By
now, the hardships endured by retail workers at clothing stores across
New York City are achingly familiar: the frantic scramble to get
assigned enough hours to earn a living on painfully low wages; the
ever-changing, on-call schedules that upend child care arrangements,
college schedules and desperate efforts to find second jobs.
Workers
and government officials around the country are increasingly pushing
for change. But for an example of more humane workplaces, there is no
need to jet to Sweden or Denmark or Mars. We need look no farther than
Midtown Manhattan, no farther than Herald Square.
Ladies
and gentlemen, step right onto the escalators and glide on up to the
sixth floor. Allow me to introduce you to Debra Ryan, a sales associate
in the Macy’s bedding department.
For
more than two decades, Ms. Ryan has guided shoppers in the hunt for
bedroom décor, helping them choose between medium-weight and lightweight
comforters, goose-down and synthetic pillows, and sheets and blankets
in a kaleidoscope of colors.
But
here is what’s truly remarkable, given the current environment in
retail: Ms. Ryan knows her schedule three weeks in advance. She works
full time and her hours are guaranteed. She has never been sent home
without pay because the weather was bad or too few customers showed up
for a Labor Day sale on 300-thread-count sheets.
This is no fantasy. This is real life, in the heart of New York.
“I’m able to pay my rent, thank God, and go on vacation, at least once a year,” Ms. Ryan said. “There’s a sense of security.”
So
what makes this Macy’s store so different? Its employees are
represented by a union, which has insisted on stability in scheduling
for its members. (Union workers enjoy similar scheduling arrangements at
the Bloomingdale’s, H&M and Modell’s Sporting Goods stores in
Manhattan.)
Now,
I know the term “union” is a dirty word in some circles, even in this
city, where labor still has considerable clout and has catapulted many
workers into the middle class. But no one can deny that these union
workers savor something that is all too rare in the retail industry
right now: guaranteed minimum hours — for part-time and full-time
employees — and predictable schedules.
This is no accident.
“The
biggest issue for workers today is scheduling,” said Stuart Appelbaum,
president of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, which
negotiated contracts for workers at the Macy’s, Bloomingdale’s, H&M
and Modell’s stores.
“It’s not just about how much they’re paid per hour,” Mr. Applebaum said, “but how many hours a week they get to work.”
To
envision what life is like when you do not have those guarantees, just
walk across 34th Street to the Zara clothing store, where Sonica Smith
has worked as a sales associate for nearly two years.
Ms.
Smith is a 26-year-old single mother of two who loves working in
retail. She loves clothes. She loves dressing customers. But her
unpredictable work schedule and the relentless struggle to get enough
hours wreak constant havoc on her life.
Some
weeks, she is assigned 24 hours of work; other weeks, she gets only 16.
There is never a guaranteed minimum and there are never enough hours to
get close to full time.
“At
work, all I’m thinking about is: How am I going to pay the rent for the
month?” said Ms. Smith, who earns $11 an hour. “How am I going to pay
the person who is caring for my kids today?”
She said her last check amounted to only $396 for two weeks of work. “I nearly cried,” she said.
This is no surprise to anyone who works in retail. In a report
scheduled to be released on Monday, Stephanie Luce, an associate
professor of labor studies at the City University of New York, and the
Retail Action Project, a workers’ advocacy group financed by foundations
and Mr. Appelbaum’s union, surveyed 236 retail workers in Manhattan and
Brooklyn and found that only 40 percent had set minimum hours per week.
The good news is that some retail companies are promising to do things differently. Last month, Starbucks vowed to improve the “stability and consistency” of the work schedules of its 130,000 baristas. (The company was responding to a New York Times article chronicling the enormous strains that unpredictable scheduling places on workers.)
At
Zara, where employees have demanded more predictability, the company
has given workers more notice of coming shifts, though workers are still
pressing for guaranteed minimum hours. Government officials, meanwhile,
are increasingly trying to curb the harsh scheduling practices.
Ms.
Ryan, the sales associate at Macy’s, hopes the movement will spread.
She knows from personal experience that satisfying, sustainable careers
can be built in retail. After 27 years in the business, she earns about
$40,000 a year — nearly $20 an hour — and never has to worry from week
to week about her pay.
“Thank God, I work for Macy’s,” she said.
Email: swarns@nytimes.com
Twitter: @rachelswarns
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