There is 4 of us in my market, i'm the lead cutter, our sales are still good and some weeks do more than last months sales. last week my company hit us with, we need you to talk this over between you, we either got to let one go or cut hours, would each of you be willing to work 36 hours so we don't have to let anyone go. Has any of you been hit with this type of offer??
this really piss me off as they have just hired two more in the grocery and most any time you can find the grocery guys sitting on their ass in the back room texting or talking on their phones, even our co manager gets back there with them and texts
Let me try and break this down. It is a classic management squeeze.
In Huntsville, Alabama the average mid-range meat-cutter is paid $14.53/hour.
The heavies dictate that they would like y'all to cut back 4-hours each rather than lay someone off.... since that would mean their unemployment insurance would have to go up.
What they are hoping to do is save $236/week in wages (I figure a total of 12 hours at $14.00/hour plus 4 hours at $17.00/hour.)
I would just call the bluff and tell them that they have to lay someone off. They won't do it.
In the end all that would happen is the cutters will have to cut faster. The product will begin to look like slop. And, customers will buy meat elsewhere.
My 7-fingered cowboy of an apprenticeship instructor with 54-years of cutting under his belt (and still going strong) said a fella has to have the Midas Touch, turning meat into gold when other guys touch meat and turn it into ****.
I was going to say they are likely going to try to scare you to working harder and faster and producing more with less time and manpower. This benefits only them and hurts you and your crew. There is no compromise here. So don't play their game. Stand your ground. Stores all over the country are pulling this stunt. They are spreading people out. One person is doing the work of 3 people and so on. Its all just a ploy to put more money in the bosses pocket and more stress on the workers. They will say its the economy and all but you don't see them taking a pay cut or cutting their hours do you? They are the ones getting the big bucks.
Another note and yes I am speaking from experience. Right now they are asking you all to cut 2 hours or let a person go. Next year I guarantee they are going to ask you all to cut 2 more hours or let yet another person go. This whole ordeal is going to cause alot of conflict in your shop. That is what they want because with enough conflict people will get fed up and quit again that is what they want. Their plan is to either not replace that person or to replace him/her with a part timer at 9 bucks an hour. I have seen this happen. I was in a shope with 7 people. 2 years later there was just me and the meat manager and one wrapper. My hours went from 40 to 16. When I quit they hired some 19 year old punk who didn't care about his job. It occured to me too late that if I had just kept working my 40 hours and the rest of the guys did the same what could they had done? Nothing. They weren't about to fire all of us. This whole thing makes me kind of sad because it is just going to cause alot of confusion and conflict in a shop where you all probably got along pretty well right? Try having a meeting with all the people who are at risk here and decide if you are going to do what they ask.I am hoping you all decide to just completely ignore them and keep working the hours you were originally hired to work and avoid all the conflict and continue to be a happy meat dept.
-- Edited by fdarn on Wednesday 19th of September 2012 06:25:07 AM
I was once in a chain store meat dept, many moons ago, this same thing happened-we were all asked to drop a couple hours...because of budgeting the store manager was doing the asking. The head cutter, who had been working for the chain for decades called an H.R. person the next day and requested a meeting- on "benefits"
He did have a meeting with the H.R. person and had some legit h.r. questions, but he also asked the h.r. person if reducing hours for a full time employee, a "company" wide policy change?..the h.r. guy said NO!
The store mgr was trying to make the budgets look better for bonuses- however he did catch some **** for trying to reduce hours of a full time employee- because it was not company wide policy
If you work in a chain, see if this is happening in other stores..
on the flipside, I have seen in independents, a reduction in hours to get thru some really hard times...but always on the premise that you will go back to 40 hrs
Ive also seen a store hire a business consultant, that slashed the payroll budget......and most of the remaining employees quit....and the store never recovered
what a heartless approach.....either reduce your hours, or someone will be let go... this is a cowardly sucker punch to the gut, no matter how you look at it. if i were meat manager, id be wanting to see the numbers- to see if this is legit (often stores will do a broad-brush approach , even if one dept is doing well,,,so as not to single any other employees out-particularly if they fit into a minority group
I learned about this tactic from my father. It was common in industry a few decades ago. He was a head supervisor for a semi-conductor production line in a factory until the business folded.
He always said a little immigrant women can do twice the work as a young buck because she works at half the pace making no mistakes.
I totally agree with you guys. But I'm having the opposite problem. Our sales numbers are great but we're running OT on all cutters and have been for several months and could still use more help. Between 2 stores I'm running all 6 cutters at least 48 hours working 6 days a week. Since our sales numbers are good my sales/PR hour was reduced 2% from the previous fiscal year. Administration wants more sales with less or the same amount of help. We're busier than ever before and they're giving me even less help. It's a business SNAFU. Not a good business model. With the amount of payroll spent at time and a half for OT, we could have hired 3 PT staff to do 1.5 times more work. My cutters are required to do clerk tasks because we're so short. This doesn't include the 55-60 hours I put in as the dept Leader. I'm salaried so there are times my lead cutter has a larger pay check than I do. I've got to figure out the proper course to follow to explain this bad situation and do it such that I'm not "worked out" of the organization. I love working where I do and doing what I do, but I've seen admin work salaried people out of the organization that speak up about being overworked. And I completely agree with the notion JimmyMac put forth. I was always taught from day 1 to go slower and make the product look spectacular than to go fast and compromise the product.
