We understand that it is retail, and employees understand that they have to work hours on holidays. However, Kmart’s unnecessary hours are forcing its employees to miss out on important time with their families. With lives that are continuously busier and busier, it is more important now than ever to put an end to this before we no longer have holidays. There are other stores who have decided to close on Thanksgiving to give their employees time with their families. Why not be in the news in a positive light? The sales can wait a few more hours. Kmart covers its shameless act of greed by stating that it is giving its employees more time to make money. Kmart: have you even talked to your employees about your holiday hours and what they will be required to work? The answer is no. We are almost 2 weeks away from Kmart stores being open 42 hours straight, and employees - even after asking management about what hours they will be required to work - still have not received information about their schedules during this time. Kmart - You should not open your stores at 6am on Thanksgiving Day nor should your stores remain open for the subsequent 42 hours. Furthermore, you should be honest and advise your employees on their schedules so they can plan when to spend time with their families when you put this burden on them. Kmart has said that it will staff its stores using volunteers and seasonal employees. I’m calling on Kmart to commit to respecting the schedules of employees who request not to work on Thanksgiving Day. Kmart should close their stores early, or, at the very least, allow flexibility with scheduling to give their employees time to spend with their families.

We deserve to have holiday time with our families. It is very important to allow us to have Christmas and Thanksgiving off.

I have been a T-Mobile employee for 5 years, worked in several different departments and have never been asked to work on major holidays such as Christmas. Recently, I was informed that T-Mobile is now ranked number 1 for the prestigious JD Power Awards. It seems to me that in order to keep this competitive position, T-Mobile has decided that employees like me will be forced to work major holidays, including Christmas Day. Christmas Day is a time to be spent with family and loved ones. Whether you work for T-Mobile, or you just own a cell phone and care about the morals of your cell phone provider, please sign and share this petition, to show T-Mobile's CEO John Legere that it is not acceptable to force it's employees to work on Christmas Day. With enough voices, we can make a change!

We’re Starbucks employees and we love our customers. Every single day, dedicated customers like Georgia, Chris, Jim, Herb, Colleen, Anna, Rob, Sandy, Charlie, Tim, Mike, Mark, Ashley, Lee, Andie and countless others come into our stores, order their drinks, and share a little bit of their day with us. Our customers are loyal, consistent, and predictable (about their drink orders, at least!) and we love serving them. But we need Starbucks to treat us like we treat our customers. We, employees of Starbucks, demand Starbucks give us one-month advance notice of our schedules, stable hours, and access to full-time work. We regularly have schedules that fluctuate from 15 hours to 40 hours to no hours. We often get our schedules less than a week in advance — that’s not nearly enough to plan for childcare, another job, or school… or enough to cover our bills. And few baristas actually get those health benefits Starbucks brags about because it costs too much or they don’t work enough hours to qualify. Jannette Navarro, a Starbucks barista and young mom, just told her story in the New York Times of the constant chaos of an erratic Starbucks schedule: “You’re waiting on your job to control your life,” she said, with the scheduling software used by her employer dictating everything from “how much sleep Gavin [her son] will get to what groceries I’ll be able to buy this month.” All across the country, Starbucks baristas like us sold copies of the New York Times paper that exposed what it's like to be one of the 130,000 workers making the lattes that keep America going every day. We are a few of those baristas and, like Jannette, we also struggle with the nightmarish "magic" of Starbucks' computerized schedules. After the article came out, Starbucks responded with an announcement that they will now post schedules one week in advance and stop giving baristas closing and opening shifts — we call them "clopens" — back to back. Basically just adhering to policies they already have – and this isn't enough. We are coming together with our dedicated customers — like you — and asking Starbucks for one-month advance notice of our schedules, stable hours, and access to full-time work. There's no reason why our work schedules can't be as consistent as our loyal customers who line up for their morning “Venti soy latte”. Photo credit: https://www.flickr.com/people/ivypics/

We work at the IKEA store in Seattle, Washington. Together we have close to 10 years of experience. We enjoy our jobs at IKEA, and take a lot of pride in delighting our customers. However, like many part-time workers in retail, we struggle to pay our bills. Sometimes we work almost full-time, but many times we have to make ends meet on less than 25 hours per week. After co-workers spoke out about the need for higher pay, IKEA responded by raising starting pay to match the living wage for our community. Beginning January 1, the national starting pay will average $10.76/hour. We think raising starting pay is a step in the right direction, but co-workers with years of experience may receive no raise at all. We think that investing in co-workers will lead to happier employees, better retention, and higher sales growth. That’s why we’re asking Ikea to offer full-time jobs to every co-worker who wants one and raise pay for all co-workers, not just new hires. We’re calling on our coworkers and customers in the United States and around the world to join us in supporting this petition. We know that when we speak up Ikea listens. Together we’ll convince the company to do what’s right. Thank you for standing with us! Kwesi, Martina, Ruthe Ikea Seattle

Having worked at restaurants for 15 years -- including at the Olive Garden for six years -- I know the industry well. Olive Garden’s parent company, Darden Restaurants, can do a lot more to make its restaurants better places to work, but first they need to listen to their employees. For example, in January, the company got rid of automatic gratuity for large parties. It might not seem like much, but when a large party takes up a lot of your shift, those tips make a big difference. Managers told us it was for legal reasons, but I later learned it was because Darden wanted to save a little money on its taxes. I wish the company would've first considered the impact on its servers. We depend on those tips to pay our bills. Another issue is what I call "stuttering breaks." We are told to take a 30 minute break, then asked to wait another hour before returning to work -- all of it off the clock. This seems like a terrible way to run a business, and it takes its toll on staff. How can we make a living when we're not sure how many hours we'll work from week to week? In six years of working at Olive Garden, I've noticed that it's getting harder and harder for employees to make ends meet.  I've had to move back in with my parents in order to afford to finish my college degree in software engineering. I can't imagine how my coworkers with kids -- coworkers who I care deeply about and spend much of my time with -- are able to make it. I want to see the Olive Garden, and all Darden restaurants (which also include LongHorn Steakhouse, Bahama Breeze, Seasons 52, The Capital Grille, Eddie V's, and Yard House) become great places to work.  Darden is such a large employer that if they do more to support employees like me, they can set a standard for the industry -- and they'll get to have their pick of the best employees, too. Now is the time for company leaders to meet with the staff at their restaurants. We all belong to this company and we've got a stake in its survival. At the end of July, longtime Darden CEO Clarence Otis announced that he would be stepping down. As our company faces a leadership vacuum, Wall Street hedge funds are playing a much bigger role in deciding the future of this company. They called for the ouster of Otis and have lobbied for a potential scheme to sell off Darden's assets. These outside firms must consider the concerns and challenges facing the staff at their restaurants. These restaurants are not just assets to be sold off but are how 130,000 workers feed and care for their families.   
 Customers, shareholders, and fellow employees -- please join me in calling on Darden leadership and hedge fund stakeholders to meet with employees and hear our concerns. It's time we had a seat at the table when it comes to deciding the future of this company! Photo Credit: https://www.flickr.com/people/jeepersmedia/

UPDATE: Thanks to you, our efforts are starting to #ChangeZara! In December, Zara workers in NYC received a letter from the US Managing Director, Dilip Patel, saying that workers will receive raises of up to $3 an hour and access to full-time positions. This is a major victory for our campaign and demonstrates that when workers come together, we can make real changes! Our campaign is gaining great momentum, but we still need your support to help bring Dilip Patel to the table and hear our concerns. Please read our petition below and sign and share! ***** First off, let me introduce myself. I’m Jedidiah Labinjo and I work at Zara in New York City. Sharlene Santos, one of the original leaders of the campaign, recently moved out of state so I’ve been inspired to step up and help move the campaign along with my Zara coworkers -- and you! I’ve worked as a sales associate at the Zara store in SoHo for a year. I have been commended by my supervisor for my work ethic and customer service skills, but I’ve yet to see an increase in my pay of $10.50 an hour. I live with my mother and contribute to my family’s bills. I’m also in school full-time studying pre-law, which has helped me think about my rights at work. It’s hard to juggle my priorities of work, school, and family when I have a constantly changing schedule at Zara. Managers are full-time, but we sales associates have a very hard time getting more hours, even though Zara continues hiring more part-time associates. Many associates feel that there is a lot of favoritism in determining who gets the promotions that would make us full-time. Many of my coworkers are students or parents with young children. We all work hard to get by. We earn so little at Zara that many of us can’t even afford to buy the clothes that we sell. With these kinds of poverty schedules, we are forced to choose between bills, rent, and food. So my coworkers and I circulated a petition to address our issues at Zara: low wages, not enough hours, favoritism, and disrespect. When we presented our concerns to a store manager, she said there was nothing she could do. Since we first launched this petition, a delegation of Zara workers from the US traveled to Spain to take our concerns directly to the top company executives as US Management has not agreed to sit down with us collectively for substantive discussions. We’ve been told to discuss problems at work on a one-on-one basis with our managers. But these issues aren’t individual -- they are company-wide. We want Zara’s management to come to the table to hear our #ChangeZara committee’s collective concerns about scheduling, wages, and opportunities for advancement. Zara's hugely profitable parent company, Inditex, is proud of its reputation as a socially responsible business. Zara workers in Spain have a union that grants them a voice at the table -- don't we deserve the same respect here in the US? Join us in our fight to #ChangeZara.

This is Massachusetts. We are the "Athens of America" and "A city on a Hill." How can our first-rate airport treat its workers as second-class citizens?

As Walmart Associates, we want to do the best job we can. We come to work every day and are proud of the job we do. We are the people helping customers, stocking shelves, moving inventory, getting carts and other items to their proper places, and making sure we run the store in the best way possible. However, as we continue to carry out this work, we are finding it difficult to keep food on the table, pay our rent, provide for our family, put gas in our cars, and make ends meet due to the lack of hours in our schedules. Today, we stand before you, asking Walmart to follow-through on its public commitment to provide Associates with MORE HOURS and MORE CLEARLY DEFINED FULL-TIME POSITIONS to be permanently added to our schedules. We believe this will help ensure that every store is running to the best of its abilities and that Associates will not be going home hungry, avoiding medical care because we are worried about the high cost, living paycheck to paycheck and choosing between rent and food. We believe more hours and full-time work is a more viable and successful strategy than continually hiring and firing temps and letting go of longtime Associates with invaluable experience. We believe these changes will benefit customers, as when hours and positions are cut, we are no longer able to carry out the necessary work in a timely, safe and efficient manner. It is the right thing to do; for the store, for the customers, for all Associates. One year ago, Walmart said it would provide Associates the opportunity to work more hours and make available more full-time positions. With $17 billion in profit per year, we believe there is no viable reason why Walmart can't follow-through with its commitment and provide these much needed changes. LEGAL DISCLAIMER: UFCW and OUR Walmart have the purpose of helping Wal-Mart employees as individuals or groups in their dealings with Wal-Mart over labor rights and standards and their efforts to have Wal-Mart publically commit to adhering to labor rights and standards. UFCW and OUR Walmart have no intent to have Walmart recognize or bargain with UFCW or OUR Walmart as the representative of Walmart employees.

Forever 21 sent a devastating memo to several hundred of its full-time U.S. employees this week informing them of drastic cuts to their hours and benefits. In addition to losing hours and all of our health benefits, employees are also losing the ability to earn paid time off – and the company gave us less than two week’s notice! I just started working at Forever 21 in New York City, but now I'm not sure how much longer I'll be able to work there, because I need a job that I can actually survive on. When I first applied for the job, I was promised growth and working with the visual team to become a merchandiser. They explained I would be learning and growing and starting off in sales with full time hours. However when I was hired, I suddenly found myself cleaning and organizing the stock room in a part-time position. When I asked what happened with the position I applied for I was brushed off and ignored. I didn't realize that the company treats their employees like that, and now Forever 21 is essentially ending full-time employment for non-management employees altogether. Imagine having a sick child or a chronic illness, then finding out that in less than two weeks, your health insurance will terminated, your paychecks will be smaller, and you won't have any paid time off to take care of your medical issues –All because you are part time. Unstable scheduling in the retail industry is a serious problem. Imagine trying to fit together two part-time work schedules with just days or hours’ advance notice of your shift. To make matters worse, many jobs require you to work "on call" shifts, which means you have to call two hours before your shift to see if you have to work (or you'll face disciplinary action). But if you're not called in, you don't get paid. This practice wreaks havoc in our lives and, in my opinion, amounts to exploitation. Companies claim they can't remain profitable without reducing workers' schedules, but that's a poor excuse because many of these same companies are providing full-time opportunities to workers in other parts of the world. In the Munich, Germany, Forever 21 is hiring full time entry-level sales associates. In Liverpool, England, the job I applied for in New York (a "visual merchandiser") is listed as a full-time position. Why can't these same opportunities be made available in every U.S. location? The Retail Action Project's #JustHours campaign holds companies accountable for forcing workers into unstable unpredictable part time retail jobs, because they can do better. Forever 21 has an opportunity to do the right thing -- to show its employees that it respects the work we do and the valuable contribution we make to the company each day. Every Forever 21 store should have full-time opportunities for hard-working employees. NOTE: The author of this petition has chosen to use a pseudonym to protect her identity. The Retail Action Project has verified that she works for Forever 21.

My name is Duane, and I’m a proud father of my beautiful five-year-old daughter. I worked at Juicy Couture’s flagship store on 5th Avenue in New York City for almost four years in the stock department. I started this petition with my coworker Darrell, because while we stock & sell Juicy Couture’s $200 jeans and sweaters, the company decided they don’t want to take care of their workers. Darrell was a successful full-time sales associate for two and half years, until the company started pushing full-time workers out. When I started, I also got 40 hours a week, but I struggled along with my coworkers as our hours were cut. Eventually, I was down to 14 hours each week. When I asked for more hours, they said they couldn’t give them to me because I didn’t have open availability – because of my daughter. When we began working at Juicy Couture, many of us were full-time. Now, only 19 of the store’s 128 employees are full-time! Not only are they firing full-time workers and replacing us with a part-time workforce, just this month Juicy capped all part-time workers hours at 21 hours per week. We quickly realized that Juicy Couture is doing everything they can to not take care of its workers. See, it was hard enough for us to make ends meet in New York City as full-time retail workers. But by keeping hours under 30 per week, Juicy Couture will no longer be required to offer their workers affordable health care – part of the Affordable Health Care Act’s plan to make sure more working Americans have basic health care. Further, we were told we’re only eligible for paid time off in case we’re sick or have other responsibilities if we work 1400 hours in one year. We did the math, and realized part-time workers reach that at 21 hours per week. This means that the vast majority of Juicy Couture’s workers will not ever get one single paid sick day. Darrell and I are just two of the full-time employees that have been forced out of Juicy Couture by having our hours cut or being fired. Now we’re speaking out on behalf of my coworkers who remain at the store, because we all deserve Just Hours. We know from experience that Juicy has loyal customers and dedicated employees -- if enough of us speak out and demand Just Hours, they'll have no choice but to act.

Our store deserves to operate smoothly a majority of the time. We want you to know that we love this store. We love Starbucks. We love each other. We are asking to be listened to and heard, and to find actual solutions to these problems. We are asking to be staffed so that we are not in tears on the floor. We are only asking that someone will work with us to make this store even better, so that we don’t need to transfer to other stores or leave the company we love and know can do better for us.