re: #417 Walter L. Newton

I have half-hearted support of unions. I am represented by a union, but I am not a member. Our store is too far from Denver proper to be a union store in this division, but all the employees at my store are represented by the UFCW. Our store follows all the points of the union contract in our region. But we don’t pay union dues, and we can’t vote on union issues.

I find the union helpful (and probably needed) in a number of areas,, and in other areas, I am totally against some practices.

For me, the most annoying process is seniority. I’ve been at the store almost a year (on the 31st of March). We have 20 cashiers, and we haven’t hired any new cashiers since I was hired almost a year ago. Ergo, I’m on the bottom of the seniority list.

And as normal, shit rolls downhill, and I get the leftovers of hours, schedules and I have to pick up the slack when there are holes to fill in the schedule.

I don’t see how it is good for a business to have some of the most productive employees in a position that they can’t be scheduled at the most opportune times for the day to day running of the business.

I am in the top half of productive cashiers. I score high on speed, customer service and etc. Yet, some of the most unproductive of the cashiers will get scheduled during the hours that the store should be supplying the customer with the most customer service oriented visit. All because they have seniority.

I don’t think that is good for the company, it doesn’t support employees who are working to be the best, it doesn’t help the customer, it seems to be a negative objective in many cases.

Seniority isn’t supposed to be “good for the company”. It’s for the workers who blew out their backs years ago lifting cases or pouring steel. You gain the advantage of seniority when you get too old to be the best mule in the traces.