Home Depot to Employees: Don’t Sit Down

[The Straight Story]

Home Depot to Employees: Don’t Sit Down

An appeals court has cleared the way for a lawsuit to proceed against Home Depot, which is accused of not providing seats for employees despite having available space to do so. The litigation was brought by Devon Harris and Lawrence Winston, cashiers who insisted that they should be allowed to sit down while checking out customers at the cash register.

The case echoes another one against 99¢ Only Stores. The latter case contends that not making seating available is a violation of the labor code, which requires such accommodations if the nature of the work reasonably permits it or when employees are taking a break.

http://www.allgov.com/Unusual_News/ViewNews/Home_Depot_to_Employees__Dont_Sit_Down_101229

[trotsky]

1. EVERY cashier should be able to sit down at their job.

They do it in Europe, and the Germans brought the practice over for their employees as US Aldi stores, but we need to make it a law here.

[laundry_queen]

34. agreed.

I once worked as a cashier in a small store. I had injured my foot and my boss let me sit on a stool. So long as I was sitting, I had no problems doing my job. The owners came by and saw me and sent me home until my foot healed as 'sitting looks unprofessional'. I was totally shocked. Needless to say I didn't last long there.

[Fumesucker]

2. Home Despot sucks big time..

I avoid them whenever possible, I'll drive five miles out of my way to shop somewhere else.

[Reader Rabbit]

6. Is Lowe's as bad?

I have a choice between the two, but I don't know about Lowe's treatment of its workers.

[TBF]

8. I've found that the service is much better at Lowe's so I drive further to go there.

Home Depot is such a "Walmart" kind of place.

[Fumesucker]

10. I think Lowe's is better from a customer's point of view..

I really have no idea how they compare in treatment of employees, although HD has a sign on the front door (or did) about if you use illegal drugs don't even bother to apply and I've never seen such a thing at Lowe's.

[we can do it]

25. Lowes Is Better, Cleaner Brighter

[sendero]

51. I spent thousands last year..

... at Lowe's and hundreds at Home Depot. Lowe's is better, I only go to HD when there isn't much choice.

BTW, HD was a huge Bush donor, Lowes donates to Dems.

[Warren Stupidity]

14. unless it comes in a box, a useless hardware store

Try to find a washer or match a screw. Everything is wrapped in plastic so you can't steal it, anti-theft packaging on 0.09 parts?. Bins are mis-sorted. Standard sizes are oddly missing.

I look for the regional small chain instead. The Ace Hardware equivalent.

[CrispyQ]

19. Walmart put our local Ace out of business.

It was a sad day when I went in to buy a few nails & read the closing notice.

Meanwhile, Walmart got some great tax incentives & a good deal on utility & road work, when they moved from the south end of town to their new super sized location on the north end of town. They put such restrictions on who could lease the old place, it sat vacant for four years. And this morning my husband told me that Walmart will stop paying their employees the extra $1 per hour that they have been paying when the employee works on Sundays.

Cheap, greedy bastards. I can't say that enough. Cheap, greedy bastards! And yet their parking lot is always full. :banghead:

[Lorien]

35. The Home Despot is also one of Rush Limbaugh's biggest advertisers. nt

[Mimosa]

37. Eeeuwww. I didn't know that.

I guess Home Depot founder Sidney Marcus isn't now in charge.

[Egnever]

52. They also had rallies for shrub

The most Republican retailer is Domino's Pizza, which gives 93 percent of its contributions to Republican candidates and parties. Home Depot, which gives 78 percent, is a close second, followed by Target at 74 percent and Wal-Mart at 72 percent.

On the other side, even during a time of Republican control of the House and Senate, Costco gives 89 percent of its contributions to Democratic candidates and parties. The big box store is followed by Starbucks at 82 percent and the Gap at 73 percent.

[fasttense]

3. It wasn't just having no seats while working.

They had no seats while they were NOT working. I think Wal-Mart doesn't provide their cashiers seats either. In fact, I don't know of any stores around here that has seats for their cashiers.

"When employees are not engaged in the active duties of their employment and the nature of the work requires standing, an adequate number of suitable seats shall be placed in reasonable proximity to the work area and employees shall be permitted to use such seats when it does not interfere with the performance of their duties.”

How sad and stupid. We have to force employers to allow their workers, when not working, to sit down. What a very sad comment on our capitalist system. What next? Will they be allowed to use bathrooms? Maybe they should stop them from breathing, it does annoy the customers.

[lib2DaBone]

4. Break the Unions, bust the American worker down to third world status...

pay people un-livable wages and treat them like slaves. (Slavery is alive and well in the U.S., just ask any worker) This is what the Republicans and the Banksters have done to our country in the name of greed.

Slash Social Security to pay for 2 wars and tax cuts for the wealthy. Make the elderly pay by gutting Medicare.

Will it ever end?

[RegieRocker]

5. The only wat for people to have power over you is to give it away.

If everyone just said " hell no " for one day it would get the message across. Exclude emergency personnel and medical. Gather a lot of food and strike. When the stores are empty and the rich are contemplating starvation they will understand.

[WinkyDink]

9. "When....the rich are contemplating starvation" = FantasyLand.

[lunatica]

11. Dream on.

In today's workplace, employees are replaceable. Do you think the unemployed would turn down a job offer, even if it was temporary?

[RegieRocker]

24. That is the point people won't get together

on anything. Sure a small handful maybe. It's either I don't want to lose my job or something. People die in a revolution I'm sure worrying about their jobs was paramount.

[sarcasmo]

7. Wouldn't this also violate a handicapped workers rights? Corporations make me sick.

Our local Target has a lady who runs the register sitting in her wheelchair, guess she couldn't work at the Home Depot.

[truth2power]

17. There's a lady in a wheelchair at my local Target, also. She works at the register

and also curculates throughout the store, helping customers.

[LeftinOH]

12. Check-out line clerking is a job traditionally performed 'on foot'. Providing a place for sitting

down when there are no customers in line is a good idea. However- sitting down while doing this job is just lazy, both in practice and in perception... UNLESS there is a physical limitation that requires sitting down. This lawsuit indicates that the employees wanted to sit down even in the performance of their jobs- not just between customers.

BTW, I've done this job -and also been on the management end. There are other things to do when there are no customers in line (cleaning, pricing, stocking.. etc). Big box retail is not a 'sit-down' working environment.

[Recursion]

15. BS. Do cashiers have to move when they're cashiering?

No? Then there's no need for them to stand. Get them an appropriately tall stool and stop worrying about whether customers think your cashiers are "lazy". They're going to think that no matter what they do.

[LeftinOH]

16. They do have to move- there's a fair amount of lifting, bending over, bagging..

it depends on what is being purchased. As I said- that particular working environment is not a sedentary one.

There are, in fact, some people (like the ones who brought this lawsuit) who believe that the workplace should conform to their comfort levels. They are wrong. Personally, I'd like a job where I get to be outdoors and not deal with clients- but that's not part of the job description.

[CrispyQ]

22. Back when I was a union cashier in a grocery store,

(late 70s), we weren't even allowed rubber mats to stand on, cuz a customer tripped on one once. What finally turned the rubber mat thing around? Too many worker's comp claims.

You are right that retail is not a sit-down job. We were expected to stand in front of our registers during times when we didn't have customers. If it was really slow, you'd be sent to face an aisle or something.

[SoCalDem]

31. yep.."got time to lean? got time to clean!" that was the store motto

On slow days even checkers were asked to "help" shag carts in the parking lot.. or to do other chores.. if it was slow & you did not want to do other "stuff", they would just ask if you wanted off early.. Most of the younger ones took early-off..

[kwassa]

26. I've done several check-out line jobs: there is NEVER a seat.

Two different department stores, and different check-out positions in those stores.

I've stood at one place at a register for hours during Christmas sales.

[Name removed]

27. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[laundry_queen]

36. HAH!

You're not kidding! When I had my first stand-all-day job, I was 19 and after the first week a ACHED all over so bad. I ached in places and in muscles I didn't even know existed. Lazy, omg, lmfao! I cannot even imagine doing it now, at 35, nevermind at 50!

[LeftinOH]

47. Yes- lazy. I'm in my late 40s- and I've done the job; it isn't data entry, it's interactive

and- the cashier is often the only employee with whom the customers interact. A rubber mat under the feet is essential, but sitting down while doing the job -with no physical impairment requiring it- is lazy. I'm a former member of the United Food and Commercial Workers' Union -and even the union wouldn't have bothered with such nonsense.

I vividly recall lots of (mostly young) employees who flit from one low-paying job to another because they keep discovering that work is *gasp* occasionally strenuous. There appears to be a slothful work-ethic behind this lawsuit.

[Lithos]

50. Very well said...

This is exactly what I understand the position to be and see in every big box store. I also agree the lawsuit is frivolous. In fact, the only time I ever recall a cashier sitting as at a mom and pop convenience store and they spent the entire transaction time on the phone - was not impressed with the store at all.

L-

[pstokely]

13. They support tha gays

http://action.afa.net/item.aspx?id=2147496231

[theophilus]

18. Cashiers not being allowed a stool has made me mad for years.

These jobs tend to be pretty low paying. A little stool would make it more bearable. IMO.

[AngryOldDem]

20. Agreed.

Especially with grocery store cashiers. They get the double-whammy of repetitive stress and the stress of being on their feet the entire shift.

[EC]

21. I worked at a factory (for a very short time)

that didn't even have seating in the lunch room...we had to stand at tall tables to eat...

[Gidney N Cloyd]

23. They still have human checkers at Home Depot???

[Raine]

28. I have never ever seen a cashier sitting down

while working whether it be a market, deptment store, bank or big box etc. I didn't think it would even be allowed. :shrug:

[TommyO]

29. The only store where I've seen a sit-down cashier is at Wegmans

where they have handicapped aisles and the seated position brings the cashier down to the eye level of somebody who is in a wheelchair. A classy company all around.

[silver10]

30. I love that store

I wish they had them out west. I shop there when I visit my parents in Scranton.

[Lars39]

33. Aldis grocery stores have stools for the cashiers, too.

[TommyO]

48. When I lived in Pennsylvania, the one I shopped at didn't

I'll have to check out the local one when I run out for the New Year's Eve bubbly (it's right on the way).

[coyote]

32. I live in Germany, and all the cashiers sit down.

I see no point why cashiers have to be on their feet to ring someone out.

To me it's just another aspect of how American workers are treated like crap.....and they don't even realize it.

[Selatius]

40. But in Germany, management is required by law to include labor in the decision-making process.

Half the management positions must be positions held by representatives of the workers. There is less of an adversarial relationship between labor and management in Germany as there is in the United States.

[Taitertots]

38. Are Americans really so lazy that we can't stand up?

And people wonder why we have such an obesity problem.

Yes, I have worked in a fast food place where I've had to stand for my whole shift.

[eridani]

39. Fuck "laziness" Standing is no more aerobic than sitting n/t

[Cruzan]

42. Standing vs. Sitting

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/23/stand-up-while-you-read-this/

[RegieRocker]

43. I guess you told eridani!

[Cruzan]

45. Sorry, what are referring to?

Is there something in the link you disagree with? I don't understand your point.

[eridani]

49. No actual calorie counts listed

Sitting all the time is no better than standing all the time. And what kind of an idiot, BTW, thinks that sitting and fidgeting are never done at the same time?

If I were a cashier, I'd sit, but stand periodically just for a change of pace. Not giving cashiers this option is cruel nonssnse.

[panzerfaust]

41. Texas Tack & Feed

Try to patronize real, individually owned, hardware/farm/ranch stores instead of going to the big boxes...

[KharmaTrain]

44. Ace Is Still The Place...

I haven't been in a Home Despot in ages...especially since they are big donors to the Chamber and the GOTB. I hate the big box stores...takes forever to find something and getting assistance is either too much or not enough. I prefer my little local Ace Hardware...always have what I need, friendly service and I know the people working there...very little turnover.

Regarding the lawsuit...I wish them well. These large corporations know they can get away with "policies" that are against laws and don't care. If they're caught, it's a slap on the hand fine...that's rarely paid. A civil suit will hit harder...and hopefully the plaintiffs have the resources to fight cause you can be assured this case will be dragged out a long, long time...

[JohnyCanuck]

46. Provide seats for employees and this might happen:

Obviously Home Depot management saw the Seinfeld episode where George felt sorry for a security guard who had to stand all day and brought a rocking chair into the store for him. Consequently, the guard fell asleep on the job and was sawing logs when a robbery occurred. No chance of sleeping on the job if we have any thing to say about it, says the Home Depot management team.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

53. I worked in a dept store behind a counter.

And there was no place to sit ever. Even when we had to get on our knees and open safes and take out boards with jewelry on them. My ankles swelled up terribly. This was ten years ago. I was already on 3 kinds of blood pressure medicine and jumped six inches every time the phone rang in the store.

I was selling crappy jewelry labeled as "fine jewelry" which was a total crock. It was a lease dept. in a dept. store.
One Christmas eve, about 8 pm, because some guy was buying his girlfriend a silver bracelet when we closed at 6 pm Xmas Eve, and couldnt get his credit card to work, I remember stumbling out to the bench between the double doors of the store out to the parking lot, and just collapsing in tears on the bench, before I could get up enough energy to get to my car. Doing retail is hell, it's double hell at Christmas.

That's pretty exhausting.

GOOD jewelry stores have lower counters, plush chairs for the customers, and chairs or at least stools for the salespeople, because if you are buying a GOOD piece of jewelry (not necessarily expensive but stones of good quality) you want your customer to sit down and look at the item and really appreciate the color and the cut.

We were selling lumps of coal (diamonds and sapphires) and would-be grinding wheels. I was so ashamed of it. I never got a job in a good store where I could use my GIA knowledge.