The plant I work for currently runs 24/7.
This isn't always the case, normally its five days a week, three shifts.
Every other year though, when we release new products, we need to run 24/7.
So what the company does, is ask workers to volunteer for a weekend shift. What that means, is you work 12 hours on both Saturday and Sunday. Sunday is double time, which means you're paid for 36 hours, despite only working 24. And that's it. Just two days a week, five days off. If there are openings during the week, you can volunteer for a shift, if you want.
Now, in the past, people jumped on this. It's a great deal. Granted, you basically agree to fully sacrifice your social life by complete giving up your entire weekend. That is why you're paid well for it.
For this to work, weekday shifts obviously need to be backfilled, and the company has always done that with temp agencies.
It worked in the past, but in today's climate, the company can't keep temps. They aren't paying them enough. Minimum wage in my state is over $14 an hour, and just about every company pays higher than that. You can get a job stocking shelves at Target overnight for $17 in this area. My company is paying temps $18 to do intensive, manual labor jobs. The rules and regulations are incredibly strict too. We're not Amazon strict, but we aren't far behind (it wasn't this way in the past, these changes have come over the past few years).
Nobody ends up lasting. Most temps quite during their training, or work a month or two before quitting or being fired. A majority of the firings are because we do random drug tests multiple times per year, and will fire over THC positive, despite being in a state with full legalization.
What is management's response to this?
Announce that the weekend shift now needs to work two eight hour shifts during M-F.
Over 50% of the weekend shift has now requested to return to their regular M-F shift. It's volunteer, and according to company policy, they have to allow it.
Management can't comprehend the issue. They sat everyone down and tried to “explain” things to everyone, as if we were all wrong and didn't understand. They told us we're still getting three days off instead of two, and we're only working a normal 40 hours, but getting paid for 52 and we should love that!
Everyone basically said the same thing. It's not about the money. It's made the sacrifice of giving up a social life, and missing out on important family time pointless. If we're going to still work 40 hours, it might as well be M-F with Sat/Sun off.
Management is basically flabbergasted and just can't figure out why we're upset.
They can't comprehend that people are willing to give up their weekends for five days off, but not for three.