Alright fellow coworkers from far, far away! I'd appreciate your input. I've been working at food 4'more' for about 2 years and a half, and i'm owed 2 years of backpay. I was being paid u.c wage, even after I had been promoted to another department (meat). It took them a year to finally put my promotion through, but they owe me backpay for 2 of those years. I was told they could only go back 6 months, due to a "contract". Let me go off topic for a sec, if you don't mind. Why should we be expected to follow through with contracts, yet management does not do the same? Aren't employees supposed to be locked in as full-time employees after having worked 16 weeks straight with 40 hours? and get two days off as well? There's an employee working 6 years already, with only one day off. That's just screwed up. I've been working the 2 years with a day off, I don't know how he did it. That's how you lose great employees: pushing their limits and taking advantage of them, Kroger!
Anywayyyy, back to my question. You're probably wondering why I didn't bring it up to management earlier. I actually did. My manager would push it aside, push it aside, tell me to remind him another day, push it aside some more, until the day came when he actually had the walnuts to tell me: "there is nothing I can do about that". Hm. As an employee, I thought I should trust my manager. He knows what's best, right? Wrong. It wasn't until much later that another manager told me there WAS something to be done. He's the only one who has truly cared. It's been 6 months already, though, and nothing. We got a new manager; he told me to give him a month and he'll get it fixed.
I'm honestly exhausted of elongating the date. I'm tired of hearing the same words, and seeing no action. I'd love to give my two week notice. Just like you all, I bust my rear at work. I put in all my effort and never have let them down. I'm tired of feeling like i'm being taken advantage of. It just makes me sad, guys, not only my situation, but many others I have witnessed as well. I'm not the first they owe backpay to at my store.
So, my question: If I put in my 2 week notice, will they no longer bother fixing my issue and giving me my backpay? I've already contacted the union & they told me it wouldn't be fixed quick...Will the union no longer "help" me (if that's what you call help)? Anything else I can do? Anyone willing to hire me?! Thank you for taking a moment of your time to read this. I truly appreciate it.
Take the 6 months backpay and be happy or move on.
When you first realized there was an issue was the time to get the union involved. You have nothing in writing by having quick discussions with your manager.
Proper procedure to negotiate with the managers for something like backpay is thru the union by grieving however you were wronged.
Your bay pack, or "retro pay" is owed to you even after you quit the company. You really have to push the union to fight for you, but YES it is still money owed to you.
Kroger managers and co-managers are Sociopaths and when you interact with them you should ALWAYS remember that.
They don't care about you, they don't care how things affect you, they don't care about your family, they don't care about following the contract, they don't care about right and wrong.
They are superficial in their interactions with employees, they are manipulators, they believe they are all powerful, they will lie to you when necessary and they are certainly not remorseful for their poor treatment of you or anyone else.
I avoid them as much as possible. You are NEVER a better person for interacting with one of them.
You should have asked the manager for help with your back pay, gave him a time period to remedy the situation and after he stalled you should have gone to the Union.
Hopefully you have learned a valuable but expensive lesson.
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"Resistance is futile...you will be assimilated" - The Krog
Wow--this story sounds so familiar! I'm going through the same thing--they screwed me out of Department Head for Grocery by putting off my successor training too long, and have since promoted two department heads, (Dairy and Frozen) WITHOUT successor training, and one has over a year less seniority than myself (hence, the name I selected for this forum). So, after the beloved store manager dragging his feet further for over a year, promising me that my pay will kick in as soon as our Grocery Coordinator has his walk-through with me, a big goose egg, and still only pennies per hour. I filed a grievance and am finally getting results, but also retaliation from our fearless leader. Welcome to Krogerville, the best place to work, NOT!!!! On a serious note, I hope that your situation gets resolved soon. The union is (supposed) to be there for you, so utilize their services and get what you have worked for. Good luck.
Thank you for your responses. Kenny, they sure don't give a flying rat's arse about their employees. Yup, that's what I get. I came into fools for less, being a gullible little u.c., thinking the world was all rainbows and unicorns. I thought management was completely different. Guess not! Fooled, I sure was. Nevermore.
'KrogerScrewed', that sounds horrible, man. I'm sorry to hear that. & thank you, I hope they resolve your situation as well!
