My boomer mother has worked for the same company for 20+ years and is fiercely loyal. She's always talking about how they have this amazing benefits package and complaining about how The Millennials at work don't understand that a good 401K match is more valuable than a bigger paycheck (their salaries are at- to below-market). I had a roommate years ago who worked there and left after a few months because she did not feel they treated their lower-level staff very well.
The other day she was telling me about how her work just added a new floating holiday to everybody's PTO – which is great! Except, she said, it didn't apply to people on the 7/7 shift because they don't qualify for benefits. Her company is open 24 hours, so they have a shift that's 7 10-hour days in a row, then 7 days off.
I asked her why they don't qualify for benefits, since that averages to 35 hours. Her company gives full-time benefits to 32 hours and above.
Her response was that the 7/7 shift “gets paid for 10 extra hours every pay period instead.” I asked her to explain. She said, “They only work 70 hours per pay period, but they get paid for 80.”
… what?
She then said that their pay rate is $15/hour. And they're paid $1200 each pay period. Which means they're getting paid for 10 extra hours.
I called bullshit. “Then they're not paid $15 per hour, they're paid $17.14 per hour. If the agreement is $1200 for 70 hours, then they're not receiving extra pay.”
She would not back down. She insisted that it was extra pay because “we consider them $15/hour employees.” She also said that they'd asked the 7/7s if they would rather get benefits and “give up the extra pay” and they'd overwhelmingly said no.
I again told her that was bullshit and that they were stiffing the 7/7s. They have several hundred people on that schedule and they are the very bottom of the company totem pole. It's pretty obvious that this is just some creative accounting because an extra $150 per check is cheaper than paying benefits to a sizable chunk of their workforce. My mom got mad at me about it. But she works for the COO, so I hope I planted a seed and maybe she'll think differently next time they talk about how amazing and generous they're being. She has no authority, but you gotta start somewhere.
Seriously, how do the people who come up with these creative ways to screw their employees over sleep at night?