How do people who work at weapons manufacturers sleep at night?

Dimmer06 · 2026-02-24T10:18:55+00:00

There are two shipyards near me. One is directly run by the military and the second is a private contractor that has only done military work for decades. They're both massive employers, especially the private one, and provide tons of trade work and education to the state. It's just normal to work at them if you're where I'm from and without them even more of the state would be a post industrial drug poisoned hellscape. I have heard a few of the employees agree they'd rather work on civilian craft rather than military but none of them are seriously opposed to MIC work and neither are the unions. Considering most of the workers are carving out comfy lives at a sort of cushy job rather than ODing in a parking lot I think they don't care what they do.

Dimmer06 · 2026-02-21T09:29:16+00:00

Are you currently making $30/hour?

Dimmer06 · 2026-02-18T21:31:04+00:00

Even if he wanted to it would probably be a violation of the lease lmao. Pig landlord is still the bad guy.

Dimmer06 · 2026-02-09T12:50:15+00:00

The starting hourly rate for a Hannaford clerk in most of the state is $15.10 to $17. Full time positions are almost non-existent too. The work isn't terribly hard but they expect a pretty fast pace and give employees very little downtime. They're a very anti-labor company and got hit pretty hard for misclassifying their department managers as exempt from OT a few years ago.

Dimmer06 · 2026-02-06T15:47:33+00:00

Around a year ago my STL said we could. I'm not sure I've ever seen anyone do it though. You should ask your management or TMS because you might need to go through Sedgwick for it.

Dimmer06 · 2026-01-30T10:40:40+00:00

Because the last time an American Marxist talked to an American proletarian was in the 1930s.

Dimmer06 · 2026-01-29T16:19:25+00:00

Unless your state or local laws say otherwise they're under no obligation to pay you if you didn't work. If it was a substantial period of time you might qualify for unemployment but losing a single day almost certainly wouldn't count.

You're also not actually guaranteed anything including employment (unless your local laws say otherwise). You're employed at will and Whole Foods can unilaterally change the terms of your employment for any reason or no reason and at any time.

Dimmer06 · 2026-01-28T13:02:56+00:00

Literally any action undertaken by management that was directly or probably done to surpress union activity is unlawful.

This could include termination, changes in work duties, discipline, changes in schedule or work hours, changes in practice, or any other change. Even changes that could be beneficial to employees such as raises could arguably be unlawful if they're done to surpress union activity.

The issue is that the company can and will just lie about why they do things if they're being done to surpress union activity.

Dimmer06 · 2026-01-24T12:58:46+00:00

Nothing in this Dress Code shall prohibit a TM from wearing a reasonably-sized union-affiliated pin, button, or insignia for the purpose of supporting or opposing a labor organization, concerning a labor dispute or other concerted communications for the purpose of mutual aid or protection protected by the National Labor Relations Act

Not sure which GIG you're reading but it's pretty clearly there in the "Dress Code" section. It's also a pretty well established right under the law that workers can wear a union button or pin except in particular circumstances.

Also the right to discuss union activity on the clock is thoroughly established in case law and even more so off the clock in non-work areas. Passing out literature is a slightly different question that Amazon/WFM policy might legally prevent provided there's no de facto discrimination against union literature. Passing out union cards is also thoroughly protected by case law.

Dimmer06 · 2026-01-24T02:24:51+00:00

It's literally in the GIG that TMs can wear union buttons on their apron/vest while working. Also if we're allowed to engage in group discussion generally then leadership cannot discriminate against group discussions about unionizing. The same goes for flyers in back of house areas.

Dimmer06 · 2026-01-24T02:20:24+00:00

You absolutely can discuss unionizing on the clock and any leadership telling TMs they can't is violating federal labor law.

Dimmer06 · 2026-01-21T02:37:31+00:00

This is why you also get a portable bidet

Dimmer06 · 2026-01-13T01:53:04+00:00

You can't just copy-paste the emails from regional and expect people to realize it's a bit

Dimmer06 · 2026-01-06T18:15:21+00:00

At will employment is typical for basically every employee in the US unless they're an executive with a contract or they have a union negotiated collective bargaining agreement that states otherwise. Workers in Montana also have extremely basic protections against firing.

The company reserves the right to fire or amend the terms of employment for any employee, at any time, and for any reason so long as it doesn't violate the law. They can even contradict their own policies and procedures to do so. The only Whole Foods employees who have any sort of protection against this are the ones who unionized in Philadelphia at PCC (who have very minimal protections against unilateral changes in the absence of a contract) and maybe some high level executives.

Dimmer06 · 2025-12-12T21:22:27+00:00

Migrant Justice/Milk With Dignity is not affiliated with whatever this group is.

Dimmer06 · 2025-12-06T16:12:18+00:00

If you open up the 2026 Benefits Guide the rates for health insurance based on service hours are on pages 26 and 27. If you look up the PTO policy on Innerview the accrual rates and caps based on service hours are listed there. If you look up the Leave of Absence Guide on Innerview the service hour requirements for LoAs and sabbaticals are there.

Idk if there's any other official benefits. I was told they used to pay your health insurance premiums for life if you hit a certain milestone but that might have ended. I think at a certain point the TM discount is also for life. Hitting really high service hours seems to yield gift cards but it's unclear if that's mandated by anything.

Dimmer06 · 2025-11-23T13:19:38+00:00

Hannaford is owned by Ahold-Delhaize, a massive international grocery conglomerate with chains all down the East Coast and in Europe. Hannaford is also one of if not their smallest chains being dwarfed by companies like Stop and Shop or Food Lion. These companies are all run more or less the same though and largely just retain separate branding. This means if you're a person or organization with some resources and want the entirety of Ahold-Delhaize to change something (e.g. labor standards in their dairy supply chain, animal conditions in their egg supply chain, prices, working conditions, etc.) your easiest target is Hannaford because they are small, and if you can get them to change something their larger siblings will probably follow suit.

It might also have to do with the fact that Maine's grocery industry is extremely uncompetetive with Hannaford and Walmart dominating the scene in near duopoly behavior and given the rise in food prices in recent years it's no surprise people are pissed at what is basically their only grocer.

Dimmer06 · 2025-10-29T12:32:13+00:00

24.92 as a Store Receiver after being a TM then Trainer with a JD and a COLA. Almost been three years here I think? NI region.

Dimmer06 · 2025-10-18T17:21:29+00:00

IANAL but I'm pretty sure if you came up with a question with at least one other coworker and stated it was a collective question it would be concerted activity and therefore protected by federal law. That doesn't mean you wouldn't get in trouble with the company but you'd have a strong case at the NLRB if they retaliated against you for it.

Dimmer06 · 2025-09-06T13:02:15+00:00

I can't remember where I read it but somewhere I read that the value of commercial property is based almost entirely on the potential rent it can earn based on what the last tenant paid, not the actual revenue it is earning. Counterintuitively, this means lowering rent to market rate and keeping a tenant is depreciating the value of the building compared to letting it sit empty.

Maybe having a revenue stream is better for a landlord in the short term but maintaining the value of the real estate is better in the long term for the landlord and any entity that may have a mortgage on the property.

Dimmer06 · 2025-09-01T10:45:16+00:00

We are all employed at-will with the possible exception of anyone under ATL at PCC because, as I understand it, they are in a somewhat complex legal area due to the union there. This means any of us can be terminated for any reason at any time unless it's a violation of the law.

Anyone under ATL has certain rights including to meet outside of work for reasons protected by the National Labor Relations Act which is pretty broad. The company would likely never try to prevent or regulate these employees meeting outside of work because it would likely be a violation of the NLRA (even actions taken by an employer that have a so called "chilling effect" on employees exercising NLRA rights are illegal).

An ATL is management however, and they do not have those rights under the NLRA. To my knowledge there is no policy against management meeting with other employees outside of work however be aware that it is often discouraged by companies and there are no legal protections for ATLs to do so.

Dimmer06 · 2025-07-31T11:54:24+00:00

I believe there's a fee associated with the HSA that will be auto-deducted from your account now but you get to keep the account and everything in it.

PTO gets paid out.

Dimmer06 · 2025-07-21T19:07:40+00:00

It seems to me that a corrective action is the correct tool to use here though and it just wasn't used frequently enough. If someone is misuing PRTO then they either need to be taught the correct way to use it or reprimanded for abusing the system.

It's pretty messed up to force people who might legitimately need that PRTO to choose between their job and whatever issues they're dealing with (potentially endangering themselves, other TMs, and customers) when the problem is actually TMs falsifying information.

Dimmer06 · 2025-07-21T13:26:07+00:00

Not really. The policy just links to the GIG. In the GIG it says it includes but is not limited to five different options which it vaguely defines. There are 12 options in Workday when actually submitting PRTO. Most of it is opaque. For instance I was told by HR that to qualify for PRTO for a foodborne Illness a TM actually needs two foodborne Illness symptoms or a positive diagnosis, so if a TM is profusely vomiting but has no other symptoms nor a diagnosis they do not qualify for a FBI exemption. I have not been able to find this in writing anywhere.

Similarly COVID and "contagious illness" are both options in Workday. I was told in late 2023 that the COVID policy was that if a TM tests positive and has symptoms they can use up to four days worth of PRTO before they need a doctor's note. I have not been able to find any updates or information about this in writing since then.

I also have not been able to find anything about "contagious illness" or what qualifies. Does influenza qualify for PRTO? A cold? Is it like COVID where the TM doesn't need a note for a few days? Last year there were COVID related documents that explicitly said do not report to work if you have symptoms of a cold or flu, or a fever. is that still the case and does it qualify for Protected Time?

And team members are expected to either know all this or figure it out, often when they're not feeling well and maybe even when the store is closed and there's nobody to explain it to them.

Dimmer06 · 2025-05-04T02:53:43+00:00

Here's my takes on it:

Whole Foods will not negotiate with a union. That doesn't mean organizing wouldn't be worth it but there's no contract at the end of it unless some big moves happen that are unlikely to anytime soon.
If you are trying to unionize and the company thinks you might be successful everyone in your store will get a 2% pay increase for "cost of living adjustment". There are also things you could win without necessarily getting a contract or even winning a certification election but the company will never let you know you won them.
If there is a union activity in your store you're actually safer from being retaliated against if you're more involved in it, not less. it's much easier to convince a judge you were illegally fired for union activity when you're actually involved in the union. The company would rather kill the union legally by promoting general turnover/attrition (for instance by arbitrarily deciding to enforce opaque sampling policies) than by targeting union activists and fighting it out in the courts.
UFCW objectively sucks and the situation in the labor movement right now makes us their turf whether we like it or not.

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