General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsRecord profits for my company, but they cut our 'profit-sharing bonus' in half
...didn't find out until we got the checks.
There was some surprise and some happiness when they announced we were getting our checks early...until we found that meant a shorter period calculated into our bonus. In a moment reminiscent of 'Clark Griswold' on Christmas opening his bonus check, rank-and-file employees found the checks many had counted on as an important part of their survival cut almost in half. It's not as if our pay is high (it's certainly well below union pay), and these bonuses went a long way in making up some of the difference. There was no notice that the checks would be smaller and seemingly nothing in place to make up for the months lost in the calculation for the bonus.
It's going to be just a bit more than an inconvenience for me - some things I had planned on doing with the money in the way of home improvements - but I can imagine other folks counting on the money as an integral part of their survival. What a shock that must have been. I'm home right now and haven't had a chance to speak with any of my fellow associates, but I can just imagine my own disappointment and anger magnified by someone with mouths to feed or essential bills unpaid.
Here's a 2014 picture/profile of the company's financial health after the recent takeover by another retail giant:
- Gained market share for the 10th straight fiscal year
- Lowered operating costs for 10th straight fiscal year
- Grew same-store sales by 5.2%, up from 3.6% in 2013
- Earned $3.44 per share, up 19% from 2013
- Management projects fiscal 2015 earnings between $3.80 and $3.90 per share.
Not exactly hurting for profits - most of their success attributed to price cutting and other cost-control mechanisms - it's not hard to figure where some of that bottom line earnings is coming from. I'm not exactly an economic major, and I'm certain I can be talked down and around like my store manager did in explaining the smaller bonus this morning, but it doesn't take an academic scholar to recognize that less 'profit-sharing' in our pockets means more in investors' and owners' bank accounts. That's the way of the country right now and I just needed to vent.
I'm sure I'll get past this, like we all knuckle under to a whole host of slams on our incomes as we remain haplessly thankful for having a job, at all. Still, there's something burning deep inside that is fed up with always being forced to settle for less while investors and owners satisfy their greed at the expense of us workers out here, as if our own 'bottom-lines' are irrelevant. After all, it these same people out here at the grass root level who "do most of the working and paying and living and dying in these towns," to quote George Bailey's rebuke to Mr. Potter in 'Wonderful Life.'
"...here, you're all businessmen here. Don't it make them better citizens? Doesn't it make them better customers?"
antigop
(12,778 posts)bigtree
(86,005 posts)...but thanks.
antigop
(12,778 posts)...but it's like reporting getting robbed and being told to elect a better police force.
Not your fault, I'm sure you mean well.
antigop
(12,778 posts)leave.
I'm sorry, but that's the way it is.
This is not news.
eta: as long as they aren't breaking any law
Where is the law saying they have to share profits with you?
Response to antigop (Reply #5)
bigtree This message was self-deleted by its author.
antigop
(12,778 posts)antigop
(12,778 posts)Lobby to get a law passed. (I'm sure that will happen.)
Public shame. Contact a newspaper. Write a letter to the editor. You will have to assess whether that is a good idea for your continued employment or not.
bigtree
(86,005 posts)...is it okay with you if I just vent a little for now?
antigop
(12,778 posts)Put my neck on the line writing LTTEs.
Fact is...employees have very few tools.
antigop
(12,778 posts)You don't have a contract, so how did they do anything illegal?
stevenleser
(32,886 posts)Eventually it all comes down to those who own and run the company deciding between themselves and the rest of the company, who gets the proceeds, and it's not hard to understand that it's always easy for someone splitting money to rationalize why they should have more and others less.
Have that happen for a few generations, and that's how you get progressively worse income inequality.
This is why regulation will eventually have to encompass how much profit has to be shared with workers.
bigtree
(86,005 posts)...companies taking advantage of the down economy to squeeze workers for more 'production' for less wage and benefit - all the while, reaping record profits for the top of the pyramid.
I have seen efforts in individual states to limit owner profits made at the expense of workers.
antigop
(12,778 posts)Richard Wolff's website.
SheilaT
(23,156 posts)in the local paper. Do try very hard to interest them in doing that.
And as easy as it is for someone like me to say, Oh just go organize a union, the reality is that it's very hard to do so. Aside from the many illegal things companies do to stop that, too many employees are either afraid or honestly think they'll lose more by organizing.
I sometimes think we're going to need for conditions for workers to get as desperate as they were in the depths of the Great Depression for union organizing to start up again significantly. Not that I wish for such conditions, but maybe more people need to feel they have absolutely nothing to lose to be willing to take the risk.
I do hope something good can eventually come of what happened.
antigop
(12,778 posts)KingCharlemagne
(7,908 posts)and end-all of human economic activity, eh? Please know that you and your co-workers have my sympathies and my solidarity. Without your naming of the company, however, there's no way I as a consumer can boycott or as investor can dump any shares of stock I might inadvertently hold in my now-microscopic IRA.
bigtree
(86,005 posts)... trying not to let emotions take me to a place where I jeopardize my employment. Appreciate the solidarity, tho. Mostly just venting right now.
KingCharlemagne
(7,908 posts)to vent and it's a rotten trick your employer\management pulled.
MineralMan
(146,333 posts)Unless the company has to worry about its employees leaving, they have no reason to do the right thing.
bigtree
(86,005 posts)...I really need to talk with my co-workers and lower-level managers when I get back (day off). That's looking to be less a bargaining chip and more of a definitive option as I simmer down.