Not only no, but I refuse to contribute to what retailers are doing to their employees these days. Forcing them to work on Thanksgiving? Starting work on Black Friday at 4 AM? (No doubt the executives making these decisions will not be working then.) No penny in potential profit can be left on the table as long as it's possible to get it by increasingly abuse your employees with the terrible job market as leverage.
I agree. I don't like the idea of having these odd hours be a condition of employment, especially when it is time for family to be together, and it seems the best thing I can do is not support it, and encourage others to not support it.
This might sound like I'm waffling on my 'free market' stance - we might say that if the workers don't like it, they can find another job. But most things are not an all-or-nothing for me, there are places where regs/rules are appropriate. This may not be a big enough deal by itself to motivate workers leaving in large numbers, which is what it would take to force change, but maybe that gives the employer a bit too much leverage?
I'd feel better about it if they asked for volunteers, and ran the sale based on the number that sign up. From what I hear, there are a significant number of workers that want the extra pay, so that's OK for them. It would be a good PR move too.
And of course, some occupations require people to work through odd holiday hours (fire, police, hospital, etc), and you can also say that retail fits this as the workers know it's part of the deal. So it's not straight-forward.
I also worked a lot of OT for long periods, sometimes it was mostly self-motivated to get ahead, other times there was a very definite pressure to 'do it or else'. I didn't like that. I don't like to see others put in that position either.
-ERD50
