There is no excuse for this with any business (small or otherwise), but a corporate giant exploiting workers like this is even more astonishing. I'm shocked that they haven't yet retrieved the title off Walmart for worst exploitative company. How has Del Monte flown under the radar? Well, it doesn't help that our mayor, John Henry, keeps touting this plant as his crowning achievement in a city with high levels of unemployment, underemployment and precarious work. Our municipal government does NOT have our back. So let's get started:
- Every employee from management to floor worker is a temporary worker. Del Monte does this by solely sourcing employees from Help Unlimited In (a temp agency). Whether you've been employed five years (if you last that long) or five months, you are a temporary worker.
- Temporary workers at Del Monte have no job security, no union, can be fired at will, hours cut (precarious work). There are no raises and no health benefits.
- Routinely you could be scheduled to work or have your shift dropped with no notice.
- Before the recent shift overhaul, workers were expected to work 14+ hr days at times, 6 days a week. They changed the shifts to TWO: 5am-1pm (there is no bus service so that rules out most who desperately need this low level work for low level pay), and a 1:00pm-9pm shift (which never goes a full 8 hrs because the only work left is what was left over from the first shift, which is most times 0-4 hrs).
- With this shift change and tired of dealing with disgruntled workers, Del Monte (through Jobs Unlimited) sourced foreign workers to come here and fill the jobs. Yes, this magnificent achievement of our mayor, touting jobs to residents is all smoke and mirrors.
- And for all these issues, you get the privilege of working in a refrigerator standing on your feet all day, heavy lifting, fast-paced, pressurized environment where fights breaking out among over-stressed employees is commonplace.
