Starbucks Licensee stores inside of the the Pricecutters are given little to no hours. The employees usually end up hating their lives because they spend 6-10 hours a day alone with long lines for long periods of time. They are not given any extra help! Also Pricecutter doesn't hire people on high enough wages no one can survive in this day of age with the pay they give out.

This year, some retailers are opening as early as 6am on Thanksgiving Day. Every year these companies take more and more family time away from hardworking employees. This is yet another example of retail companies completely disregarding our lives. We are being pushed to work harder, longer hours for the same measly paychecks that don’t support our families, while retail executives and CEOs sit at home with their families and collect millions from our work. Thanksgiving is a day everyone should get to spend with our families. We are calling on all retail stores to close on Thanksgiving, as a fully paid holiday, so retail workers across the country can spend time with our families.

My name is Deisy Velasquez, and I am a mother of three children originally from El Salvador. I was working at PMM Companies for a year and a half, cleaning classrooms at KIPP DC's Douglass campus. I was one of only two women working in the building who have children. They were very discriminatory towards us. If we asked for permission to take a day off to take our children to a doctor’s appointment, they would make us take off for a whole week in retaliation, without pay. The supervisor, Geovany, said many times that employees with children caused too many problems - and that he was no longer interested in hearing that we could not work when we couldn’t find childcare or for a doctor’s appointment. What interested him was the work, he acted like he didn't care about our families. Over the summer, I worked from 8am to 4pm. One day, I was told that they would immediately be changing my schedule to 12pm to 9pm. I told Geovany that he had to give me time to coordinate with my babysitter. He told me that if I didn’t like it, that I shouldn’t come back the rest of the week, or the next week. I called him the next Friday, and he didn’t answer. Geovany never answered my call - he told someone else to tell me that if he needed me that he would call me, and if he didn’t call me, then he didn’t need me anymore. He never called me, so I ended up being fired. I have tried to communicate with the central office of PMM Companies, but they told me that my complaints were childish and not important enough for them to handle. I tried to set up an appointment with them, and they canceled it without explanation and without any follow-up. It was devastating to lose my job right before my children went back to school. I did not have the money to buy them back to school supplies. My son's birthday is coming up and he is sad because I don't have money to celebrate. Now we are struggling to get by. I want PMM Companies to reinstate me to my position with my full time schedule, or for them to pay me a severance of two weeks’ wages for the harmful discrimination that I have faced. I also want PMM Companies to fully comply with DC’s Accrued Sick and Safe Leave Act and not make employees take off for a whole week in retaliation for taking a sick day. I don’t want anything bad for the company, I just want my job back. I’m not asking a lot, just my job back for the well-being of my children and my family. --------- Mi nombre es Deisy Velasquez, y soy madre de tres niños y originalmente soy del Salvador. Yo estuve trabajando en PMM Companies por año y medio, limpiando las aulas en la escuela KIPP DC Douglass. Era una de dos trabajadoras no más en el edificio que tengo hijos. Nos agarraron una discriminación contra nosotras. Si pidiéramos permiso para llevar a los hijos a una cita, nos mandaron a descansar una semana completa como represalia, y sin pago. Dijo el supervisor, Geovany, varias veces que las trabajadoras con niños causaron muchos problemas - que a él no le interesaba más que dijéramos que no podemos trabajar cuando no tenemos babysitting o para una cita. Lo que a él le interesaba era el trabajo, que no le importaba asuntos familiares. Durante el verano, yo trabaje de 8am a 4pm. Un día, me avisaron que iban a cambiar mi horario, de 12pm a 9pm. Yo le dije al Geovany que me tenía que decir con tiempo para hablar con mi babysitter que cuidaba los niños. De allí, el mandó a decirme que si no me gustaba, que no me preocupara en venir toda la semana, ni la semana que venia. Yo le llame el viernes, y no me contestó. A través de otra persona, Geovany me dijo que si me necesitaba que me iba a llamar, y si no que ya no me necesitaba. Nunca me llamo, asi que salí despedida. He tratado de comunicarme con la oficina central de PMM Companies, pero me han dicho que mis quejas son cosas de niñerias y no tan importantes como los asuntos que ellos atienden. Yo puse una cita con ellos y me la cancelaron sin explicación y sin darme seguimiento. Fue un desastre para mi perder mi trabajo justo antes de que los niños regresaran a la escuela. No tuve el dinero para comprarles sus materiales de la escuela. Y ahorita mi hijo va a cumplir años y no tengo para celebrarlo. Es bien tristoso para mi hijo. Ahora no tenemos para sobrevivir. Yo quiero que me devuelvan a mi trabajo con mi horario de full time, o que me paguen una indemnización igual a dos semanas de pago por la discriminación y el daño que me han hecho. Tambien quiero que PMM Companies cumpla totalmente con la Acta de Días de Enfermedad Pagadas y no tomar represalias contra los trabajadores que toman un día de enfermedad. No quiero un mal para la compañía - quiero nada más que me devuelvan al trabajo. No es mucho que pido, sino que necesito mi trabajo de vuelta para el bienestar de mis hijos y mi familia.

This is a cry for workplace fairness at Coffee Tree. Employers have been utilizing intimidation tactics, shaming and manipulation, and retaliation to rob workers of their basic rights for too long, often taking advantage of employees' lack of familiarity with these work laws. Now is the time to cease these activities. Outlined below are the concerns and clear violations of workers' rights: STOP DENYING PAID REST BREAKS. (Under the ES.C.6 Meal and Rest Periods - Employees are entitled to a minimum 10 minute rest break for each 4 hours worked. The rest period of time must be scheduled as near as possible to the midpoint of the four hours of working time. No employee may be required to work more than three consecutive hours without a rest period). Employers have been exploiting the loophole ("if the nature of the work involves several intermittent rest periods equal to ten minutes, a rest break is not required") to deny workers a 10, even when workers have been working continuously. It's also important to note that the ES.C.6 specifies that a series of ten 1-minute breaks is not sufficient to meet this requirement. Many of us will experience shifts where we work longer hours than we were scheduled for, work continuously, and are entitled to a ten minute break but are either not made aware of this right, or are strongly discouraged from exercising this right. The restructuring of a workers' schedule into double 3.9 hr shifts as punishment for insisting on his or her 10 minute break, while not unlawful, is cheap and abominable. This redesigning not only limits the overall breaks for an employee during an entire workday, but also results in less employee satisfaction and production. Similarly, comparative shaming as a tool to discourage one or more employees from taking rest breaks creates a negative environment where employees don’t feel valued or secure. Employers must honor the work and time of an employee as evidenced in person or in surveillance which entitle the worker to his/her paid break. STOP TRYING TO RESTRICT BATHROOM ACCESS. According to DOSH, restroom breaks cannot be restricted (within reason) and do not count as a paid 10 minute rest break, though employees may choose to use the bathroom on their paid break. This is a basic health and safety right. Intimidating workers by recording length of bathroom breaks and using it as negative commentary in an employee file is despicable. STOP RETALIATING AGAINST EMPLOYEES ADVOCATING FOR THEIR RIGHTS. Concerted activity (activity done to address health/safety concerns or to improve the workplace conditions) is protected from acts of retaliation (firing, cutting of hours, creating unnecessary write-ups, wage/tip deduction). As an employee currently suffering a suspension from positive workplace actions, I am pushing for awareness that this action is not appropriate or legal. STOP UNLAWFUL WAGE DEDUCTIONS. In the training phase, we are told that cash drawer shortages, damage to the store, or excessive waste will result in our wages or tips being garnished to fill those losses. According to the Washington State Legislature (WAC 296-126-025): The only time a workers’ income (hourly wage and tips) should be garnished is with court orders, with a personal agreement with keeping a tab in the workplace, a loan, or some other extenuating circumstance. Cash shortages in tills, and accidental waste/breakage are specifically pointed out as being unlawful reasons for wage deduction. In addition, the employers have never been held accountable and continue to seize half of worker earned tips for themselves. Under FLSA, managerial and professional positions are not eligible to take a cut of tips from tipped employees. Coffee Tree employers must observe these laws, return money unlawfully taken from employees in the past, and cease this procedure altogether. Protecting quantifiable losses of the stores (time and money) at the expense of the businesses' most valuable commodity, the workers, is not lawful or virtuous. Let us strive not only for great coffee and customer care, but also great care of employees. Let us recognize when breaks are warranted. Let us thrive together.

"REI employees live in fear every week wondering if they will get 30 hours or 3 hours...It is impossible to live a stable life." Edward Peters, Sales Specialist, Greensboro, NC. "I am half a paycheck away from being homeless." -William Bass, Sales Specialist, Seattle. "We as employees need a voice." -Tia Kennedy, Admin Assistant, Seattle. "This treatment has gone on far too long, and must stop." Daniel Robinson, Outdoor Instructor, Portland, OR. At Seattle City Hall on July 11th, just under a dozen REI workers publically shared their stories of hardship while working for REI. These employees from across the country, reported erratic schedules, low pay, hunger, poverty, and homelessness. These conditions have been pervasive, despite REI having a well known reputation as an excellent company to work for. REI bosses have promised to improve conditions, but urged workers to keep quiet and only talk individually to their immediate supervisors. Why does REI want to keep improvements quiet? Workers want assurance that REI will make the changes that they so desperately need. By signing this petition, you are telling the CEO and Board that you want them to make the improvements that REI workers want, and that they need. With your help, we can make REI live up to its claims of being: a model leader in the retail industry, a democratic Cooperative not a greedy corporation, an employer that seeks "to maintain an excellent workplace for staff" with a "commitment to responsible corporate citizenship."

The labor situation has gone from tight to infuriating. Labor has been cut so much in corporate stores, that one call-off (an employee calling in sick) impacts the entire day, as managers are directed to cut shifts to save on labor costs. Baristas trying to work more than 25 hours a week (myself included) find that a near impossible task. You end up taking it personally, when corporate directs your stores to understaff, and under schedule. You wonder if they realize how difficult it is to pay your bills when you work 25 hours a week? Right now, the labor allowed to stores is so dire that it’s killing morale, companywide. Let it be stated that this job isn’t a hard one. It’s demanding, but it’s easy work, if trained properly. Customers want their coffee and they want it in a timely fashion. As labor continues to be cut, it creates an atmosphere where baristas are worn to the bone without being able to take a breath. Cleanliness suffers, speed of service suffers, partners suffer. Many baristas are twenty-something college students, living at home. Many more are people like myself, artists, writers, breadwinners, who depend on their income. The tip situation has also drastically changed. Before the implementation of a Starbucks Reward program (MSR), tips were higher. Now, with a growing percentage and majority of customers using the app, and their registered cards, tips are in major decline. When you factor that in with actual take home pay, it’s a scary place to be. The way Starbucks frames itself, is that it’s a company worth investing in, worth being loyal to. Because of the health care, the benefits, the 401K, the stock, on the outside, why wouldn’t you want to invest yourself, as an employee to a great company? (and it is a great company). Realistically, investing in starbucks, as an employee, is becoming more difficult. Hours are becoming more elusive as store managers hire 10-20 employees at 20-25 hours a week, sacrificing tenured employees. At Starbucks, tenure makes no difference. These days, a 7 year employee makes as much as a new hire. Experience is given no merit. Right now, the labor climate keeps most baristas regularly underemployed, enough to qualify for benefits, but not enough to afford to pay for them. The most frustrating aspect lately is the pay, and having to commute to work for a 4.5 hour shift, while spending over an hours worth of pay to get yourself there. Labor is the real bone of contention, in addition to the drinks that corporate continues to roll out, (absent the labor to support them, as in years past), baristas also continue to struggle in their stores, with more expectation, with less support staff. These days, baristas do the work for two to three people as labor isn’t just cut to save money, it’s under cut, so stores are intentionally understaffed. I love Starbucks. As an artist, and a fan of process, it’s a job that plays into that love (and to my strengths), and a genuine connection to people and customers of all ages, races, genders, and expressions. The Starbucks culture is singular. I haven’t experienced it anywhere else. What’s happening is a slow extinction of that culture. As less and less people are staffed in stores the pressure mounts. THIS is what needs to change.

This is important because we will lose many of our top performers who hold all 13 rare characteristics required to work here. We want to be able to give our customers extraordinary speedy service. This is also very important to resolve because there was a time when we all really did love working at Chipotle, otherwise we wouldn't have gone to such extreme measures to get our point across. Now employee morale is suffering because we're so understaffed and overworked. We all love this company because it stands for something uniquely great. We want to better this company, which starts by improving the work conditions of our everyday employees, the heart and soul of this company.

We are part-time retail employees who work for one of the most reputable outdoor retailers and cooperatives in the country, Recreational Equipment, Inc. REI is known not only for its remarkable stewardship of the outdoors, but also for its down to earth image as a retailer that ‘authentically’ values its people—an image REI prides itself on and one which distinguishes the co-op from other large scale retailers. The truth of the matter is that a huge number of us are struggling with considerable hardship. We have tried to address our grim circumstances internally, but our corporate leaders and store mangers have turned a blind eye to our outcries. Although REI has enjoyed record profits for the last 3 years, hardship has become a way of life for most of us. While we comprise a vast majority of the retail positions at REI’s 145 and growing stores, none of us receive any real guarantees whatsoever. Such benefits are reserved for the very few full-time positions offered at REI. One of the primary causes for our hardship are the irregular hours we are subject to—ranging from 4 hours to 30 to 12 hours a week (or none at all)—making it nearly impossible for most of us to make ends meet. Another contributing factor is the lack of full-time opportunity that exists for REI’s retail employees. Very few store workers actually work full-time. For instance, in a store that is staffed with nearly 200 workers, only about 14 of these workers (outside of management positions) are guaranteed full-time hours. For the rest of us, we are at the mercy of REI’s frequent payroll cutbacks and its variable scheduling practices. None of REI’s part-time employees are guaranteed hours—not even 4 hours a week—because that is REI’s store policy. To exacerbate matters, employees are negatively impacted when REI hires more part-time workers during seasonal upswings in business, even though there are plenty of existing workers who are not getting enough hours. While REI claims that it has to hire more part-time employees to meet expected business demands, this is not true. There are many dedicated workers who desperately need to work more, but REI will not accommodate them. REI’s reluctance to make this commitment to its workforce, also impacts the few meaningful benefits that we could be eligible for, like health insurance. While REI boasts it offers health insurance to its part-time workforce, only employees who work a rolling average of 20 hours a week can receive it. Those employees who qualify for coverage can just as easily lose it, simply because of the frequent payroll cutbacks made at REI. Last year alone, we witnessed a large number of distressed colleagues who were fraught with panic, after they learned REI was dropping their coverage. As a united voice, we are demanding that REI make a commitment to its employees by giving us stable hours, offering us more full-time opportunity and putting an end to the practice of over-staffing its stores with so many part-time employees—that hardly any of us can get the hours we need to make ends meet. In addition, it is imperative that REI addresses our low wages. In light that we were told part-time employees would not be eligible for a Living Wage, our hardship is a testament that one is needed. When most REI part-time employees are starting at a wage of just over $10 an hour and it will take an estimated 20 years to earn a Living Wage, REI is not doing enough to provide for the well-being of its employees. Finally, part-time employees are requesting 3 weeks advance scheduling notice from the store managers who are responsible for scheduling. Typically employees receive a one weeks notice and this is not nearly enough time for those employees who need to plan for daycare, a second job, or school. We believe no REI employee should have to take desperate measures in order to survive their jobs at the REI Co-op. When employees are seeking emergency assistance from state and federal funded programs like food stamps, donating plasma to blood banks, participating in risky pharmaceutical experiments, living off credit cards and student loans, selling off their belongings or relying on loving parents to bail them out—REI is not doing enough to take care of its workforce. We’re tired of witnessing our colleagues in great despair at work (sometimes to the point of tears), after their hours have been reduced so drastically that they don’t know how they’re going to survive. To drive our message home, here’s a glimpse into what employees were saying after REI’s extraordinary #OptOutside campaign was announced last year. One employee stated, “I’m glad I’ll have at least one paid day in November (Black Friday).” Others exclaimed: “Are there any of us who can actually afford to get outside to our favorite outdoor spaces on Black Friday?” and “REI expects me to be stoked about #OptOutside, I can’t even afford a turkey for Thanksgiving!” That was our #OptOutside reality when REI’s amazing campaign took media by storm. With the support of our loyal members and the sympathetic guests who shop at REI, retail employees are demanding that REI authentically value us and treat us like the myth #OptOutside created. Hardship should not be a way of life for any of REI’s fiercely dedicated workers. Moreover, it was not the vision that our co-founders, Mary & Lloyd Anderson, had intended for us. It is time the REI Co-op revisit its roots as a true cooperative and value all its employees as much as the outdoors it is renown for preserving. #OptInChange for REI’s friendly green-vested ‘Inspired Guides’—The Andersons (the name we’ve adopted in honor of our co-founders, to represent all REI's working-class heroes). Thank you for your support!

Our schedules constantly change, many of us struggle to get enough work hours, we can't plan our lives around our jobs, and we find it difficult if not impossible to call out sick because of the difficulty of finding coverage. These things contribute to a stressful work environment and decrease morale at our stores. We've seen great, hardworking coworkers leave the company for these reasons. We, the baristas of Starbucks, experience these things firsthand, and we are the very people within the company who should be proposing solutions. We want to talk to Howard Schultz in person, and have a conversation about how we can move forward together to make Starbucks better. Please sign on in support!

We are T-Mobile workers from various locations in the country. All we want for Christmas is to be able to spend time with our family and loved ones. But T-Mobile is forcing representatives in some locations to work on Christmas Day. Working the holidays should be on a volunteer basis. There are plenty of workers wanting overtime Please sign and share this petition, whether you work for T-Mobile, or you just care about the morals of your cell phone provider, so that we can show T-Mobile's CEO John Legere that it is not acceptable to force it's employees to work on Christmas Day. Thank you, Amanda Fanning, Albuquerque Angela Simler, Wichita Rebecca Disbrow, Meridian

For several years in a row now, my mom -- a Kmart employee -- has missed out moments from our family’s Thanksgiving Day traditions like so many other retail workers across the country. While some retailers are reversing this trend in 2015, we’re guessing that allowing employees to celebrate Thanksgiving Day as family holiday is a thing of the past for Kmart workers and their families. Last year, thousands of Kmart employees and their supporters joined my campaign to allow employees to have Thanksgiving Day off. We heard from dozens of other Kmart employees that while the company said they would rely on employees who volunteered to work on Thanksgiving, but that was often not the case. What’s more: many employees didn’t even know when they were scheduled to work until the last minute. It’s already the beginning of November and Kmart has yet to announce their Thanksgiving day hours, and employees like my mom do not know what to expect for the upcoming holiday schedule. This makes planning for the holidays even more difficult for workers and the family and friends in their lives. While some employees have heard that the company will try to rely on volunteers, it’s unclear if that will really be the case in the end. Without knowing the store hours, it is impossible to tell. Kmart can at least make planning and enjoying the very limited time families spread across the country get to spend together easier by letting employees know right away when they will be expected to work; by relying on those employees who volunteer to work on Thanksgiving to earn extra pay; and by committing to not make last minute changes that wreak havoc on retail workers’ lives.

Working a floor set shift is basically like coming in and setting up a brand new store. We need to fill under-stocked items with all remaining products we have (so that we don't have to constantly run to the back and search for product); box up old merchandise which will no longer be sold on the sales floor; clean (which takes a long time since it includes picking up extra props and all the empty boxes we're taking the new products out of); take out the trash several times; mop and sweep the floor; and more. Having been at B&BW for a year now, I've worked every floor set and we don't leave until 2-3 AM if we are lucky. Managers will send several people home in the middle of the floor set because they say they "have no more hours" they are allowed to use employees for. If we run out of time and the store still isn't in a condition that is ready to open to the public the next day, some of us basically have to volunteer to stay longer to finish the job. It is stressful and counterproductive to constantly be told to hurry and move faster when we want to do our task correctly. More often than not, during the next few days -- which should be productive sales days -- we spend time fixing what wasn't finished on the night of floor set since enough employees weren't given enough hours to do it right. This takes away from customer experience. This is important to not only me, but likely my fellow co-workers and managers because we need the extra time to use on detail and making sure we are doing what is fully expected of us.