Way OT work holidays

Kansas4010

Well-known Member
How many here punch a time clock to make ends meet. Unfortunately, I do. The warehouse that I work at decided last year that it wasn't cost effective to celebrate holidays. No extra pay, no bonus of any kind for working any holiday. As expected since there was no incentive for working holidays they had several call ins. They informed us last week that we are now required to work the day before, the day of, and the day after EVERY holiday. If we don't we will be fired on the spot. Last year I worked Christmas eve but when I got off work came down with one of the worst cases of flu I've had in years. I spent Christmas and the day after throwing up. Naturally I had to call in those 2 days. The way I get it I would have been fired for missing 2 days work even though my record was clear up to then. I was curious if other companies are following the same example or what now. I suppose it's also a bit of a rant as well. This place sure has went down hill recently but it's the only place around that pays decently.
 
I am the owner, so no work, no pay really, I end up borrowing money from profits to pay me for holidays.
 
Sadly, there are employers out there who are going this route. Many are immigrants, to whom our holidays mean nothing. So their way of thinking is, if we don't observe their holidays, why should they observe ours? Might also be a global business that doesn't observe holidays anywhere around the world.

Others are simply trying to compete in an ever-changing world. Competition with online sales, etc., has put many businesses in a bind.

And still, there are also the greedy ones - folks who would sell their own Grandma for a profit.

I'm sorry you have to work at such a place. As for advice, I have none other than to say that you may end up needing to ask yourself which is more important to you; this particular job with no holidays or added pay, or some other job with included holidays/added pay.

Good luck!
 
I've never been a fan of unions,but I can see them making a comeback if this kind of thing keeps up.
 
that's a bummer you work for an outfit like that. there are some real so and so companies that take advantage of and abuse employees. if they pulled that around here NO ONE would work for them. too many other good paying jobs. definitely a shortage of labor here. I presume its not the case where your at? Are the pay and benefits good otherwise? < that can make the other stuff a little more tolerable.

i've worked from a small companies that have low pay, few benefits and few paid days off but presently am blessed to work for a VERY large company that takes good care of us pay and benefits. but there are other silly/crazy/goofy things we have to deal with due to our size and bureaucracy.

a guy once told me you can tell a lot about a company by the employees parking lot. I think there is a lot of truth to that.
 

US Dept. of Labor has no law requiring paid holidays. It is difficult to get workers to apply for a position with no holiday pay. If a place of business pays so well that they don't need to pay for holidays off, one would have to be happy to be getting that much pay. If you are sick on one of those days you had better go to the Doctor and get a note.
 
How is your company doing financially? If they are in trouble there could be more cutbacks coming. There's not much you can do besides look for another job or find a way to increase you farm income.

Wage cuts can be a death spiral in isolated rural communities. Young people leave for better jobs in other places.
 
The place I work runs 24/7/365. Production(Me) works 12 hour rotating shifts. Everyone her(admin & straight day included) gets 8 hours of holiday pay for our designated holidays.

If you are straight days, you get the day off with pay. If you are production, you work the holiday if it falls on your scheduled day. The 8 hrs counts as overtime, so its just like 12 hrs straight time. There is no extra for actually working the holiday. The production guys who wind up off on the holiday make the same money.
 
How is cost effective to work major holidays in a warehouse?, presumedly your either unloading trucks or containers to store or loading trucks and containers out of storage, so how many trucks are backing up to the loading docks on Christmas, Thanksgiving and Easter??
 
Thats crazy......In 26 years at a Fortune 500 company I never worked a single holiday but if I had been to forced to it would have been for triple pay..I retired on July 1,2012 and If I hadnt I would have been working on July 4,2012 for the first holiday ever.....For the next 4 years they worked everyone in to the ground..They lost several good 20 year plus employees as they got tired of being there 7 days a week with 5 of them often being 12 hour days...

About 30 years ago a local plant put you on the extra list if you missed one day of work..You werent allowed to be sick...Everyone had their fill and one evening an entire shift quit....It wasnt long until they were out of business..
 
Over the yrs we have been spoiled with the benefits but no its a new ball game. I have been on both sides of the ball Union and all. The bottom line is to make money for the company or we dont have a job. WAITH Govt regulations ect its hard to keep everyone happy. My opinion has always been paid days when i didnt work i didnt make any money for the company. I always figured i made enough on the side with overtime so i never turned it down and ended up at the end of the yr with several hundred hrs of overtime. Labor has changed and people tell me about new hires being late ,lazy ect. Union always said 8hrs pay for 8hrs work and it was our duty to be there and give them what they were oaying for. I worked hard for the company as a union member maybe thats why i got promoted and then worked just as hard as before.
 
I do understand the business decision of staying open and working holidays. I don t like it but will work them. The part that burns me is holding me to a higher degree of accountability for a day they say no longer exists.
 
I'm just a little sole proprietor.
I don't get sick pay, holiday pay, vacation pay, overtime or anything extra.
My birthday is on a national holiday.
In the last 20+ years I have worked that day far more often than not.
I don't complain about it. I'm glad to be working.
 
I worked in collective bargaining. There was no pay unless you work. Holidays were a day of lost wages . However if you did work holidays or Sundays it was double time . At one time all overtime was doubletime. That is why you collective bargain.
 
I am like Ultradog. Just a small sole proprietor. If I don't work I don't get any money coming in. Doesn't matter whether it is a holiday, weekend, bad weather, or illness. I think everyone should be legally forced to be self employed for awhile. Say from age 25 till 30. Attitudes would change.
 
Same here, Self Employed. No work, no pay. I have two employees. They show up and work then they get paid. We take some holidays, July 4, Memorial Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas, but no holiday pay, no health insurance. If they get sick and miss then they don't get a paycheck. I cant charge my customers for work that I don't do and I cant pay employees for work they don't do either. Just aint enough profit in this small businesses for a benefits package. I do give a little bonus when we do a good job and make a little profit. We usually take a week off between Christmas and New Years, but make up for it during the busy summer months, sometime working 50 - 60 hours per week.
 
I have been on both sides of this. I am currently working in health care maintenance. Some of the people need to be there 24/7/365 because there is patients in house. We have an option to work and most do as it is extra pay.I worked for a factory that ran us one summer worse than milking cows all day 7 days a week. Those that see being self employed are not seeing the whole picture as if they need to stop to do something they can, working for someone else you get fired, it may not be wise but they can. Lately there is so much work here (pipes breaking, power outages, etc.) you need to be gone to get your mind back or you will get burned out. The pressures are different being self employed and working for someone else.Pay for what you are doing is what usually keeps employees and if the pay is not enough most will walk away (younger generation). In farming there is more pride in what you're doing because it reflects on yourself. Working for large business they don't necessarily care about some things as long as there is profit. I wish it was not so.
 
I would ask, What are the "executives" doing on the holidays? Can you go into the office and ask them questions? Or are they gone and to office is empty.

And people wonder why there are unions.
 
We (production) work 24/7/365, 12 hour rotating shifts. Our company also pays 8 hours holiday pay for all. Any holiday worked, the whole 12 hours is stepped up to the next pay level, so if July 4 is a Tuesday, I would get time and a half for the 12 hours plus 8 holiday (26 hours of pay for 12 hours worked). The big winner days are late-week holidays, where part or all of your day is overtime, that moves up to double-time plus the 8 holiday (32 hours paid for 12 hours worked.)

Unless required by plant status, none of the hourly office workers are allowed to work holidays. The top ten folks and families usually do come in to serve Christmas dinners to the shift workers, most really enjoy the casual contact it seems.

Coming from the farm and then a small business, all this seems CRAZY to me, but I will take every dollar they give me, and try to give an honest day back, regardless of the holiday.

I see a time soon when the holidays with any religious connections will be replaced by patriotic/secular ones.
 
I worked for a big company we got shift bonus, plus double time, and triple time. I guess I was lucky. In the Navy holidays were called holiday routine. Holiday for the officers and routine for the enlisted. Stan
 
Let"s see, we were a family dairy farm for 30 years...mom, pop, 6 kids. Averaged one day off per year, and had to hire someone to fill in when doing that. Met a city lady at a land use meeting who said, yeah, but you still get the milk check for that time off! I"ve never been impressed with the folks who complain about their city jobs. But I wouldn"t trade for them either. I chose this, they chose that.
 
. Yes for sure. I also was a Teamster for 50 years. 1957 until 2007 worked for a great company new tractor every 2 years and paid well for our service. I was never out on strike and I never filed a grievance. I have been retired now for 10 years and I still get a Xmas card and a calendar every year. The company was not the biggest ever but we had 285 tractors and 350 trailers. I also worked for Chemical Leaman Tank Lines and they were just as great to work for. So you can hate the Union all you want, It was good too me.
 
"I would ask, What are the "executives" doing on the holidays? Can you go into the office and ask them questions? Or are they gone and to office is empty.

And people wonder why there are unions."


You can't really compare hourly jobs to salary positions as the type of work involved is very different. Most of the "executives" you refer to, or any professional salary person for that matter, averages far more than 40 hours per week but never get paid any overtime. Wouldn't it be a little selfish for the person being paid double-time wages to complain that the person who would be in the office for zero pay on a holiday isn't there?
 
. Why did you never like the Union ? With my SSI and my Teamsters check I came out with about 10 dollars less than full pay. So you can see why I like the Union.
 
I see a few "pro union" posts and I've got to say that my stint with a union company was one of the worst experiences I've had, as far as employment goes.
Morale was at the absolute worst, and this job was a minimum of 12 1/2 hours a day, but most of them ended up being over 13 1/2. During the first 30 days you wore a red hat to signify that you were a rookie and on day 31 you got a yellow hat. On day 31, I got hit up to join the union before I could get to the parking lot. That was their only care in the world, to get you signed up. They couldn't care less about working conditions.
On the last 21 days that I worked for the company, I had to work 20 of them and the union didn't do squat about extensive hours or working conditions in the company.
 
I worked at a place for a little over a year, full time 12 hour days PLUS had to milk cows and do chores, it was whooping my butt! Most nights I only got 3 hours sleep and during harvest less then that. I started taking no dose to stay awake. I finally told them I am a farmer not a miner and quit on April 1st 2012. Only miss the money. LOL
 
It's not that I had a real big problem with what they did for their members,it was their rabid political action. It was tough to have a conversation with any of these UAW members around here. You could say "Nice day ain't it?",and they'd start something political with you. It was just a huge turnoff.

There's no arguing what those union jobs did for the economy around here though. It's like they say,you never want a drink of water until the well runs dry.
 
That is not a real union. That is a company run union. What did the contract say ?.That is what you go by .The agreement.
 
. Yes for sure. I know what you are saying. I also often didn't like the taste of the Unions opinion about politics. But I loved what the Teamsters Union did for us.
 
That's what I'm doing now. Work the paying job during the day and farm at night. It sure gets rough sometimes.
 

I work 7 days/12 hour shifts. A month on days and a month on nights...I'm an operator in a water filtration plant. Of course, I get a week off in between shifts. Only one guy on each shift so we have to be extremely reliable. Got 34 years in and it has always paid well. Of course I have to be at the highest level of certification to be able to operate a surface water plant. It's sort of like they have to have us. Not many people pass the exam and operators are getting older (I'm 61) and there are not very many younger guys/girls that are going into this field. Mostly because we work nights/holidays/weekends or whenever our shift is on duty. I only get a holiday off if it happens to fall at the same time I'm already off for that week. I don't mind working on holidays as I get 8 extra hours for that day plus time and a half if I'm on shift. Jacks the paycheck up for sure. I'm working a little over another year and retiring. They are going to have a very tough time finding another certified operator as they are few and far between now. Probably have to hire a trainee and train for a year and then fail the test...repeat....over and over. They only get two chances to pass the exam and it is hard with lots of math/algebra/chemistry and knowledge of the safe water drinking acts/laws. I can work with someone for about two weeks and tell them if they will pass the exam or not. never been wrong in all these years. I am careful to not overload them with info. I will let them sort of soak up some of the day to day operations for a couple of weeks and then hand them a note pad and tell them to start writing down the different tests etc we do in the lab. Then I tell them, when you see me get up from my desk to go outside to check the basins/water treatment process....you better follow me right quick if you want to learn, because I am not walking way out there for my health. This means, put the dang cell phone down and go into learning mode. I had one guy that I worked with for a month and he could not keep any of the tests or anything that I told him straight. He could not remember any of the processes and sure could not do any math. I handed him a pad and pen and told him to start writing it down and then he could review and learn as he went. he threw the pad down and said, "I got it"! I looked at him and said, "No, you don't get it". I called the big boss the next morning and told him this and said to get him off my shift as I would not work with him. he did that and i told him that he would never be an operator. He sent him to work at our other plant and the guy there told the boss, after two weeks, that he would never be an operator. Luckily, we did have a janitor position open and he could do that. He turned out pretty happy after all. It seems, in general, these kids today want some soft cushy job that involves playing on a cell phone and yakking when they should be listening/learning. I feel sorry for the "New Generation" as it is going to be really tough on the young blue collar type of worker.
 
There are enough jobs around here that I wouldn't put up with that at all.
I've worked at places that ran through holidays but we were compensated it.

And all this talk about how great a union is...LOL, the union voted out time and a half after 8 hours work at a place I worked for and voted in a 3 year contract with no pay raises, we were told to just be happy we had a job and vote yes, left just after that and got a non union job making more money with better benefits...unions can pack sand. It's all a cover so some guido can skim off a little cream and live high on the hog on your dime.
 
(quoted from post at 19:59:25 04/30/17)
I work 7 days/12 hour shifts. A month on days and a month on nights...I'm an operator in a water filtration plant. Of course, I get a week off in between shifts. Only one guy on each shift so we have to be extremely reliable. Got 34 years in and it has always paid well. Of course I have to be at the highest level of certification to be able to operate a surface water plant. It's sort of like they have to have us. Not many people pass the exam and operators are getting older (I'm 61) and there are not very many younger guys/girls that are going into this field. Mostly because we work nights/holidays/weekends or whenever our shift is on duty. I only get a holiday off if it happens to fall at the same time I'm already off for that week. I don't mind working on holidays as I get 8 extra hours for that day plus time and a half if I'm on shift. Jacks the paycheck up for sure. I'm working a little over another year and retiring. They are going to have a very tough time finding another certified operator as they are few and far between now. Probably have to hire a trainee and train for a year and then fail the test...repeat....over and over. They only get two chances to pass the exam and it is hard with lots of math/algebra/chemistry and knowledge of the safe water drinking acts/laws. I can work with someone for about two weeks and tell them if they will pass the exam or not. never been wrong in all these years. I am careful to not overload them with info. I will let them sort of soak up some of the day to day operations for a couple of weeks and then hand them a note pad and tell them to start writing down the different tests etc we do in the lab. Then I tell them, when you see me get up from my desk to go outside to check the basins/water treatment process....you better follow me right quick if you want to learn, because I am not walking way out there for my health. This means, put the dang cell phone down and go into learning mode. I had one guy that I worked with for a month and he could not keep any of the tests or anything that I told him straight. He could not remember any of the processes and sure could not do any math. I handed him a pad and pen and told him to start writing it down and then he could review and learn as he went. he threw the pad down and said, "I got it"! I looked at him and said, "No, you don't get it". I called the big boss the next morning and told him this and said to get him off my shift as I would not work with him. he did that and i told him that he would never be an operator. He sent him to work at our other plant and the guy there told the boss, after two weeks, that he would never be an operator. Luckily, we did have a janitor position open and he could do that. He turned out pretty happy after all. It seems, in general, these kids today want some soft cushy job that involves playing on a cell phone and yakking when they should be listening/learning. I feel sorry for the "New Generation" as it is going to be really tough on the young blue collar type of worker.

Sounds like your organization needs a training manual. I wrote one for my customers in the field that I am in.
 

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