Target stores are getting surprise visits from company inspectors and managers following workers' reports of unsafe backrooms
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Shoshy Ciment/Business Insider
A backroom of a Target store in Manhattan, New York.
Target's shift cuts have made the backrooms of many stores overcrowded and unsafe, workers said.
The changes are part of a general process of change that Target is implementing in stores across the country. Target previously confirmed to Business Insider that it eliminated backroom and overnight shifts in some stores to increase the availability of workers to assist guests on the floor."Our store manager did [a] safety walk with them in the backroom and made a list of violations that need to be fixed as well as violations on the sales floor," she said.
Read more: Target is getting its thousands of workers pumped up for the holiday season with mottos like 'WWABD: What Would A Badass Do'A team leader in a Texas Target said that all eight stores in his district received emails from the district team leader instructing them to immediately clean up their backrooms."Now everybody is under pressure cleaning the backroom," he said, noting that some stores in his district are even allocating extra payroll to get this done.
Another employee in a New Jersey Target said that his store received orders from district leaders to ensure that the backroom was free of issues highlighted in the report on Saturday. This employee's store was also warned that visits from the district manager in the future could be likely.
Courtesy of an anonymous former Target employee
A photo of a back room in a New Hampshire Target last October.
Business Insider spoke with 28 former and current Target workers for an article published October 2. Some 13 of them said they felt that shift changes had turned their backrooms into an unsafe work environment. Most of these workers - some current, some former employees - spoke on condition of anonymity so that they could speak frankly about working conditions and the situation more generally at Target.
A former leader in an overnight inbound team who worked at a New Hampshire Target for three years said that changes in her store began last September and took effect practically overnight. She left her job in February.
"There was a point where my store should have been shut down due to unsafe working conditions," she said.Copyright © 2021. Times Internet Limited. All rights reserved.For reprint rights. Times Syndication Service.
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