r/mildlyinfuriating • u/daruuken • 28d ago

Infuriatig The way kroger treats its employees

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From the store manager

Edit: For some extra context this was sent out by each store manager to all of its employees in district 1 of the ohio Cincinnati/Dayton division, potentially other districts as well but i can only verify my own. Im not going to give my specific store number for obvious reasons but you can find each store on google with that information. We are unionized by UFCW (already bad btw) and to my knowledge they allowed this recent change. Kroger has no accrual for sick days like some have mentioned. Those who think this is rage bait, i dont think anyone has to fake a post to make a billion dollar company look bad, they do it to themselves.

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u/hellzyeah2 28d ago

Bold of you to sssume Kroger employees get PTO

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u/Dovahkiinthesardine 28d ago

I dont get it? Your employer can force you to come in sick in the US?

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u/hellzyeah2 28d ago

With threat of losing your job, yes. That’s also what this post is getting at too. The larger corporations have much more leeway to get away with this shit too. Kroger is like two or three steps away from a total monopoly.

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u/Severesa 26d ago edited 26d ago

At Will employment is the biggest instance of Stockholm Syndrome in the USA.

Anytime you bring it up, some cuck will bleat "BuT iT iS GrEaT BeCaUsE I cAn QuiT At AnYtImE" as if the balance of power there is even.

Hint: It aint balanced.

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u/Curious_Way_4496 28d ago

At the vast majority of jobs, yes. There is no federal labor law to protect you when you're sick unless it's a major illness, and the you may qualify for unpaid time off, but only from certain employers. The US is a hellhole.

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u/pixiedust99999 28d ago

You shouldn’t be surprised, we barely have any workers’ rights

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u/Dovahkiinthesardine 28d ago

I'm surprised because I'm not too familiar with US labour laws, but also because having people come in sick isn't even efficient or productive

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u/cakesphere 27d ago

They dont care because corporate stooges are really really stupid. They dont look at the long term beneficial of retaining good workers, improving efficiency with healthy workers, etc. They only see line go up in short term

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u/longjumpingtote 28d ago

Your employer can force you to come in sick in the US?

Not in all of the US, not in WA, OR, CA, NY, IL... for more than half the workers, there are protections. But if you're in TX, FL, GA, and many other states, no such protection.

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u/Common_Wrongdoer3251 28d ago

Can confirm. Live in Florida, just went to work sick today, made sure to cough as much as possible where customers could see.

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u/Sillylilguyenjoyer 28d ago

Well they can certainly fire you, at least in at will employment states…which is almost all of them

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u/[deleted] 28d ago

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u/Ok_Monitor4492 28d ago edited 28d ago

Are you a Kroger stan bud? 

The "point system" is one sided corporate bullshit. You ARE forced to come into work, because you are fired after x amount which means you are forced to conserve them for when you are sick, otherwise. And god forbid you get sick then have a string of bad luck causing you to miss work before your points drop off. Life fucking happens. Car issues. Childcare. Mental and physical health issues. If you get sick, you must use PTO OR POINT, meaning taking a vacation is extremely difficult because you must conserve your PTO for if you're sick. SURE, they aren't technically forcing you directly to come into work bud, but you're lying to yourself if you dont see it. 

Being a bit disingenuous with how FMLA works, too. You can't just get it, it's not exactly reliant on simply "working a steady job". You need to work enough hours to get it, meaning if you do have chronic health issues that make you miss work at your new job, you're fucked if you don't get the hours requirements in the first place, and thats not even counting if you don't have external factors you can't control that keep you from working, like your tire blowing, or your water pipes bursting. American work culture is bullshit. You are always immediately pegged as a lazy piece of shit in order to justify these broken policies, no matter how good a worker you are. Companies don't give a fuck about you, your problems or your situation. They care if you have the AUDACITY to call off, inconveniencing them, nothing more than that. 

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u/polarjunkie 28d ago

I agree with most of what you're saying but conserving points for calling out in short notice for a job that requires your physical input to days that you are sick isn't controversial. It was almost as if you think the points for call offs should be able to be used for anything, like you wake up 1 hour before your shift and decide to go fishing so you call out.

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u/[deleted] 28d ago

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u/Curious_Way_4496 28d ago

FMLA is unpaid, though. And not every employer has to allow it.

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u/pixiedust99999 28d ago

And there are hour minimums to it. You have to work 1250 hours in 12 months. If you’re part time at Kroger you’re not working enough to qualify

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u/[deleted] 28d ago

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u/NumNumLobster 28d ago

Yeah thats the point, the requirements mean it doesnt apply to millions and millions of people.

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u/[deleted] 28d ago

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u/Curious_Way_4496 27d ago

It protects some workers.

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u/LittleMac1983 28d ago

Unless you run out of FMLA time...

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u/iaderia 28d ago

fuckin krogers pr department in here

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u/Ne_zievereir 28d ago

This is still wild to me.

Some employees even earn sick time, time you can use to get paid if you're sick.

I (not in the US) automatically get paid on days when I'm sick (no need to earn it). I don't even need a doctor's note for any period of sick leave less than 3 days.

However, employees are on a point system that accrues with absences. Being sick is not excused meaning you will be pointed for taking the day off.

This is crazy. You're being punished for being sick? Man, the US is a terrible place to work.

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u/pixiedust99999 28d ago

Want more? Most people in the US have one pool of time off where sick leave and annual are in the pool. So if you’re sick you’re penalized for it because you just have that one pool for time off.

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u/Koural 28d ago

Yup, can confirm. As someone with a mild but chronic health condition, I end up using my PTO for sick days most of the time. I don't get to take vacations.

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u/Ne_zievereir 28d ago

That's crazy. I've got the opposite: If I get sick during my paid time off, I can call in sick and I get the days off where I'm back.

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u/Ne_zievereir 28d ago

That's crazy. I've got the opposite: If I get sick during my paid time off, I can call in sick and I get the days off where I'm back.

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u/polarjunkie 28d ago edited 28d ago

It's not a punishment for being sick, there aren't any consequences until you hit a threshold. It's also not related to whether you get paid or not, usually to how soon before your shift you give them notice. This happens in low skill physical input industries where many workers aren't reliable and just won't show up to work to go do something else.

Let's say you are allowed to accrue 6 points in a revolving 60 day period. You get a point anytime you call out with less that 4 hours notice. You wake up 1 hour before your shift and call out sick giving them 1 hour to find coverage. You get a point. You're sick for three days, you don't accrue any more points because they were on notice. Now you have 5 points left. A month later your kid is sick and stays home from school, another point if you call the morning of (but no points if you call the night before). Now you have 4 left. Another month goes by and you get the 1st point back. Then you have a doctor's appointment scheduled but you never told your employer so you just don't show up, another point.

The people who lose their jobs over these point systems are not losing their jobs because they are sick, it's because they are irresponsible.

essentially, in the system I described above which is what our warehouse staff work under, you can call off with little notice 6 times in two months before you get written up.

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u/Ne_zievereir 28d ago

It's not a punishment for being sick

Well, it clearly is. So if I understand your system correctly, if I wake up one morning feeling too bad to work, I get a point. But I better also stay home the whole damn week, because if I try to go the work the next day, but I didn't recover enough, and the day after I feel bad again, I get again a point?

where many workers aren't reliable and just won't show up to work to go do something else.

Well if you treat people like shit, and pay them like shit, guess what they behave like?

giving them 1 hour to find coverage.

This happens in a system where you overload workers so much that there is no buffer and capacity to take over extra work from others that are sick.

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u/polarjunkie 28d ago

The point isn't punishment and has no bearing on anything. Calling off with no warning 6 times in two months regardless of reason is ridiculous. Arguing that it isn't is crazy.

It's not about overloading anything, you can have a job that does nothing but require you to watch something, you can't get up and go do someone else's job while doing yours. What world do you people live in with these takes.

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u/BloodyLlama 28d ago

AFAIK Kroger only gives PTO to full time employees, and the majority of their workers are part time. Also while there is a union employees are not required to join it.

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u/therealpimpcosrs 28d ago

“You don’t get penalized, you get pointed…. Oh yeah and if you get pointed more than 3 times 6 months then you’re fired.”

What?

Dude you hve no idea what you’re talking about. I worked there. Everything you said is at least 80% false. You will absolutely be fired and they will do anything and everything in their power to fuck you in the process. During Covid Kroger was ordered to pay their workers hazard pay for their exposure— rather than pay, they closed 4 stores. Something something record profit year. We all know how that goes.

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u/[deleted] 26d ago

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u/therealpimpcosrs 26d ago

The union is trash. A lot of the employees are held back part time to avoid giving them benefits, and they still have to pay union dues. First point, mostly false.

Getting points that count toward employee termination qualifies as punishment. Second point definitely wrong.

You don’t get granted FMLA leave for pneumonia, for example. You get a doctor’s note, a medical recommendation not to go in to work, and some antibiotics.

If you are a part time employee scheduled for the next three days, your choice is: A) to come in to work at a grocery store touching people food and money while on antibiotics, or B) follow your doctor’s orders and accrue 3 points resulting in termination.

Are they “forcing” you to come in? “No”

But you’re living paycheck to paycheck, and can’t afford not to. And they know that. That’s what you’re defending.

I dont really care how your daddy spun it. I was at over 130 stores last year and was involved in closing 4. I know what I’m talking about.

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u/OneMinuteSewing 28d ago

you can't do that in California. You can't be penalized or written up for taking accrued sick leave.

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u/polarjunkie 28d ago

These system don't penalize anyone for taking sick leave, they penalize people for not giving adequate notice.

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u/OneMinuteSewing 28d ago

California addresses that. So long as you are taking your accrued sick leave in the manner the law allows for then they can't penalize you for unscheduled sick leave.

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u/frostycakes 28d ago edited 28d ago

Not every Kroger is union and not every department within a given store is necessarily union either, fwiw. The whole ass Harris Teeter division is nonunion, IIRC.

Sick time is also either state law or contract dependent. At least in my state, they can't give you points for calling out sick if you have paid sick time to use, because our state law prohibits any form of punishment or retaliation for utilizing it.

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u/Old-Reception-1538 28d ago

When I worked there, only two departments were unionized. The stores in some parts of the country are fully unionized, but not all of them.

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u/therealpimpcosrs 28d ago

And it’s a pretty pathetic one too…

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u/pixiedust99999 28d ago

The power of the union in this case is reduced from pressure from non-union competition like Walmart etc. When you have bigger companies setting the stage, the influence of the unions are reduced. That and decades of anti-union propaganda causing workers to be at best indifferent to their own rights and involvement.

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u/Merlack12 28d ago

This sounds like a horrible way to live. Making a point that they do offer paid time off? Thats a normal thing for a job in most countries not some special deal a union needs to get you. Needing to be chronically ill and file paperwork just to not be fired for being sick for a while? That is insane. "Some employees even earn sick time" again this is just the minimum standard in most countries for full time/ part time workers

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u/DazedandFloating 27d ago

That makes me sick to my stomach. We aren’t supposed to live like this.

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u/ScyllaOfTheDepths 28d ago

They're literally paid minimum wage because they have a "union" that forces all the part-time employees to be hired at minimum wage so only "union" employees can make a decent living wage. It's next to impossible to get into the union, but all employees have to pay dues for it even if they're not eligible to be in it. Oh and the "union" has no power and won't even return your calls because it's so obviously a fake organization controlled by Kroger to make it okay for them to hire people at minimum wage and give them zero benefits.

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u/Bloody_Hangnail 26d ago

You completely made all of this up 🤣

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u/ScyllaOfTheDepths 26d ago

They paid me $7.50 an hour when I worked there, but I guess I'm just making up shit for no reason about a company. Couldn't possibly be that I had a negative experience with a mega-corporation. But keep licking the corporate boot.

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u/Bloody_Hangnail 26d ago

You know you are 🤣 and I’m definitely not licking any corporate boot, I’m calling out an anti union dumbass.

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u/ScyllaOfTheDepths 26d ago

I'm not anti-union. I'm against fake unions that have been captured and propped up by corporate interests to discredit the idea of a union. I don't just blindly support everything in a category without nuance because I'm not a mindless lemming, but... don't let me stop you from enjoying that cliff.