The retail giant Big Lots is under increasing scrutiny for under-paying employees, understaffing stores and promoting a culture of anti-union intimidation, thanks to an online petition started by a current employee this summer.
“Big Lots needs to raise wages for its employees,” the petition reads. “Around the country, workers are struggling to survive on the low wages and little hours being given to us.”
Big Lots, a discount retail chain with 1,431 stores in forty-seven states, sells furniture, food, and electronics, among other household goods. In January, the company, which employs over 23,000 workers nationwide, announced plans to open 500 more stores with a goal of opening fifty stores this year.
In 2021, Big Lots reported $6.2 billion in net sales. That year, CEO and president Bruce Thorn took home $9 million, while other top executives raked in millions more. Meanwhile, employees are paid far below what is considered, even by the most conservative estimates, a living wage.
There is a growing movement among Big Lots workers refusing to become casualties of corporate greed.
Big Lots cashiers, sales associates, and retail associates are paid an average of $11 an hour, and stockers an average of $10 an hour, according to the compensation data and services provider Payscale Inc. As rampant inflation and soaring costs of living continue to squeeze the working class, there is a growing movement among Big Lots workers refusing to become casualties of corporate greed.
The Big Lots sales associate who launched the online petition, who goes by Ember Ethereal, has worked at an East Coast location for almost two years. She makes $11.95 an hour and knows several employees in different stores who are making only $9.50, some of whom have been with the company for a decade.
“Sales associates are consistently given random hours, and shifts range from three hours to eight hours,” Ember says. “Associates are all part-time besides managers, and despite being allowed to have up to thirty-nine hours and still being considered part-time, as of recently we are getting eight to twelve hours a week on average. I have some coworkers who get no hours some weeks.”
The “Raise Big Lots Wages!” petition was published on Coworker.org on July 13. Since then, it has garnered over 3,000 signatures. Ember also created the @UnionizeThe Big Twitter account to raise awareness about the company’s mistreatment of workers.
“I really don’t think they take our concerns seriously,” Ember says. “ If they actually listened to us, I wouldn’t have needed to start this petition in the first place.”
Trae, a part-time associate at a midwest store, tells The Progressive in an email that due to understaffing, employees are expected to do “seven things at once” with three people working at the store at any given time. He describes poor working conditions including cutbacks on air conditioning that, during heat waves, make “the store a sweat box to work in.”
“For $9.79 an hour for an average of sixteen hours of work [per week], many, including me, feel as though we are underappreciated,” Trae says. “While I cannot speak for my coworkers, I do understand that many work two jobs to supplement [their] income.”
Stephen, a sales associate and furniture sales assistant at a store in West Virginia who has worked at the company for two years, tells The Progressive in an email that as a full-time college student, it’s hard for him to make $200 a week with his current wage.
“My friends have jobs while in college as well, and they make considerably more per hour at retailers such as Walmart, clothing stores, and fast food chains,” Stephen says. “We are expected to hold a high standard at our community stores, yet we aren’t reimbursed for that significant assistance.”
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Though there are currently no official union campaigns at Big Lots stores, its employees’ petition drops in the middle of a labor resurgence, especially in the retail sector. In the United States, Amazon and Apple employees have led grassroots unionization efforts, while striking Starbucks workers have shut down stores in at least seventeen states. Similar efforts are underway in the United Kingdom, where the season has been dubbed “hot strike summer.”
Big Lots, like most corporate retailers, is a staunchly anti-union company.
Big Lots employees’ petition drops in the middle of a labor resurgence, especially in the retail sector.
“They have us watch [anti-union] training videos, and over the years they’ve encouraged employees to never share what they make, and to fear being fired more than they dislike making low wages in a bad work environment,” Ember says.
Lynette, a Big Lots worker at a store in the South, tells The Progressive in an email that when employees are hired, they have to watch training videos, one of which is about “how happy Big Lots is about being non-union and how they are an open door company so there is no need for a union.”
In 2018, Big Lots published a flyer to distribute to employees, with the title “Proud To Be Union-Free.” Images of the flyer circulated across the Internet. The pamphlet cites The Center for Union Facts as a source to sway employees against unionizing. Despite the official-sounding name and professional appearance of the website, The Center for Union Facts is actually run by a Washington, D.C.-based lobbyist and public relations outfit called Berman and Company.
Berman and Company operates a large network of front groups which produce sleek websites and TV ads promoting corporate propaganda at the behest of wealthy clients on a variety of agendas. They masquerade as anything from advocacy groups to citizens groups, from innocuous-sounding nonprofit organizations to think tanks.
The firm’s president, Richard Berman, who is also listed as the executive director of The Center for Union Facts, has earned the nickname “Dr. Evil” for his aggressive tactics and willingness to sell his services to the highest bidder.
The Center for Union Facts website claims that it is not an anti-union organization. However, in a leaked audio of Berman’s 2014 speech to energy company executives at the Broadmoor Hotel, he clearly says, “I am well known for going after the labor unions for a thousand different reasons. And people say, ‘Well, what’s your offense?’ I say, ‘I get up every morning and I try and figure out how to screw with the labor unions. That’s my offense.’”
Big Lots and The Center for Union Facts were contacted for this story, but neither responded.
“Retail has always been one of the lowest-paid industries in the country,” Bianca Agustin, corporate accountability director for the worker advocacy group United for Respect, tells The Progressive in an email. “Essential workers have sacrificed so much over the last few years to serve their communities and keep stores open. They deserve far better than what they are getting.”
If they don’t, Big Lots could find out the hard way, just as Starbucks did.
“A lot of my coworkers have expressed the want to unionize,” Ember says. “That may be the next course of action depending on how Big Lots responds to this petition.”
Note: Big Lots employees interviewed by The Progressive requested that certain details about their identity be omitted to protect them from retaliation.