Minimum Wage Is Maximum Wrong

Sorry about the spin in this entry … but I read an article (Minimum wage hike won’t go far) about a proposal to raise the Federal minimum wage to seven-something dollars. The first lines of the article read:

“Two months into her minimum wage job at Target Corp., (she) realized she and her three children would be better off if she was unemployed and on food stamps. So she quit.”

At that point, my mind wandered to an experience I had in Corporate/Employee relations, and that experience tells me that livability problems, even survival issues for employees won’t be solved by Federally-mandated rules and regulations.

In the late 80’s, Target Stores had a diverse group of employees, from elderly and disabled folks, to young people. Typically, the elderly or disabled worked at the cash registers, young people stocked shelves at night, and middle-aged men and women managed the stock room and performed janitorial duties. Then, some FOOLS introduced a new ‘employee’ program that changed the way employees were scheduled and the duties they were to perform.

The elderly ladies had worked at the registers for years … I mean, some for ten or twenty years, even coming from the older Dayton’s stores. These people were making upwards of twelve dollars (plus) an hour, not profitable for the Corporation. Longtime employees were ‘vested’ in retirement and profit-sharing plans, again, not profitable for the Corporation’s future. Older employees also took advantage of the opportunity provided by their employee insurance plans, and as this employee group aged, insurance and medical expenses were rising for the Corporation: again, not profitable for the Corporation.

The Corporation’s answer: Put all employees, current and future, into Teams. These Teams would be assigned ‘rotating’ duties, meaning cashiers now belonged to a Team that would have to work some overnight stockroom shifts, disabled employees might be required to corral carts (in the winter), and the folk’s who cleaned the bathrooms would have to work the snack bar. As the program was written and implemented, it was presented as a ‘fairer’, more ‘equal’ opportunity for all employees. Sounds good, eh?

The result was that the overpaid-elderly quit, due to ‘attrition’. The disabled were presented with tasks difficult to perform, so many quit. Anybody making over minimum wage was slowly forced to retire or quit because it wasn’t good for the Corporation’s bottom line.

I know. I was one of the FOOLS that worked on the new employee program. The program was called Team Flex Staffing. Every time I walked into a Target Store during while I worked on the project and saw one of those happy old ladies working the registers … every time I saw an elderly man happily cleaning and sweeping the isles … every time I saw a disabled person gladly working the snack bar … I sunk INSIDE because I knew their future with the Corporation would soon change.

I wasn’t around the Corporation to see what happened in the few months that followed the initiation of Team Flex Staffing. The program may have only lasted a few years, but the broader vision of the Corporation was Profits, not people. I wonder if the vision foresaw the workforce you see today at Target Stores; a workforce that can hardly survive at their current, minimum wage.

I quit the business of writing for Business and began volunteering with the vulnerable, the disabled and the homeless soon after my experience with Team Flex Staffing ended. So, in a way, I have the inhumanity of a Corporation to thank for easing me into the more ‘humane’ work of serving the homeless.

I don’t understand why a large business like Target can’t afford to make an investment in the personal lives of each and every employee. Target’s only excuse has to be THE BOTTOM LINE; a line that directly contributes to the numbers who live at or below THE POVERTY LINE.

Still working in the trenches,

Kelly