It has been alleged that Target Stores – Brooklyn residents may be familiar with the outlet in the Atlantic Center – employ a business model whose labor-cost component relies on most employees working 8 hours or less per week. This makes it very unlikely that they’ll receive overtime, and, if we understand company practices, prevents eligibility for health insurance and other benefits.
If true, this may be what economists call “a race to the bottom,” in which competitors compete to spend less on labor, safety, quality control, in order to obtain or maintain competitive advantages (such as price and profit margin).
In Financial 411: Labor Unions Eye a New Target WNYC’s Financial 411 today reported those allegations. Link to audio stream – and more complete piece.
We’ve only learned of this in the last few hours; we’ll try to verify or refute the allegations and provide an update tomorrow.
If true, we think it may incumbent upon us as a community to consider shopping elsewhere; the WNYC coverage included a report that one employee fortunate enough to have three shifts per week was still eligible to – and needed – food stamps.
After hearing this report, we had a household discussion about how much we’d’ spent at Target. I’m proud to live in Brooklyn not least because of its historical opposition to slavery. This conduct – again, if true – is not slavery. But they have in common avarice, the bullying of the powerless by the wealthy – and an unhealthy emptiness where one would expect to find a working moral compass.
If any of our readers are familiar with the facts or parties firsthand, we’d like to hear about it in the comments.
