Had a (roughly) similar experience when I used to work for a construction company. Once, a job was behind schedule, and they asked us to voluntarily work on a Saturday. Virtually everyone did, because working on a weekend got you time and a half pay.
Instead of a full day, though, they sent us home at lunchtime. Nobody was expecting that. One guy summed it up pretty well: “I got up at 6 AM on a Saturday to make less than I did yesterday? This is bullshit!”
After that, whenever our bosses asked if we’d come in on a Saturday, someone asked if it would be a full day or a half day. When our bosses said “I don’t know” (which is what they said every time) nobody came in.
They got away with exploiting us once, but completely screwed themselves in the long term. I was (and still am) very proud of my coworkers for continuing to hold management accountable for their decisions.
If OP and coworkers normally start at 8 and finish at 5 (9 hours of work), if you assume they ordinarily make $10/hr (for the sake of an example), they all made $90 for their work on Friday. If they came in at 8am on Saturday to be sent home at 12pm, then even at time and a half, they only made $60 for their work on Saturday
Completely legal, sure, but I wouldn't want to drag my arse out of bed at 6am on Saturday to earn less than I do on a regular work day
Yes, they did pay us time and a half for the short time we were there, but that isn’t really the point.
Baku, who replied to you directly, summed it up perfectly.
I’m also going to quote a reply you may not have seen, from GreenKnight23. It’s excellent as well.
in construction you're always at least an hour away.
it's about the trust. mgmt said, "you want to work tomorrow?" implying it as a full day. they then turned around and doubled down and kept lying to them.
no, if your employer does this, they have zero investment in their own workforce and will have zero problems firing the lot when it's convenient.
Everyone focuses on the typo when dude did an awesome thing. Reddit doesn't allow title edits and GBoard is shit at producing the words you want, and then dude gets a bunch of Tina jokes.
They got screwed thrice; by their boss, by Reddit, and by their keyboard
Yeah, and they choose to participate in capitalism by being employed. What a Rube! What a buffoon! 100% self inflicted.
Personally I've made my own smartphone out of glue and matchsticks, and stuff I stole from Walmart. I only post via a VPN, and only to servers that run on biofuel and solar. If you'll excuse me, I'm going to go mock the homeless for using iPhones. Have they no appreciation for the privacy they lose?
Starbucks may deserve all the stick that they get for their labor practices, but here in Canada on holidays they pay double time and a half (or about CAD $50/hour).
Are they staying open because there's marketing value in being open on a holiday, or because there's business as usual money to be made. If it's not for some extra marketing purposes, this just lays bare how much more money they could be paying folks and still remain profitable.
Overtime and holiday pay was meant to disincentivize manufacturing companies from overworking their people and not letting them spend time doing frivolous things like being with family on holidays. The difference between the cost of labor and the value of labor was so small back then (after decades of negotiating, union action, and bloodshed) that a simple 1.5x was enough to disincentivize it under most circumstances. It's so vast now for the service industry that they are willing to pay 2.5 times as much.
Totally looks like Wheatsville Coop in Austin. If so, they have pretty good wages from my understanding, and also this location is closing permanently soon. But there are probably other stores that look like this too
NEVER work holidays for 1.5x pay if all employees gets paid 1x. I learned my lesson as a teen, once you cancel out the 1x from everyone, you're working for half pay. fuck that.
edit: to further explain, many retail places will offer 1.5x pay for those that work, but those that don't work get paid 1x anyway. so you're basically working for half pay once you remove the 1x pay from everyone.
Exactly, I was confused by their warning because actually working a holiday at whatever rate shouldn't (and in most cases doesn't) make you forfeit any holiday pay benefit that all employees get.