I really need to vent about this as it's been keeping me up at night. I've seen through this companies bullshit for years but this really takes the cake.
A bit of a back story. We are hourly employees in an office management setting. When covid hit, most of us got furloughed but over time they brought us back as “essential workers” because we sort mail for different companies (insert eye roll here). They kept us on a skeleton crew where only one employee from our company is running and managing each office space. it's exhausting but we're paid over minimum wage and with the uncertainty of the world/covid, most of us powered through.
We are expected to work 8:30-5 mon-fri with a mandatory unpaid 30min lunch. This has been difficult as it is since we work alone and are often busy and don't have the opportunities to take a lunch. Even if we don't clock out for one, it is still deducted from our pay. This means most days I am working through my unpaid lunch to avoid coming back to angry clients/problems that might arise in my absence.
Near the end of the last year, the company sent us all an email thanking us for sticking by them and they were now going to offer us a $2/hour raise that would happen over the course of 3-4 months to accommodate the cost of living increases happening all around us. This raise was now fully applied as of the beginning of January.
A month later, they issue us another email saying that “our mental health and proper rest is important to them” so they are now enforcing a mandatory unpaid 60 MINUTE lunch for all employees effective immediately. Based on the math, this loses us approximately $1.80/hour effectively reversing our raise!!!
This is the lowest this company has gone (and that's saying a lot after all the bullshit I've experienced over the years) and the fact that they presented this as them “caring” about us is the worst part. I wrote up a very professional but concerned email about it to my superiors and it was not even acknowledged.
I honestly don't understand how corporations can get away with shit like this. It has totally crushed my soul.