Retail chain cuts workers' hours rather than paying overtime: 'They are going to schedule all the full timers at 35 hours so that no one goes over 40'

Ahh, retail… a fine industry where middle manglement regularly tries to shove a dirt sandwich down your throat while whispering sweetly to you it's actually honey.

The story shared in this post is a tale as old as time in retail, where management will happily tell you with a smile that the company's official policy is that the customer comes first… but that the unofficial policy is that making sure staff never claim or report overtime also comes first. So, then, what happens when you're working late helping a customer after the store closes on a big sale that happened to run overly long? Well, go shove it—that's what.

Further, the reduction of staff hours and store hours to dodge full-time wage benefits is a specialty of big retailers. Are the managers trying to convince you to put them on a salary instead of a wage? Just cut the store hows down 30 minutes on each side so they don't qualify as full-time and blame a certain global event that cannot be named—then threaten them every time they try to charge overtime when the industry gets a boon thanks to those same global events.

Yeah, the story is no different here, where this poster shared how their spouse's "big retail" employer reduced the hours that workers were scheduled to avoid having to pay overtime when they were stuck helping customers after their scheduled shift was over. See their post below from this popular online workplace community.