It's been a long time since I've blogged. I've been busy dealing with the vicissitudes of life. Here I'd like to continue my dialogues about what retail work has been like at this current juncture, amidst the pandemic still going on, corrupt corporate policy and abuse, and the war in Ukraine.
First off, a general rundown on the gig. The daily grind as a cashier at a multimillion dollar company has become much more difficult. There's not much staff to help you with, well, anything. Management is always absent from the front end so most of the time you're on your own.
There's no baggers to help you bag the large orders that come down your line nonstop for eight hours straight.
The union has finished up its voting for the strike authorization vote but it remains to be seen if there really will be a strike. I was skeptical about the vote to strike authorization because it seems that most of the public has given up on retail workers at this point. We need your support still and our fight isn't over even at this stage of the pandemic.
At the beginning retail workers were heroes. The customers supported us as much as nurses even because of the pandemic. But now, the customers show us a lot more of the contempt hidden in their hearts for the unskilled labor. It's very easy to hate unskilled labor. Nowadays, there's always a yelling going back and forth throughout the day between cashiers and customers. Something about a dollar off most of the time that could be easily resolved but management will only agree to things if they just want people to go away so they don't have to deal with it.
The union asked the company for $5, $1 extra per year for five years. Even that alone won't be enough for the workers to live on in California. The company said no, so they've been reduced to going down to $3, $1 per year for three years. That's an even worse proposal. But if they could get it, it would still be a victory for the workers and a victory is a victory, no matter how small.
I'm not surprised by any of this. In fact, most of the stuff I mentioned here has already been mentioned in a lot of my other blogs about retail during the pandemic.
And yet covid is still happening there and now the customers don't have to wear facemasks. Today at work, I had to work at the only cashier station that didn't have a plastic shield shielding me from customers and their maskless faces. Thanks a lot you corporate guys.
As Loki says in the show, "trust my rage."
For those who are interested, compare this post about working conditions today with about a year ago, you can read it here.
Thank you for the support.
The song we sing, did you know, we're listening.
