October 28, 2010 - Poppi

Target treats employees unfairly

I am a former Target shareholder.  I decided to sell my shares after Target’s CEO and VP of HR refused to address my concerns regarding employee relations.  My son worked for Target for two years.  He left last year to go to college on an approved educational leave.  However, someone at the store in HR hit the wrong button on the computer and he ended up terminated.  He found out about it for the first time when he showed up for work during winter break, only to be told that he couldn’t work because he had been “terminated” in September.  HR said there was nothing they could do.  After the store manager told them to contact corporate, my son was finally reinstated.  He then went back to school.  He had a question about his W-2 in March and was given an 800 number to call.  The rep told him that he couldn’t answer any W-2 questions because my son had been terminated on January 8th.  Again, despite an approved educational leave, my son was terminated.  When he asked why, he was told by the store that he had failed to fill out an I-9, therefore his educational leave was no longer being honored, and he indeed was out of work.  Meanwhile, no one had asked him to fill out an I-9 form while he was there.  Again, he was terminated without being told by the store at the time of termination.

My son returned from school in May and after a month of waiting, was finally rehired in June.  He later found out that he was earning the same wage as new hires.  Not only was his educational leave not honored, his raise had not been either.  When he left for school again this September, he didn’t bother to ask for an educational leave, he simply quit, and has no plans to return.  By the time he left, hours had been cut due to one employee’s error that resulted in hundreds of hours in overtime being given out, according to what my son was told by his fellow co-workers.   The person responsible for the mistake was given a lecture, but another person that had nothing to do with the error was fired, according to his co-workers.  Target management’s response was to cut everyone’s hours to make up for the over budget hours.  Not a good management decision in my book.  On a recent visit to Target, employees were mentioning that their hours had been cut again due to a new Target Superstore that had opened up nearby.  I really feel for my son’s former co-workers, they can’t catch a break.

Target continues to tell the press that it gives back to the community by donating millions of dollars to charity, yet it was my son who noticed that one of his co-workers often went hungry because he didn’t have enough money left over after paying his rent to buy enough food.  My son bought him lunch, Target management didn’t bother to notice his plight. This was one of the concerns I mentioned to Target’s CEO in my recent letter.  He has not replied.  Obviously, he feels comfortable running the company as he wishes, without taking shareholder concerns into consideration.  Fine.  I am glad I sold my shares and that I am a former Target shareholder.  Target is not a company that I wanted to continue to be invested in.

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Employee Experience / TargetSucks