I’m having a difficult time corroborating this story: Forever 21 to “demote” all non-management full-time employees to a part-time status.
Anybody know anything from any of the legitimate news-gathering sources?
Haven’t heard anything, but did they not notice how well that worked for Circuit City?
Maybe there will be a name change to “Not Much Longer 21”
There’s this.
Notice they’re not denying the move, just the reason behind it.
[URL=“http://jezebel.com/leaked-letter-shows-forever-21-demoting-workers-and-cut-1154222208”]
Internet shopping is destroying local shops like this. All mall businesses will have to do the same to keep in competition.
If you aren’t salary (and working 60 hrs/wk) you are part time, no bennies. Don’t like it? I’ve got 100 applications here, and all these people are more qualified than you are.
Like what happened when WalMarts moved into town, but without such a dramatic entrance, the internet doesn’t put up a giant building.
I’m not much concerned with the stated or attributed motivation; I was just curious to know if it’s really happening.
Wouldn’t surprise me a bit. Call a local store and ask.
Don’t know about forever 21, but the company I work for started doing something similar in January. All new non management hires are part time only. Full time non management hired before the change keeps full time status until their program ends or they switch to a different program. This is dial america, a company with call centers across the country.
It’s weird, my company has no use for part-time employees. In fact, there’s one woman who was 6 years ago working part-time by choice (she’s like 80 years old, and just wanted some supplemental retirement income) and they told her she’d either have to go full-time or quit. She went full-time.
Not retail, though.
StG
Did they ever hire full time? When I worked there in 2003 or so, everyone was part time.
Does this have any relation to the way a lot of businesses now call their workers “associates”? Is this just a meaningless title change or is there a legal difference between being an employee and being an associate?
No, that’s to make them feel like a beloved part of the family. It started quite some time ago.
I know it’s been going on a while and that the stated reason is to make everyone feel like part of a team. But let’s face reality - if the company was changing the status of workers so they could discontinue their overtime system, they wouldn’t announce that was the reason. They’d come up with a cover story like telling everyone they’re now a beloved part of the family.
Even if they gave every shop clerk and stockroom person the title Vice President, it wouldn’t affect their treatment under labor law if their job duties and working conditions remained unchanged.
Overtime was discontinued in retail businesses a decade ago, at least.
Last job I had, if you went over 40 hours in a week you received a stern talking to, and got hours trimmed back to make safety buffer.
Internet shopping really is going to overturn our society, I believe. It’s going to end up being as big a change as the automobile.
Huge sections of our workforce are employed selling things for somewhat more than the very lowest price possible anywhere.
But more an more people refuse to buy that, they would rather save a few dollars.
The link in post 4 goes into that, and calculates that (provided everyone is telling the truth) about 300 employees are affected, company-wide.
I think the fundamental problem is the disconnect between what executives want for their own company and what they want for the world.
Every executive wants to reduce his expenses and one way to do that is to reduce the money he pays his workers. But every executive also wants to sell his products and to do that he needs customers who have money to spend.
And while every executive is doing all he can to pay his workers less, he’s also scratching his head trying to figure out why customers seem to have less money to spend.
I don’t remember that happening there, exactly, but they sure did enough screwing around. I worked at Circuit City only from 2000-2001, but I recruited my best friend, who was still working there full-time right through the liquidation and closure. Though he had been laid-off completely from his “lead” position or whatever they called it at the time around 2008. Then he was rehired later full-time but at $3-4/hr less.
I only worked there exactly 1 year, but they changed their entire philosophy at least 3 times and did 2 major remodels ( and I was moved 3 times while never really leaving my dept), which started around a week after I was hired.
I think around 2003, they fired everyone that was good at sales because they made too much money. Then they gave slight raises and retained everyone in perpetual subsidy (which means they were not good at sales), while filling the rest at close to min. wage. My friend survived that one and kept getting raises until the next time they fired everyone who was paid “more than market value.” I don’t recall the getting rid of full-time thing- but it’s possible I just lost track during their 27 different philosophical changes and labor re-adjustments.
Yes, I’ve seen management like that. Boring mindless unskilled job, no customer contact, no progress, no promotion, not much money, and a working mom who put everything she had into the job, and regarded the 12 hours out of the house as a blessed change.
Because management thought it was inefficient supervising someone who wasn’t on tap full time to take instruction and go to staff meetings, she was replaced by a full time worker who half worked, and wouldn’t bother, and stuffed up, and didn’t care, as you would if you were stuck full-time in a job like that.
I was responding to mr accidents post about dial America.