NEW YORK—Former President Bill Clinton addressed retail professionals at Jacob K. Javits Convention Center on Jan. 16, part of The National Retail Foundation’s (NRF) 101st Annual Convention & Expo.
Self-improvement, said Clinton, “is what is at the core of the American Dream, and that is what has been shaken in this economic crisis.” He encouraged sustainable practices and retail growth.
“Retail directly and indirectly supports 1 in 5 New York jobs,” or 2,333,626 jobs, says NRF’s “Retail Means Jobs“ campaign website, based on 2009 data, adding that the state had a direct retail GDP of more than $78 billion in 2009.
Yet a report publicly released on Jan. 17 says that non-union retail workers face multiple challenges, including sporadic scheduling, lack of paid sick days, and sexual and minority discrimination.
“They’re here saying that retail has all these jobs, but we’re saying these are what the jobs are really about,” said Yana Walton, communications director for pro-union Retail Action Project (RAP), one of the authors of the report titled “Discounted Jobs: How Retailers Sell Workers Short.”
Allan Gray (a pseudonym) is a college student who works at Uniqlo—the Japanese retailer that now has three stores in Manhattan.
“They don’t give you your schedule until a day or two before you’re scheduled to come in,” said Gray, who makes $10 a hour.
He often has to leave work early, or hope that another employee can trade shifts with him when his schedule conflicts with classes. He has filled out forms noting that he cannot work certain times, but says they are ignored.
Uniqlo, which could not be reached by phone, says on its website that sales associates are required to have “a flexible schedule that meets the business needs, including evenings and weekends.” Gray says he wasn’t told of the hectic scheduling arrangement until after he was hired.
RAP and the co-author of the report, City University of New York’s Murphy Institute, will be holding a press conference outside of the retail convention on Jan. 17 at 11 a.m. “It would be nice if we could raise awareness of the problems in the retail industry,” said Gray.
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