According to a tipster at one of the locations, a typical work week for a full-time employee is 35 hours/five days per week. For the past few weeks, the worker says that these two Trader Joe's locations have been cutting employee shifts from five days a week to two and three days.
Says the tipster, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of reprisal by management:
A lot of the Trader Joe's employees have kids, and with the holidays upon us, they don't know how they're getting by. Even the employees who don't have kids are having difficulty making ends meet. Some are late with rent, others have had their phones turned off, and we are all having to cut back on basic things like food, ironically.
The tipster continued:
It's even worse for those who have a second job as Trader Joe's is no longer accommodating their previously agreed-upon hours, leaving them no choice but to forfeit their overlapping hours.
Employees say they have discussed this problem with management but claim that the managers play good cop/bad cop.
"The store captains will say they'll take care of it, the supervisors who make the schedule say, 'Sorry, we can't do anything.'"
Our sources say that management has blamed slow sales for the cut in hours. However, a worker with knowledge of the finances noted that both of the 14th Street Trader Joe's remain busy, with daily tallies in early December between $192,000 and $260,000 at the East Village outpost.
"The real reason this is happening is the stores' management gets a higher year-end bonus the more the overhead is lowered, in this case, overhead being human beings," the tipster alleged.
The Trader Joe's corporate office did not respond to an email about the reduced hours and other worker claims.
And the challenges may extend into the New Year: Workers were recently told that as of January, there will be no set schedules.
