Complaint Review: Follett Educational Services - Woodridge Illinois

     this is in the nature of a confirmation/corroboration of this complaint, rather than a rebuttal.  as an individual who worked for follett higher education group (referred to hereafter as fheg) at their montclair state university store, i can confirm that this attitude seems to be institutional in nature and entrenched at store-level and above management.

     the montclair state university bookstore is run with a bare minimum of regular bookstore staffers, mostly part-time.  the company has been engaging at least in this one store in what appears to be a pattern of "plausibly deniable" behaviors to rid themselves of the costs involved with regular employees.

     the shipping/receving staffers work in an area of the store where the lighting is inferior, due to fewer fixtures, to the lighting in the main part of the bookstore.  this caused one of the shipping/receiving employees to wear his glasses more than he might normally have done.  this particular worker eventually went into the hospital for some tests, suffered a heart attack, and died there.  while i have no direct evidence, i believe he was worked to death.  fheg did not replace him.

     one of the bookstore employees, a man named steven, for no reason that i understood, went in constant fear of the store manager.  steven  was overprescribed for "anti-psychotic" and anti-depressant medications, and eventually suffered a psychotic breakdown and attempted suicide.  he was placed on disability.  fheg did not replace him.

     the other shipping/receiving employee had a laundry list of pointless and petty complaints and dislikes about me. i am convinced this was racially motivated. instead of having these "issues" adjudicated, he invented a comment that i did not make, had me arrested and fired.  this caused me great financial and legal difficulties, to say the  least.  neither the store manager nor the bookstore manager intervened on my behalf at any time in this process.  i do not believe fheg replaced me.

     i spoke with the stores office manager at one point regarding the store managers attitude.  i stated that i believed that if his superiors ordered him to jump out a window, he would not only say yes, but ask which floor.  she agreed with my estimation.  i believe that these "attritions" did not originate with him, but were directed from at least a regional level management.  the bookstore manager appeared to be afraid that he would lose his position if he spoke up or disagreed with these policies, and submitted to every diminishment in his authority and staff.  at one point, the bookstore employees were told in so many words that if we complained, the company would fire us and hire other workers.

     fheg hires temp workers to do most of their work during the busy season.  they hire and rehire students who are not only uninterested in customer service, but in paying attention to the details of their jobs, working hard, and performing procedures correctly.  fheg is pursuing a typical "penny wise, pound foolish" corporate management policy whcih will ultimately bankrupt them.  personally, i cant wait.

Ok so it's a little hot. Sometimes environment can become a problem but do you think a roofer is going to whine about a little heat? It's not required that a business use air-conditioning everywhere, depends on where you live. First management terminates people, then they let (I guess you meant layed off) 25% of their sales force. So then they must've terminated more than 25% of their sales force in addition to the 25% lay-offs? How many hours do you work in a day? Because I used to work a 9 to 5 job, in sales, and I could easily pull 4 hours on the phone, and well over 60 calls a day, while taking as many breaks as I desired, or even going off to do repair work for an hour or so... How is that a demanding, sweatshop requirement? Yes having your territories taken away is kind of like your boss theiving your commission. Some companies exploit people into building customer lists for them for cheap. Unfortunately you were a victim of a somewhat immoral business, but certainly not an illegal one. Did you get paid at least minimum wage? So do they intentionally hire people at one rate, then decrease it over time, and it's fixed like this? Are new employees getting hired at the same rate as you? More or less? How is this system working? You are entitled to get paid for EVERY minute that you work. Get copies of those records and sue them for what you have been robbed if it's for a big enough amount. I see nothing in your complaint that validates the claims that your ex-employer is a sweatshop operator, get something that paints a clearer picture.