# A Part-Time Life, as Hours Shrink and Shift



## Costas (Oct 28, 2012)

(ΝΥΤ) Απ' ό,τι καταλαβαίνω, είναι μέρος μιας σειράς με γενικό τίτλο THE NEW AMERICAN JOB. Εδώ μιλάει για τον τομέα της λιανικής (προϊόντων και υπηρεσιών). Στις υγείες μας και "καλή καταναλωτική εμπειρία":

Hardin is forever urging her boss to give her more hours, she said, but instead, “they turn around and hire more people.” (...) “A couple of people offered me a used TV, but I can’t afford cable,” she said. “I have a tooth that’s falling apart, but I can’t afford the crown for it.” 
(...)
Such powerful scheduling software, developed by companies like Dayforce and Kronos over the last decade, has been widely adopted by retail and restaurant chains. The Kronos program that Jamba bought in 2009 breaks down schedules into 15-minute increments. So if the lunchtime rush at a particular shop slows down at 1:45, the software may suggest cutting 15 minutes from the shift of an employee normally scheduled from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. 
(...)
(...) when Walmart spread nationwide and opened hundreds of 24-hour stores in the 1990s, that created intense competitive pressures and prompted many retailers to copy the company’s cost-cutting practices, including its heavy reliance on part-timers. 
(...)
(...) the declining power of labor unions. “They set a standard for what a real job was — Monday through Friday with full-time hours,” she said. “We’ve moved away from that.”
Many corporations place store or restaurant managers under strict limits about what their payroll or employee hours can be each week, usually based on a formula tied to sales. These formulas usually give managers little flexibility to increase the hours assigned.
David Henson, a former assistant manager at a Walmart in Thief River Falls, Minn., said part-timers would sometimes come into his office on the brink of tears.
“A lot of them were single mothers. They said they weren’t earning enough to support their families,” he said. “They desperately wanted more hours, but we weren’t able to give them.”
Some, Mr. Henson said, were eager to take second jobs. But if they said they were unavailable during certain hours, then the managers and scheduling software would reduce their hours further, he said. Many workers concluded that it was simply not worth it. 
(...)
Mr. Anthony said it was hard to survive. At $8.25 an hour, 15 hours a week equaled about $500 a month. His share of the monthly rent was $800, with several hundred more for utilities, phone and subway fares. Some days he went hungry, he acknowledged, and he repeatedly turned to his parents for help.
He and his co-workers held out hope that, come the holiday season, their hours would pick up. “But then they hired 15 more workers,” he said. 
(...)
At one point, he said, his weekly schedule dwindled to two assigned days and two or three days when he was supposed to call the store in the morning to see whether managers wanted him to come in that day. 
(...)
“We’re seeing more and more that the burden of market fluctuations is being shifted onto the workers, as opposed to the companies absorbing it themselves,” said Carrie Gleason, executive director of the Retail Action Project, an advocate for retail workers (...)
(...)
“Many part-time workers feel a real competition to work hard during their limited hours because they want to impress managers to give them more hours.”
Ms. Rosser, the Jamba Juice district manager, amplified on the advantages. “You don’t want to work your team members for eight-hour shifts,” she said. “By the time they get to the second half of their shift, they don’t have the same energy and enthusiasm. We like to schedule people around four- to five-hour shifts so you can get the best out of them during that time.” 

Αυτοί είναι οι τεμπέληδες του κ. Ρόμνεϋ...


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