market Management “ team approach the open door policy has gone out the window.They come into the store and don’t talk to anybody but managment then walk out leaving us with pages and pages of notes. Is this going on everywhere? All I know for sure is Sam is rolling over in his grave. Walmart is not the same as it was when he was in charge. Sure retail will change with the times but the culture of Sam has died. This company is no longer family oriented. Seems all they are worried about is money.

Our next story comes from an anonymous employee who had to suffer through the scorching summer heat with no air conditioning, no breaks, and no sympathy from management…

No air conditioning, no breaks, no sympathy

My spouse and I work at a Walmart in Kentucky, and we have recently discovered the extreme lengths Walmart will go to to save a little money.  We both work third shift (I prefer not to say even what position we are in) and first of all I would like to say that we do not get air conditioning, and it definitely gets hot and humid here in Kentucky.  However, as we are leaving at 7 am, we hear the air conditioner turn on.  Second of all, I would like to say that the turnover rate for our store is between 95% and 98%.  This store also keeps people who have been fired or have quit on the schedule so that it appears that we are fully/over staffed, but in fact we are running on a skeleton crew.  I know this for a fact, because when I reapplied at this Walmart, they couldn’t pull up my application because I was still in the system as being employed by Walmart.  And it had been over a year since I had quit Walmart.  Now this store is cutting ours and changing job codes without the permission of the associates.  They are putting people who are getting higher levels of pay into lower paying positions and taking away the difference.  We are also being told that if we don’t submit to these changes that we will be fired or simply not be scheduled.  Management is also trying to force everyone to change their availability so that they can work on any shift at any time.  They are giving, for example, third shift cashiers secondary job codes as second shift cashiers.  There are many people who are now scheduled 8 to 16 hours per week, and this isn’t even in the position for which they were hired.

Back in January, there was a terrible winter storm here in Kentucky, and there were many many people who did not have electricity for 2 weeks or more.  President Obama issued a federal state of emergency for the state of Kentucky.  However, almost immediately after this storm occurred, our store manager sent out an email to all the managers saying that he realizes that there was a winter storm but it’s time to “get over it” and get back to work and that he would not accept call-ins because of this storm.

For this next Wal-Mart associate, scheduling games and forced part time hours hurt their wallet…

I worked for Walmart for 2 1/2 years. I thought it would be a place where I could move up. I was a cashier for five months, working part time. When people would want to be off, I offered to cover their shifts since I wanted more hours. Apparently, that is not allowed. I was called into the office and told that I was showing up on the FT/PT exception list and I could not pick up hours from other cashiers. Don’t they want to have enough cashiers to check out the customers? I guess not. After five months, I got into the management training program. Our training was a joke. We hung around in a room up in front of the training store and basically did whatever we felt like (most of the time watching Rick Flair DVDs or reading the paper…)

I am glad I did leave, because it is getting awful in the stores. I’ve heard from former coworkers that the goal is now 75% PT/25% FT employees in the stores, so they are actually trying to get rid of as many long term FT employees as possible. People are getting fired left and right as they hire new people to come in and be part-time sales associates. I talked to a department manager this week who said that the store manager had been told to cut a thousand hours off the next schedule. At the same time, I walk through the stores and three doors in the milk cooler are completely empty, and the ground beef wall is wiped out. FT people are cut to 34-35 hours, so no one is left to stock the products that customers want to buy. The store manager closest to my house quit just before getting fired. I heard that the managers at the next store over and two other stores were given an ultimatum—get things in line within the next few weeks or get packing. The entire management team at one store was given PIPs (personal improvement plan) and told they had two weeks to fix things in their area or they would be fired. How does that solve anything? These people aren’t stealing, they’re not harassing people, the stores don’t look that bad...what business sense tells you to fire them? It’s sheer stupidity.

And it’s all about getting the higher-paid, long-term associates out so that they can hire people who will work for less since there are so many people desperate right now for a job. If I worked for Walmart now, I definitely would not want to move up, because where’s the incentive when you could just be fired because your store sales are not as high as they want them to be? My husband still works at Walmart and is full time, but he only has to work 28 hours a week since he’s been there over 10 years. I’m worried that they’ll fire him because they are trying to schedule him outside of his availability (he works evenings and stays home during the day with our daughter while I work). I think they would want to get rid of him since he can work 28 hours and still get benefits and is paid much higher than a newly hired associate would. What a crappy company. My job is probably going to relocate soon, and we hope that he can find a better job once we move, but this is paying the bills right now. He sure hates every day of work though.

- Emily

After two years of service, this next associate was fired over two pieces of lunch meat that she paid for…

Today I was dismissed from my position as a full-time Deli employee. After working my but off for two years, I was pulled into the office and told I was fired for cutting myself two slices of lunch meat one minute before my lunch break. After clocking out for lunch, I came back and retrieved my lunch meat, paid for it, and went on my break. At the end of my shift four hours latter, I was told I was under stocking and as a result, was terminated. Even though the lunch meat was still on the counter. Open door policy my butt, all they give you is a open door to the unemployment line. Respect for the individual certainly does not apply. I’ll miss my co-workers, but I was railroaded.

- Anonymous

For this next employee, Wal-Mart’s full-time promise becomes a big time let down…

I was hired in July 2008 and was told I was hired as full time, which is what I told them I wanted. I was also told I would receive a raise after my probation period was over. Two other employees that were hired within a month of me were also told the same thing. Well, when our probation periods were up we did not receive a raise AND we were all told that we were permanent part-time. When I questioned the manager who did my review as to why I was not getting permanent full-time, he said that no one at Wal-mart starts out full time. I would not have taken the job had I known that I was not going to be full time as promised when I did the interview. Also, all of our hours have been cut as of this week.

The store manager decided that part-time employees can not have more than 33 hours per week. Even though I was only part-time, I was averaging 38-40 because my area was always short-handed. No more of that. So, now I will be losing close to $200 a month thanks to the lack of hours. So, in my area, we work our butts off and are always short-handed but they will not give us extra hours. Management never says “thank you” for a job well done. They just expect us to work shorthanded and get the job done. We are not allowed to have any overtime BUT are expected to stay till the job is done. There are several times when I have closed my area by myself. Yet, there should have been 3 people to close. I stayed past my shift each time and then was expected to take longer dinner hours to kill the extra time.

Management does not care about the fact that we do our work and can’t even make enough money to cover living expenses. And if we complain about lack of hours or bad working conditions, they tell us that we are lucky to have a job and that if we don’t like it then we don’t have to be there. Employees are not valued. We are told that we can be replaced. They now that with the way the economy is, they have many more people that are stupid enough to work for them and put up with their crap. The new assistant manager of my area promised me that I would have 38 to 38 1/2 hours per week. he also promised me that I would not have to work any more day shifts. He also kept telling us that he was hiring more people for the evening shift and that we would not have to keep working short-handed.

All of those promises have turned out to be false. I have learned that management will say whatever it takes to get us to “hang in there” and keep showing up for work.  hate my job but I have 2 kids and a soon-to-be-ex that doesn’t pay child support. Wal-Mart should be ashamed at the way they treat their employees!

- Anonymous

Posted by Research Team on Friday, June 19, 2009

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