Try to move to another department, you shouldn't be stuck as a bagger after 7 years....
You should also have more seniority over most if not all of the other baggers. Unless you have restrictions on your availability, you should get more hours than any other bagger with less seniority.
Apparently all baggers are only right at 20 hours. My mistake was adding wrong, I actually have 18 hours (4 at fuel center).
I brought it up here because I'm thinking it's a company move to eliminate insurance and was wondering if others have their hours trimmed back.
Check your union contract. Ours stipulates that hours will be given to the most senior clerk up to 40 hours, then the next most senior is to get up to 40 hours. There is no clerk type distinction stated in that article. This is very, very frequently violated. If your contract has a part like this, and you are willing to employ the Union, and that they do their contractual duty, you have a shot at boosting hours if not a strong shot at advancement to full-time status.
That said, hour dips out of the blue are generally a purpose driven tactic to prevent an employee from reaching full-time status. This has been practice in the hourly-wage world especially enforced since the introduction of the public healthcare law where employers become responsible for those employees getting an average of 30 hours a week.
-- Edited by Stranger on Sunday 1st of May 2016 11:16:12 PM
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Thanks Stranger for the answer. I think their goal is to cut us back so that we're dropped from the insurance, but they might be doing that anyways. I suppose the end game could be to phase out baggers altogether, just have one person who gathers shopping carts...
Some of our union members received letters stating that we all better sign up for Obamacare. Not many people can live on $150 a week take home pay, but hey our economy is "robust" or so they say
Can you "gently decline" ObamaCare or is it a case of if you 'don't want sign, then you "don't want to" work at Kroger any longer.'
As for reduced hours, our baggers are guaranteed 16-20 hrs per week. Sometimes they schedule our cc's to 15 hrs a week. We have this one guy, who helps himself to hours if he's short. 14-15 hrs, he "works" the extra hours to make up what is missing.
Well mega kitteh, I could always play the "wait till my relief gets here" game. I don't know how many times they've tried to force me to stay after my shift and now I can just play that game. I could probably even rack up over time if I did that.
They like to cut hours during the summer, even though it's generally not any less busy.
You are well over 18 years old. Think of it as a sign that you should get a better job.
There's Memorial Day in a few weeks and 4th of July not too far behind. If anything, the hours should go up with people preparing for those holidays. I can see it going down in between and after July 4th.
As for getting a better job, I do agree, but that's easier said than done. Especially if there's no schooling involved (and even that's not a guarantee anymore).
Yea it's either ask to get moved to a different department or get a better job, the front end in my opinion is literally the worst department. You deserve something better especially after 7 years.