Supermarkets, you really can’t do this

Father Arjan van de Groep heard that his 15-year-old daughter had to work overtime at the supermarket, but that those extra hours were not being paid. What? He won’t stand for it, and is furious in a Facebook post. Is working unpaid overtime normal?

Arjan’s 15-year-old daughter works two hours in the evening at Supermarket Jumbo Leussink in Aalten. If she hasn’t finished her work within those two hours, she has to keep working until it’s done. And that extra time doesn’t appear on her payslip. Unfair, father Van de Groep fumes in his Facebook post. ‘Ridiculous, this is pure injustice!’

A chocolate bar for the shock

Supermarket owner Tijn Leussink regrets that the father vented on Facebook instead of contacting the supermarket to talk through the disagreement. Van de Groep’s daughter did raise the issue with her supervisor, but that actually resulted in little more than… a chocolate bar.

Unpaid shelf-stacking

But wait: this is not a new problem. More than two years ago, NOS collected complaints from other young supermarket employees who had to work unpaid. Sometimes shelf-stackers were not allowed to stop working until the entire store was spick and span again; one shelf-stacker says that this sometimes made him late for school. There were also problems with reporting sick, and the young employees were not always placed in the correct salary scale. If, for example, you work as head cashier but are listed on the payroll as a cashier, that obviously isn’t right.

All those quarter-hours

Last year, an employee of Vomar faced his employer in court. The issue: pay for the hours the employee had to wait before being allowed to leave the supermarket. Vomar’s staff regulations stated that all employees had to wait for one another until they could all leave the premises together after closing time. But they had to clock out; they were no longer working. Having to wait fifteen minutes for free every day until you are allowed to go home—is that fair? Absolutely not, the judge ruled, and Vomar had to pay for all those quarter-hours.

Taking advantage

The trade union is not at all pleased with these kinds of stories. ‘This obviously cannot and may not happen,’ FNV Jong trade union chairman Bas van Weegberg tells AD. All work must be paid. But, he says: ‘Of course, many young people work in supermarkets who do not yet know their rights very well. They do sometimes take advantage of that.’

Also read:

• 12 things supermarket employees find really annoying
• Supermarket employees on customers’ kindest gestures
• Oops! AH in Leiden manipulates photo paying tribute to shelf-stackers

Source: AD.nl, NOS.nl