Posted by travelnut on December 03, 2002 at 10:23:57:
In Reply to: GM Abuses at Store 2881 posted by Sally on November 28, 2002 at 22:33:49:
What your GM is doing is illegal. I believe that Wal-Mart got in a lot of trouble recently for making their employees work off the clock, just like your GM is doing. I hope the Labor Board can do something about that.
As far as the We Listen program goes, I've seen it work well & I've seen it boomerang to hurt the one who turned to it. Depends, perhaps, on how high up you go. In our store, the problem wasn't with the GM, but with the District Manager. Our whole store wrote a letter explaining our problems - then we emailed it to company president Mike Berry (who is gone now) & to our Regional Manager. The reason we were taken seriously is because virtually every single employee signed that letter, including managers. We received an answer from Mike Berry the same day who promised to look into the problem & said that he would resolve the situation within two weeks. He was as good as his word. BUT...and this is a big "but", we earned the wrath of our District Manager, & the Regional Manager wasn't happy with us either. We went over their heads because they were part of the problem. In our case, the We Listen program worked.
Since Mike Berry has departed the company, things may be a whole lot different. I've seen employees in our store contact the District Manager to vent about problems. They have now drawn attention to themselves as troublemakers within the store. We have a good GM, but if your District Manager doesn't want to deal with problems & just wants them to "go away" at any cost, it might not be useful to contact that person. My main advice is that if you do something, do not go it alone. There is strength in numbers, as we discovered - the District Manager was just flabbergasted that everyone in the store including the management team would unite to resolve an untenable situation.
All I can say is good luck - let me know if you decide to act.