I work in a warehouse, only for about a week now. Seems to be decent. Nice people. So we're heading to lunch and the shift leader screams to everyone “mandatory overtime this Saturday” and everyone's like ughhh. I asked what would happen if we didn't come in, because it's literally just A WHOLE OTHER SHIFT, and a snowstorm is coming. They say, “you'll be reprimanded. It'll probably happen again next week too.” I'm not risking my wellbeing for overtime.
I went to lunch, and talked to some coworkers about it and everyone is aggrevated. It's a Mon-Fri full time/40hr week job, so all we get off are the weekends. The hours are very odd, so it's hard to see family and friends or make appointments. Adding an extra day would be terrible. On top of that, some people have other jobs and can't do the mandatory overtime and risk being fired there.
Once back on the floor, I talked to the people on my line. I asked why don't you just not come in? Especially because this time would be an even better reason to not come in. They just kind of avoided it and said it's whatever. I was like no, it's not okay and went onto explain my own reason why I'm not coming in. I talked about a union and what it could do to help prevent things like this to happen. 6 of them agreed on not coming in on Sat. It doesn't seem like a lot of people, but it could help by getting other people to understand a union better or at least not come in. The shift leader says that if 10% of us don't come in, they won't count it against us. Seems alright. But now I'm honestly thinking about starting or joining a union and getting other people on board.