Joined: 28 Jul 2003
Posts: 6
Location: USA
| Posted: Mon Aug 11, 2003 11:11 pm Post subject: Sales and profits increase; wages and benefits do not. | |
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Fellow Hourly Employees,
According to the August 10, 2003 edition of the Minneapolis Star Tribune: “Profits at Minnesota's 100 largest public companies rose 78 percent in the second quarter -- the biggest jump in nearly four years -- to a record $4.2 billion as firms took far fewer writeoffs and aggressively continued to cut costs and increase productivity. Sales increased 5.6 percent, suggesting that revenue and earnings are starting to gain momentum at a time when reports on economic growth and employment show a mixed picture.” (Minnesota companies show strong profit gains, but market stays mum - Mike Blahnik) In my opinion, the above news is even more evidence that we need to form Unions in our workplaces for the purpose of protecting and advancing our mutual interests. While Target Corporation has yet to report its second quarter earnings (management has scheduled a webcast to announce this information at 10:30AM EDT on August 14), the company’s monthly reports for May, June and July reveal an average increase of 8.8% in net retail sales over the same period during 2002. I’m not a professional “bean counter”, but this would suggest to me that our employer is realizing significantly greater gains in profit than most of its counterparts in Minnesota. In my view, we hourly employees are, to a great extent, responsible for the corporation’s increased profits and productivity, yet we clearly do not receive our fair share of the increases. Instead, greedy corporate executives and company managers enjoy generous compensation and reap outrageous bonuses, while our meager wages remain stagnant and our benefits are reduced or eliminated. I urge everyone to learn about our rights as employees under the National Labor Relations Act. Acting collectively, we can make Target a better place to work. In solidarity, Scooter |
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Joined: 04 Jul 2003
Posts: 1946
| Posted: Tue Aug 12, 2003 7:01 am Post subject: | |
Sears is the same friggin way, despite 23 months of sales decline. We have managed to sell off a lot of businesses related to Sears, thus our profit margin. What do we piss ant associates get??? NADA!!!!!! We are truly the ones that run the company and nothing to show for it. 
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Joined: 28 Jul 2003
Posts: 6
Location: USA
| Posted: Tue Aug 12, 2003 1:53 pm Post subject: | |
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At Target, when some brave soul who is unafraid of losing his/her job or having his/her hours reduced raises the subject of compensation during an open meeting, one or more of our drone-like managerial staff (they must receive bonuses for repeated use of certain corporate composed mantras) will offer the following pre-programmed response: “We believe that Target offers wages and benefits comparable to that of our competition within the industry. Hourly wages are based on research the corporation has engaged in to determine the going rate in a given geographic area.”
It seems that our employer believes it’s OK to exploit us, as long as other employers are exploiting their employees, too. In solidarity, Scooter |
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