Current Situation
- Starting Pay $18
- Full Time: Forced 3 days if slow. Forced 5 days if busy.
- Part Time: Some weeks 0 hours. Sometimes 40.
- VTO everyone except... (EO)
- Pay $$$ for health insurance.
- Get paid 8 hours for holidays.
- No incentive for working hard.
- At-Will Employee - Can be fired/hours reduced anytime.
- EO gets $1 - Put seasonals back there during peak and have weekly accidents
Possible Union Benefits
- Starting Pay $23
- Full Time: 4 days a week. VTO/Overtime is optional.
- Part Time: Get the days you applied for.
- If there's VTO, all departments can take it.
- 100% Employer paid health insurance. With lower deductibles.
- Get paid 10 hours for holidays.
- Increase hourly pay with productivity bonus.
- Employer basically needs union approval to fire you.
- EO gets $2 - Would have enough interest from full timers to not need as many seasonals driving equipment. Saving money from damages and increased efficieny.
"Living Wage"
In Baltimore County, a living wage is $23.60, but Kohl’s only starts us at $18 an hour. Many of us enjoy working here, but we’re not being paid fairly. Due to inflation, $20 back in 2020 is now worth $24.42, so even though wages have gone up, long-time employees may actually be struggling more now than 10 years ago. Kohl’s corporate seems disconnected from reality.
***Our wages aren’t tied to the value we create or our increased productivity. It’s set to be the lowest corporate thinks we will accept. The less they have to spend on employee wages, the more they can get paid as a bonus.***
Last year, long-time employees got a raise of just 30 cents and then 50 cents. Recently, they announced “GREAT NEWS” for us because they “value and listen” to employees—only to reveal another 80-cent raise (40 cents each time). It’s the same as before.
We need change.
Stock Buybacks
Can Kohl’s afford to pay employees a living wage? Kohl’s is currently spending about $220 million per year on dividends. Over the past 5 years, they have spent an average of $467 million per year on stock buybacks. So combined this is about $687 million per year that has been spent to benefit shareholders. (Financial Info is accurate as of October 10, 2024)
It would only cost about $5 million to increase wages by $5 at EFC3. So it would cost about $30 million to increase wages by $5 at all six EFCs. E-commerce accounts for about 30% of all Kohl’s sales. Should the starting pay be increased to $23 so everyone can earn a living wage? Or do we deserve to struggle to afford rent, car payments, bills, etc? So more money can go to executives and shareholders?
You can watch these videos if you want to learn more about stock buybacks.