What’s wrong with Target?
Many people are excited by the prospect of this American department store opening in Canada. Target provides a variety of merchandise, including clothing and some home furnishings. It carries what has been described as cheap chic merchandise.
At what cost do these prices come? If you are a current employee of Zellers whose stores have been bought by Target, the price will be pretty steep. It will be your job, your years of service and any raises or benefits you might have earned over your years of employment at Zellers.
That is because Target intends to release all of the Zellers workers from employment and hire new employees. Oh, the Zellers employees can apply for their old jobs, along with thousands of other citizens, but Zellers employees may or may not be rehired, and if they are, it will likely be at minimum wage with no credit for service. There will be no preferential hiring of former Zeller’s employees. How many of the employees from unionized Zellers stores do you think will get rehired? My guess would be none.
According to Kendra Coulter, from the University of Windsor, in the Toronto Star, February 22, 2012, the cost could be as many as 15,000 job losses. She says:”It does not seem to matter how many years of loyal service workers have provided, how many customers have praised their work, or how many children they are supporting on their wages”.
Coulter goes on to say that Target is already a very profitable company and its expansion into Canada is expected to further amplify its profits. “In other words, Target can more than afford to respect Canadians’ collective agreements and current working conditions”. Coulter says and I agree “We deserve better”.
We seem to be in a race to the bottom here, with profitable American companies coming into this country and driving wages, benefits and working conditions down. When Caterpillar couldn’t force its employees to take a 50% reduction in wages, it announced the closure of its London locomotive plant.
I am proud to say that I have never spent one thin dime in Wal Mart, another “great” and very popular American retailer. It will be a frosty day in July that I should ever darken Target’s doorstep.
Please visit the following site to hear from the Zellers workers. Please do what you can to help these workers. This is important. Who’s next to get “Targeted”?