Please read and reflect on the following piece about the possible boycott on Black Friday. Explain the recent backlash to this issue and your thoughts on this controversy.
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/ondeadline/post/2011/11/black-friday-employees-push-back/1
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
16 comments:
Black Friday, which marks the beginning of the holiday shopping season, has been one of the most popular shopping days of the year. Stores open up very early in the morning and shoppers camp-out all night, just waiting for the store to open so they can swipe up all the great buys. However, in recent years, stores, who are competing for customers, have been pushing the time at which they open back from 7 A.M. to 5 A.M. to 4 A.M. This year however, many stores have decided to open at 12 midnight on Thanksgiving night. For shoppers, this may seem great since they get to go shopping then sleep all day the following day. However, this is a nightmare for the store employees who have to work in the stores. Many of the retail workers have to miss celebrating Thanksgiving with their families so they can sleep before they have to go work. Hundreds of workers are angered by this new store opening hour and are pushing back against this new policy.
I don’t agree with what the stores are doing to these poor workers. Do shoppers really need to start shopping at 12 midnight? Whether the store opens at 12 midnight or 6 A.M., there is still going to be the same items on sale. They’re not going to disappear overnight. Store workers should get to enjoy their Thanksgiving with their families and be able to get a good night sleep before having to go work. I have gone shopping on black Friday and even if you go at 9 a.m., there are still items in the store that are on sale that you can buy. The stores are ready for Black Friday and I am sure that they stock up so they don’t run out of items fast. I think that the stores should change either opening time back to 6 A.M. next year.
I understand where the employees are coming from with not wanting to work on thanksgiving into black friday because its not fair having to miss out on family fun and having thanksgiving with your family, however, if you don't want to work, then don't. Maybe get someone else who wants to work, work that day. If that doesn't work out, then just suck it up. Be happy you have a job because some people would be happy to work that day to make money. I dont think its possible to just end black friday altogether because the day consists of good prices and affordable prices which some familys really need in this type of economy. So, my final thoughts is black friday should remain and for the people who work, either find someone else to work if you really need to. And it's not that you're really missing out on family affairs, considering black friday doesnt start until 12AM, i mean are you really eating your thanksgiving meal at midnight? I dont think so. But anyway, be happy you have a job and get excited for next year because the situation of the economy could get worse!
I can’t stand Black Friday. For the past few years it has taken over this weekend and most people look at Thanksgiving as not important anymore. It is terrible that society is more fixed in to Black Friday then Thanksgiving. It’s mainly the stores fault for wanting to make a profit on the best day for shopping all year. If the stores cut back and didn’t make so many sales then not as many people would shop. Also it isn’t fair to the employees since a lot of them have to come in during there Thanksgiving night to help prepare for the thousands of shoppers. Stores shouldn’t open at midnight because it allows people to wait outside the store at 8 which means eating a big dinner then rushing out to the store to get a good deal on a TV. I just really hope Black Friday doesn’t become a big tradition for people.
I don't think it is right to make employees come in on thanksgiving for black friday. Thanksgiving is a very big holiday that should be respected as a day off. Nobody should HAVE to go to work on that day, because it is a day to spend with your family. I think it is really dissapointing to see people drop their moral standings for shopping, as people begin to treat thanksgiving as less of a holiday because it is the day before black friday. It is very obvious though that this goes right back to the commercialization of religous holidays. People care more about that gifts than the meaning of their religous holiday, which makes citizens prone to spend alot of money. So when a day of such great sales come along, i understand why we as america have come to the point of treating holiday shopping as more of a holiday than thanksgiving
Black Friday is one of the crasiest days of the year. It has super low prices which consumers fight in line to get. Some people even show up to store hours ahead of time to save a couple hundred dollars.
As crazy as this is for consumers it is even more crazy and stressful for employees working at stores such as walmart, best buy, and target. Employees often have to deal with arguing customers, yelling customers, and huge crowds of people.
Even more crazy is that some employees are missing thier thangsgiving holiday because of black friday. This is outragous. The point of black friday is to add something after thanksgiving not overshadow it. Thanksgiving is a time to spend with the family, not to be forced to work at some retail store.
I worked on Black Friday and it wasn't as crazy as everyone thinks. It depends on the store you work at. The people who stand online for hours are crazy and those who spend the night camped out are insane also. I think that employees shouldn't HAVE to work on Thanksgiving because it is a holiday. But working at 12am isn't considered Thanksgiving anymore, I personally don't eat dinner all day until the morning. I think it is a good opportunity to get a lot of hours at work too.
If you don't want to work, call out or change your hours. I'm sure someone will end up switching with you if Thanksgiving is so important to you. I think Christmas is more important and the food during Christmas is much better tasting at my house than Thanksgiving.
I understand how workers do not want to work on such a hectic shopping day, however if they are hired to work at an institution which promotes black friday sales, they should report to work. Black Friday doors can open as early as4 o clock AM, which may taint the workers enjoyment of thanksgiving. To get the healthy, and recomended 8 hours of sleep, they would have to go to bed at about 7 o clock to wake up 3 o clock to go to work. The coincidence that is present, is that such chemicals in turkey actually making you extremely tired, may force you into a premature slumber. Thus going to sleep at 7, does not seem all the hard. I understand this is somewhat irrelevant, but it is an interesting point to think about. If workers are notified that they will be working on this monumental day, they can easily plan around it. Also, they chose to work at a retails tore which will be swamped on such a day. If it is circumstantial that they work there, that is their problem, if it is their choice to work there, once again, there problem. I think workers should stop complaining about the whole thing.
I feel like eventually Thanksgiving is going to be forgotten because every year sales start earlier and earlier. I have some friends who had to work thanksgiving night at like 11pm, but it's not like they missed the holiday. They stayed up instead of sleeping before work, like that one worker in the article claimed. It's just one day, and it's not that big of a deal to have to start work at night. It's just sad how Christmas has become so commercialized to the point where its meaning has been completely forgotten.
I think the idea of Black Friday is a good one: To kick off the Christmas shopping season with great bargains to help start you off. In years past, stores opened at 2, 3, 4, and some as late as 5am. The hours allowed time for you enjoy your Thanksgiving, get some rest after eating your turkey, and wake back up ready and prepared to shop til you drop.
However, this year, the stores completely turned things upside down. Instead of cutting things close to Thursday, opening at midnight Friday morning, stores started sales on Thanksgiving itself. Stores were opening at 9 and 10pm Thanksgiving night. This means employees has to be ready and at work two hours in advance, meaning for some, 7pm, and if you figure the time it took them to get ready and drive out to their job, they were leaving at 5 or 6 to beat traffic. This is disgusting. It also means they would have needed to sleep during Thanksgiving Day in order to b e prepared for a full night of work.
The idea of Black Friday is a good one, but stores, have some respect for the holiday of Thanksgiving and keep your doors closed until at least 1am on Friday morning. We, and your employee, would greatly appreciate it.
It's ridiculous that the stores are requiring their employees to open up the stores at twelve a.m. on Black Friday. The Thanksgiving holiday is a time meant to be spent with family; not a time to be spent preparing for the obsessive shoppers hoping to cut deal the morning of Black Friday. Stores should keep the normal store hours, as a courtesy for employees. Thanksgiving is also being forced to take a backseat to the sales, and is causing many Americans to forget the importance of the holiday. Many Americans feel as if the holiday "came and went" due to the amount of focus that has been put on the sales of Black Friday.
I find the whole “Black Friday” tradition to be ridiculous. You don’t even save that much money unless you’re buying like a 62 inch flat screen HD television or some high-tech laptop. I would rather just pay the extra money than risk being trampled to death or being pepper-sprayed in the face. On Thanksgiving, I enjoy sitting around the kitchen table with everyone for dinner and stuffing my face, and I can’t imagine how some people skip that so they can rest-up for Black Friday shopping. People need to get their priorities straight. And its preposterous how these major stores have corrupted people by making them believe they are saving all this money, meanwhile it’s not even that much. However, it is kind of funny how into Black Friday people get, and I guess its good to find some comedy in that.
Black Friday has always been a wild and crazy day for shoppers. As for my myself and many others, my family goes for recreation, or even just to pick up a gift/necessity for ourselves. Unfortunately, some shoppers take the mayhem to a completely different level. Because some people are complete savages once the doors open at prior times of 6am or even earlier, retailers are open their stores on thanksgiving night. There has been a petition to prevent this time change from happening again. However, corporation owners have the right to do this. Also, with this economy, you want people to spend spend spend. If the cash flow starts running again, the economy will be one less step away from a bust. Being an employee of a retail store, one should expect unfair hours such as those. I know it sounds insensitive, but if you don't like your job, no one is stopping you from quitting.
its one thing to open the stores at like 4 or 5 in the morning. that wouldnt be so bad but for stores to be open at 12 and workers have to be there at 11, either get little or no sleep and have to work through the tiredness. it is crazy to take people away from their families on thanksgiving. thanksgiving is a time to be with your family and get together and enjoy your time off. how can people enjoy time off if they have to work at 11pm til 6 am. they can't. stores should really consider what they are doing to employees. i believe its just crazy it a completely different story if it was around 5am that wouldnt be so horrible becuase people would be able to spend the day with their family.
In my family it has always been tradition to have a large Thanksgiving dinner with the whole family and then go shopping on Friday as soon as the stores open with my whole family and all my cousins. While I love this tradition and the adventures of shopping at 2 am, I don’t think its okay to force people to work all night on a holiday. I think it should stick to opening on black Friday early. This year some stores opened at 4 pm on thanksgiving which had a lot of people missing the holiday to sit outside to get a cheap TV or game. While this is fine for them it is not fair to have the employees do that since it is not their option to be there missing the celebration.
Post a Comment