Emeryville Guitar Center Violates Minimum Wage Ordinance Says Employees

Minimum Wage Ordinance Violations:

City Attorney Investigates Guitar Center 

Employees of the Guitar Center store on Shellmound Street have filed complaints with the City of Emeryville alleging their employer is not paying them the proper wage as the new Minimum Wage Ordinance mandates the Tattler has learned.  Employees say they're being paid $12.25 per hour and the store manager has violated the $14.44 per hour provisions mandated by the Ordinance for every Emeryville employer with 56 or more employees.
The employees say the manager is telling the City the store formerly had more than 55 employees but he had fired enough of them before the new law took effect on July 2nd to bring down the number of employees to 55, the cut off point requirement between the two differing wages.  The contention is that the store still has more than 55 employees according to the employees and that even if the manager was correct that he had fired the requisite number of employees, the Ordinance provides for employee counts to be averaged over the preceding fiscal quarter and that average for Guitar Center was in excess of 55 employees.  The manager failed to understand how employees are counted by the City before he started firing them they allege.

The Guitar Center is further violating the Minimum Wage Ordinance in other ways by misrepresenting the nature of its business the employees say.  The manager is attempting to portray the Shellmound Street business as two businesses to the City in order to employ more than the 55 employee cut off by claiming a portion of the store, the so called 'Guitar Center studios', is a separate business they say. Further, the employees were not properly informed of their rights because the manager failed to post required documents they say.

An employee complainant who wished to remain anonymous out of fear of reprisals from the store manager told the Tattler the employees at Guitar Center intend on forcing the store to obey the Ordinance and they expect to receive their legitimately earned back pay, "I was excited that the citizens of Emeryville agree with so many other Americans that people deserve to be paid a living wage.  I find it disheartening that the Guitar Center is subverting that" the employee said of the new law and the manager's attempts to bypass it.
Michael Guina, Emeryville's City Attorney said the City is actively taking up the issue, "We're in the initial stages of the investigation of the Guitar Center employee's complaints.  If we find evidence of wrong doing, we will work with the employer to make sure they comply with the ordinance".

Guitar Center, which is majority-owned by private equity firms Ares Management and former Republican Party presidential aspirant Mitt Romney's Bain Capital, has had a long history of labor strife including union quashing.  The Nation did an expose piece in 2013 on Guitar Center's employee mistreatment centering on low employee pay and sleazy tactics.

The Emeryville store manager could not be reached for comment.

Guitar Center Pays Unfair Wages, Faces Possible Union Action

Emeryville's Guitar Center store at the Public Market may be the site of looming labor strife, the Rolling Stone magazine says.  The national retail chain is owned by the private equity firm Bain Capital, made famous by association with presidential hopeful Mitt Romney.
From Rolling Stone Magazine:

Guitar Center Unionization Effort Spreads to Chicago

Employees form the company's second-ever retail union, 

citing unfair wages

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A Guitar Center employee helps a customer.

JB Reed/ Bloomberg News/Getty

By SPENCER WOODMAN

August 11, 2013 1:40 PM ET

Employees at a Guitar Center store in Chicago voted Friday to form the company's second-ever retail union. This marks an important win for the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU), which, after successfully unionizing a Manhattan Guitar Center in May, suffered setbacks in organizing two other New York stores. The new bargaining unit in Chicago will seek to improve wages and to change the store's sales commission structure. With Friday's success, the union now says that a national organizing effort focused on other Guitar Center stores appears promising.

Ahead of the Chicago vote, Guitar Center – a $2-billion company owned by Bain Capital – engaged in a vigorous campaign to dissuade workers from union participation. "[Friday's] outcome won't be official until the Labor board has ratified the vote count, but what we do know is that so far, the union's campaign hasn't been very successful at all," says Dennis Haffeman, the chain's executive vice president of human resources. "We feel that's because once our associates learn all the facts, they're able to make that important decision for themselves." In June, amid fierce competition between management and pro-union employees, two attempts to unionize Guitar Center stores in Brooklyn and Queens were either unsuccessful or called off.

Brian Webb, a pro-union sales associate at the Chicago store, says he struggles on his pay of roughly $11 an hour. "I make exactly as much as I did when I started here seven years ago," says Webb, 33 – who, like many Guitar Center employees, is also an aspiring musician. (Webb plays guitar and sings in a local band called Jonny Rumble.) "Anyone who works a hard, 40-hour week should be able to earn an honest living," says Webb. "This isn't just about our store – it's part of a larger effort to revive the middle class in this country."

Guitar Center tells Rolling Stone that it is in the midst of a nationwide review of employee compensation, a move it says is unrelated to the recent union activity. The union – which has received backing for its efforts from stars such as Tom Morello and Kathleen Hanna – says it has heard from Guitar Center employees all over the country seeking to organize stores. Although it will not disclose specifics, RWDSU says that all regions are on the table for future organizing.

RWDSU alleges that Guitar Center's management, in addition to frequently making anti-union statements during employee meetings, suggested to Chicago workers that winning a robust union contract could lead management to consider shuttering their entire store. (Guitar Center rejects this assertion as "positively untrue.") Such a threat could have violated laws that govern labor relations. Bain Capital has, in the past, been accused of heavy-handed and even illegal tactics to squash labor-organizing efforts.

Although falling short of accusing the union outright, Guitar Center claims that a Chicago store employee appointed by the company to monitor yesterday's union election found his car disabled the morning of the vote. RWDSU calls the statement a desperate ploy to cast doubt on its overwhelming win. Seventy-six percent of the Chicago store's workers who voted Friday did so in favor of unionization, according to RWDSU.

A primary hope of pro-union Guitar Center employees in Chicago is to change the company's commission structure, generally referred to as "fading." The system requires employees to equal their hourly earnings in unpaid sales commissions before actually earning any money on top of base hourly wages. Workers say that this system does not properly tie pay to merit, as employees who perform well on the sales floor yet must also clock hours on non-sales duties can find themselves at a disadvantage. A large proportion of hours devoted to non-sales duties can leave highly skilled sales associates at or near minimum wage, according to pro-union employees. "The 'fade' has to go," says Webb. "It's basically a method they've devised to effectively dock our pay without actually docking it."

Guitar Center says it is examining the "fade" system in its in-depth analysis of employee compensation. "Our intentions," Haffeman says, "have always been clear to demonstrate to every GC associate in the country that we're listening to their concerns and their ideas, and we're not afraid to take bold action on it as well. "

Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/guitar-center-unionization-effort-spreads-to-chicago-20130811#ixzz2cAPYJ0Fb 
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Guitar Center Unionization Effort Spreads to Chicago