Spring cleaning spurs Home Depot to hire 70,000

[Liberal_in_LA]

Get those orange aprons ready for the spring cleaning rush.

Home Depot announced Thursday it plans to hire 70,000 temporary workers at its U.S. stores to handle its spring selling season, the busiest time of the year for the home improvement chain.

The hiring target is 10,000 more than its announced target a year ago, although at that time it ended up hiring about 70,000 workers. While the jobs are intended to be temporary, Home Depot said that there is a possibility of permanent employment for many of those hired.

"About half of The Home Depot's 2011 seasonal hires stayed on in permanent positions," said the company.

http://money.cnn.com/2012/01/12/news/companies/home_depot_hiring/index.htm?iid=HP_Highlight&hpt=hp_t3

The spring shopping season at Home Depot (HD, Fortune 500) is like the holiday shopping season for the typical retailer. It starts in mid-February in the warmer states, and by March in the northern parts of the country, and runs through July 4.

[peacebird]

1. Hopefully a large number are transitioned to permanent jobs

[Saving Hawaii]

6. UPS hired me as a temp. After the holidays they gave me a full-time slot.

I eventually left for a job I really wanted to do but UPS was a pretty dang good place to work. Nice union employer that was afraid to walk on its employees. Reasonable pay and good benefits. I felt like I had some dignity when I worked there.

I suspect that quite a few of those hired as temps will transition to perms, but my guess is that Home Depot's total number of permanent employees won't change very much. Most of those promoted to FT will be replacing perms who've promoted or left.

[readsome5]

2. What Kind of an Employer is Home Depot?

What Kind of Employer is “The Home Depot”?
The sad reality of working in America today is shown by how many of the “new” fortune 100 and 500 corporations treat their employees like disposable merchandise. Most of the America’s largest employers are no longer manufacturing companies but are part of the floundering retailing sector that now comprises more than 70% of our economy. Most of their workers make less per hour than what I earned when I left the military more than 40 years ago and most receive few if any benefits. Shortly after leaving the service, because of my military training in communications and electronics, I had my choice of 25 or 30 good paying manufacturing and communications industry jobs with good benefits, including a defined pension, paid holidays and vacations and fully paid health and life insurance.

I worked for more than 35 years for many fortune “100” and “500” companies, as an industrial electrician and electrical technician. I was a member of more than a dozen unions. We received constant training in the latest technologies. Because of America’s strong union memberships, most of these employers were forced to negotiate collective bargaining agreements in good faith and treat their employees fairly. And those workers reciprocated with loyalty and hard work

Beginning in the late 70’s, my family and I suffered through 4 manufacturing plant closings. After all the good paying jobs disappeared, I was forced to survive doing side jobs as an electrician, carpenter and handyman.

When The Home Depot expanded into the Chicago area, they began hiring craftsmen with construction experience. I was hired and worked as a sales associate and a “Homer” working with contractors. I did the store takeoffs on contractor and homeowner blueprints for building materials and millwork. We helped open one of the new stores. We were extremely busy and it took more than a year to finally get most new store problems straightened out. I worked there more than 18 months and worked in every department in the store. In the beginning, they didn’t have a driver with a CDL license so I also had to drive the delivery truck and deliver orders. I even delivered orders on the roof carrier on my wagon. I also built all of the store displays. Working at the store that first year was very chaotic. I asked many of the old timers who had transferred in from other stores, if their previous stores were as disorganized as ours. They told me every store was the same, screwed up. Most of the old timers were just biding their time trying to get their 7 years in so they would be fully vested in the profit sharing plan and would then quit and find other work.

I’ve worked in hundreds of different manufacturing plants in many different industries but none of them were as unsafe as working in a Home Depot store. Extremely heavy merchandise was stocked 4 levels high. I’ve seen and read of many employees and customers seriously injured and even killed in a Home Depot store. One of our fellow workers was seriously injured when a large section of lumber fell on him. I’ve never been injured in more than 35 years working in construction or manufacturing. Unfortunately, in November of 1995, I sustained a crush injury to my right hand when I tried to release the brake on a lumber cart that someone had locked and jammed. These brakes have since been removed from Home Depot stores. A couple of weeks later, I was moving an 80 lb. mirror door down a ladder for an elderly customer from the second level. My previously injured right hand gave way and I tried to hold onto the door with my left hand so that the door wouldn’t fall down on the customer standing at the bottom of the ladder. The door pulled me down the ladder and I jammed and broke a bone in my knee when I landed on the floor. The door barely missed falling on the customer. The broken bone got caught in the knee joint, damaged the cartilage. I’ve since had to undergo two knee operations and now need a third

Home Depot then fired me after I tried unsuccessfully, for several weeks, to get my department manager to write up an accident report and after finally being allowed to go to the company clinic after another manager wrote the report.

Because I was fired while on light duty, there was never any job that I could return to on light or restricted duty. I had averaged less than $2,350 a year earnings since being injured and have had no earnings at all since 2002. Before working for Home Depot, my last full year of earnings working full-time as an electrician was $62,918. I’ve had no earnings for the last 11 years. At the time of my first knee operation, I was earning more than $20 per hour, working as an electrician at a manufacturing company, plus doing side jobs. That was about $40,000 a year plus overtime and side jobs.

Home Depot and or their insurance companies including Liberty Mutual, have denied medical treatments and payments consistently and repeatedly from the very beginning. They have consistently refused payments for prescribed pain medications that would have allowed me to be able to work at times. They have also refused vocational training.

If Home Depot had cooperated fully and according to the law with my doctors and me, medical treatments would not have taken 15 years. These necessary treatments are still not completed. I also may have been able to return to some form of consistent employment. Because of Home Depot’s unreasonable and vexatious conduct, I’m now permanently disabled.

There’s an incredibly long list of denied medical treatments and payments of medical bills, transportation expenses and TTD payments.
Throughout these many years, Home Depot, through it’s attorney and insurance companies, has repeatedly said they would reimburse me for transportation expenses for my medical treatments. They have not paid one single expense as promised and as required.The history of my case and the resultant consequences to me clearly shows Home Depot’s contempt for Worker’s Compensation Laws. Home Depot or its insurance company have never given any written reason, as required, for any of the denied tests, medical treatments or medications and for the refusal to pay bills and awarded payments or for the termination of TTD payments without cause and before I was able to return to work.

Workers Compensation Statutes are very clear concerning payments to petitioners. “If the employer refuses to pay a medical bill, it must promptly give the employee a written explanation for the refusal.” “If an employer stops or withholds payment of TTD benefits before the employee has returned to work, the employer must give the employee a written explanation for this action no later than the date of the last TTD payment.” “Failure to provide this notice may result in assessment of penalties against the employer, as well as an order to pay the employee’s attorney fees. If an employer unreasonably delays payment or fails to pay TTD, the employer may be required to pay a penalty to the employee.” Home Depot terminated TTD payments after my knee operation in 1997 before medical treatments were completed and before I was able to return to work.

Additionally, Home Depot denied authorization for a second prescribed knee operation for more than 4 ½ years. They again terminated TTD payments in June 2005 before I was able to return to work or before the vocational rehabilitation ordered by the Cook County Circuit Court.
No doctor or medical provider will even discuss any treatment for a Worker’s Compensation case unless treatment is authorized beforehand. My own medical insurance company will not even allow tests or medications if it concerns a Worker’s Compensation injury. If treatment is not authorized, you have to pay cash up front, as I have had to do many times, in order to even see a provider. And when you can’t work and have no money and are not receiving TTD payments, you just don’t have money for treatments or tests. Many providers are already reluctant to treat Worker’s Compensation cases because of historically slow payments for services. I’ve had to rely on the Veterans Administration, for pain meds.

Home Depot has been denying treatments and payments throughout a 15-year period. These countless denials were done without justification or written reasons. The seven orthopedic surgeons were trying to remedy my injuries so that my medical condition could be cured or stabilized. The consequences of these delays, is the condition I find myself in today. I am permanently disabled, destroyed financially, unable to be self sufficient and still trying to recover from a second knee surgery nine years after being injured and now waiting for authorization for more knee and hand treatments.

If Home Depot had authorized the many treatments many years ago, when they were prescribed, the treatments would have been completed long ago. The consequences of these denied medical treatments, is that my knee condition has worsened to a point where I am no longer able to have the cartilage implant which was prescribed years ago and that I now need a knee replacement. I am now permanently disabled because of these many denials. I have been employed at my trades for more than 40 years. I was injured when I was only 49 years old, these last 15-years should have been some of my most productive but because of this unethical employer, they have been my worst.

Home Depot’s unreasonable and vexatious conduct throughout this 15-year case has caused severe physical and financial consequences for my family and me. I was fired from my job of 1 ½ years at Home Depot for no cause and simply because I attempted to get medical treatment for my work injuries. I had to file bankruptcy after my first knee operation in September 1997. We lost our home and entire life’s savings. We were evicted from our home in June 2000. I then lived in my van for many months. I have lost other employment benefits besides wages because Home Depot fired me and I was unable to be employed at another job with the permanent restrictions.

I’m now destroyed financially and need a third knee replacement operation because Home Depot wouldn’t authorize a cartilage implant 8 years ago when it was first prescribed and I need a bone graft operation on my dominant hand. I’m unable to work and support my family and myself because of these two permanent disabilities. On top of that, Home Depot again terminated TTD payments 5 years ago before I was able to return to work or be retrained for another job. I couldn’t afford food or daily living expenses for my family. While living in my van, I filed for Social Security Disability and was awarded 100% disability in 2007 for my hand and knee injuries and the stomach problems caused by pain medications.

I continue to plead with Home Depot, as I have done over the last 15 years, to allow and approve treatments so that I can fully and finally attain some medical stability. The Workers Compensation Commissioners have ruled against Home Depot 3 times. The Cook County Circuit Court has ruled against Home Depot twice and remanded back to the Commission. The Commission even penalized Home Depot for denying treatments. Home Depot is again appealing the decision and denying prescribed treatments.

Home Depot has destroyed my health and my family’s financial well being. My credit has been destroyed and I can’t even use my Veterans benefits to buy a home.

I just heard of another Home Depot employee who had worked for them for 6 ½ years and was fired for no valid reason. I guess Home Depot doesn’t want their employees to get fully vested in their profit sharing plan and will find any excuse to fire workers before they are fully vested at 7-years.

Home Depot will fire and destroy employees who are injured in their stores. They will fire loyal employees before they can get fully vested in their stock plan. But then they will turn around and give a CEO that ran the company into the ground more than 200 million dollars in a golden parachute to leave the company. Home Depot is not an ethical or honorable employer.

There are good retail companies like Costco, Lowe’s and Aldi’s who treat their employees like they are the company’s most important assets. Home Depot is not one of those ethical companies. That's the reason Home Depot has such a large turnover of employees and has to hire 70,000 new employees every summer.

[flying rabbit]

12. Wow!

[dmallind]

17. retail sector 70% = automatic bullshitting idiot

Consumer spending is 70% of the economy - but whose spending is entirely retail? Conflating two very different things means zero credibility.

His personal story may or may not have merit, but by putting an obvious lie front and center he loses any assumption of honesty.

[Liberal_in_LA]

18. omg!

[onethatcares]

19. may I?

have your permission to print this and leave it various places?

[spanone]

3. good news....

[blueclown]

4. More low-paying retail jobs with no benefits!

Just what America needs.

America should tell Home Depot to shove it. American workers are not disposal garbage.

[onenote]

5. do you have a job?

[Saving Hawaii]

7. We can't all just sell shit to one another. Somebody actually has to make shit. /nt

[onenote]

8. do you have a job?

[tkmorris]

9. Objection, your Honor! Relevance.

[onenote]

10. I think its relevant

whether or not a person suggesting that people who don't have jobs should tell a company offering jobs to shove it has a job himself/herself

[joeglow3]

11. Over-ruled

It is easy for someone with a job to tell other's to turn down jobs and tell the company to "shove it".

[blueclown]

15. Yes.

At a crappy retail job. They are awful, and nobody should be thankful that some of these types of jobs are being created, paying a rate that is well below the living wage and without any benefits. The fact that these types of jobs are being hailed as job creation at DU is just stunning.

[onenote]

16. why don't you tell your employer to shove it and quit

since you seem quick to suggest that those without jobs not take them, why not lead by example?

[snooper2]

20. You know what a p-trap is or what expanded metal lath is?

Maybe you can make more at Home Depot?

[deacon]

13. Hiring? The GOP hates hiring. They'll hate this. n/t

[Karmadillo]

14. And then on to the tomato harvest!

[jmowreader]

21. It's not for spring cleaning

It is the spring gardening season. If you go in for one of those jobs, expect to spend the majority of your shift outdoors, lifting heavy things and being asked questions about plants and fertilizers. (Which they will teach you the answers to.)