What is Really Going on for a Lot of Workers with the Labor Shortages...

is that they are essentially being asked to do the jobs of multiple people, at the pay rate of one.  Example?  CVS Pharmacy is advertised as an Amazon return location.  You box it up, bring in the "code" on your phone (or laptop, presumably) and Amazon advertises the CVS location will print the label and ship it back.  I called the local CVS before driving over.  "Will you hold?" "Yes..."  No lie -- 6 minutes later -- "... No, you have to print the label or go to another Amazon location.  We don't do that here..."  "But... that's what it says online... Where should I go?"  "I don't know, but we don't do that here."  "Are you a UPS Amazon pick up location?  You likely get a lot of people coming in, based on what the computer says..."  "YES, but I'm the only one here, working the entire front end..."  

I get it.  She's working the register (they do have a self check-out there, but...).  She's answering the phones.  She can't print labels too at the UPS front part of the store...

Why can't retailers pay for two salaries if the worker is doing the job of two (or three) essentially running the whole store except for the people in the back in the pharmacy?  It makes no sense.  You are stressing out the workers, who -- even with their modest pay raises -- are watching their hard-worked money go back out the door to the grocery stores and for gas.  (People who have even modest incomes do not qualify for Food Share, and the food pantry hours are usually only open during the daytime prime working hours.)

There are no unions.  When I worked the overnight shift at amazon (originally 4am to 8am, then bumped to 3am to 7am), during "peak" season, we could "bid" on additional shifts.  BUT... they were staggered an hour apart.  (Likely to give the body a break, as it could be physical work pulling the packages off the conveyor belt -- before they fell onto the ground, or the line jammed up, don't get me started about how many of your packages hit the ground, or the immigrant workers cannot read This Side UP, even with an arrow... -- and stacking them on the pallets before we pulled them away via pallet jacks to load the trucks...)

So... if you picked up an additional two, or three shifts even, you could be there for 9 hours essentially (not counting the commute) but be paid for only the eight you worked.  PLUS, you agreed upon hire, that even your shift was not guaranteed, if the trucks did not show up on time, say, and there were no more packages to be immediately processed...  Then, you only got two hours, and got sent home.

Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Shumer... even the media, they don't understand how workers are being stiffed by these companies.  For the mostly Somali crew I worked with, there was always chatter when they sent us the text messages while we were working, either letting us go, or opening up additional hours later in the day.  But we were essentially competing against each other to "grab" the work slots.

It's wonderfully efficient for an amazon.  Bad weather?  Slow trucks.  Send them home, open up a shift later in the day.  Have 1 hour between shifts for the managers to get a hold of the lines, get the packages processed onto the lines, etc.

They don't have to pay the workers' down time.  So, like the lady today at CVS, stressed out and breaking her balls to keep her job for what little she makes, you just work them harder and harder, at the same pay rate.  Eventually, something is gonna give...

FREE giveaways for the poor don't help at all.  Unionizing retail workers, and factory workers, will take years.  And we all smile and clap at the "efficient" business model... and encourage the country to bring in more people to work.

(and I'll say this too:  if you think, that on a factory floor, the people showing up to do the work, are the same people who were hired under the paperwork processed, you are naive!  With masks (and headcoverings where I worked), the mostly white managers had to look at nametags to know who was who, and we were not encouraged to verbally communicate to each other on the shift.  (They did, I couldn't since I did not speak their language.  Trying to explain "this side up", or why we needed to pull the BIG boxes off the line first, to build the base of the pallet, AND to make more room on the line for the boxes continually flowing down -- and eventually hitting the floor* was futile, I soon learned.)

Until you've worked these jobs, you really can't believe how they are screwing the workers.  And the immigrants -- many working multiple jobs, or even -- I suspect -- sending in friends and relatives to work in their stead, are getting shortchanged but really have no way of complaining and demanding better treatment.   Be Better for your own people, America.

And those of you who have too much?  Please, start seeing workers.  Once, we were essential.  Now, not so much...

------------------------

*  I wondered, why the heck don't they have "bumpers" on those lines, like a toddler bed where they can't roll out ... something so the packages don't just start hitting the floor as the lines jammed up?  Turns out... if the packages totally jam it, the conveyor belt automatically stops... which must be recorded, and cost them money to unjam it, and get the whole floor flowing again.  (one jammed line would shut all of them down).  Better to have the packages "roll over" each other, and hit the floor so that the flow would continue.

How did I make it there, for as long as I did?  I was actually getting OT for some weeks during peak -- picking up as many extra shifts as I could grab, and going well over 40 hpw to get time and a half.  And I tried to keep a song in my head.  At Christmastime, watching the pallets for the affluent zip codes quickly fill, while other areas would take the whole shift to fill a pallet... it was the Monkees:

"Well how much baby do we really need?"

America is not going to work if we continue this way, letting the wealthiest of us amass more and more and more.. (at such prices!  for such... disposable crap!)... at the expense of the "essential" workers working harder and harder to get ahead on less and less...

I'm too jaded to say, "Do Something".  All I can do is observe, and record.  I know what I'm seeing, if your eyes are open, and you are out in public at all in America... you are likely seeing too.  Think of us then like fingers on a fist in America:  E Pluribus Unum.  If we fail to come together as one, we're going to have a lot of broken fingers out here in the future, I fear.

(No broken toes though.  That was one good thing amazon did.  Gave us all a Zappos credit for boots or shoes with reinforced toes.  They must have seen too many foot injuries from workers not fast enough to move out of the way when the packages stopped dropping from the line and hitting the ground.  And we did have mandatory training sessions... never ever bend over while the line is moving and try to start picking them up, lest one fall on yo head!  OR... you put your back out while reaching and trying to keep them from falling.  That's a new trainee, first-week-on-the-job mistake, for sure...)

Maybe, if the elites could just... have the kids rewear their clothes, use handme downs, stop buying multiple homes for your multiple families that each need to be stocked?  And PLEASE... stop ordering your damn detergents in the mail!  The whole line STINKS for a long time when those hit the ground and break open and need to be cleaned up and sent to the Problem Package area for reprocessing.  Just... get in the car, drive to the store (with the understaffed workers) and carry them home yourself??  

Yes you can.  Let's all be in this together?  Cancel your grocery "subscriptions", get off your duff, and do some physical work yourself?  Honestly, in the long run, your body will likely thank you.  Elites need exercise too!