Who are we?

We are blue-shirts fighting for better pay, benefits and working conditions at the nearly 1,000 retail Best Buy stores across the United States. Whether you’re on the sales floor, working front-end, doing picks, setting displays, an agent at the precinct or in our clients home we want to help make your lives better.

Why a union?

Wages for Best Buy employees have been stagnant since mid-2020 during the height of COVID. Inflation has hit unprecedented levels, and the company has dutifully stuck to their plan of a maximum of 3% annual raises. Pay caps are unrealistically low for skilled and/or labor intensive work (and many employees are at or over cap with no room for growth). And some stores bring in new hires just 1-2% below the current pay caps while leaving existing employees paid less than the people they’re training. Hours are inconsistent and unreliable for part time workers, and stores are barely staffed, burning out the employees who remain. All this while the company has paid for billions in stock buybacks, laid off thousands of workers and continued CEO and executive pay that pays them 300-400 times what a line level employee earns.

For Geek Squad agents, you’ve been asked to repair and work on specialty devices like iPhones and Samsung phones without any change in pay or recognition of the new demands on you.

The company has also consolidated and eliminated many avenues store employees would have considered promotional opportunities. Leadership roles have been gutted. And “shift lead” is in some cases paid so unfairly as to not be worth the effort for employees wanting to advance.

What could a union negotiate for us?

There are many things a union could negoiate for. Below is just a sample of what could be on the table:

  • Regular cost of living adjustments. And not just to your wage, but also to the salary range of your position so you won’t hit your “cap” on wages and be stuck with nowhere to grow.
  • For sales floor, more “spiff” opportunities, ideally with a tiered system that rewards efficiency in offering products and services. For product flow, wages based on job role instead of a catch-all “product flow” pay range (employees doing picks rewarded with incentives for good performance, employees doing merchandising and inventory related roles paid at a more stable rate, truck crew based on seniority with annual performance raises (in addition to, not instead of cost of living adjustments).
  • For capped employees, the annual bonus should be more significant, and ideally be done twice a year.
  • Layoffs should be planned better, and the company should have to prove every other option (including reducing stock buybacks or dividends) was taken before resorting to them. They should have to try attrition first for any labor reductions.
  • Guaranteed hours for full time and part time (40 hours for FT, 20-25 hours for PT).
  • Actual training. Bring back new employee induction. E-learnings only get you so far and far too often new employees are thrown into the thick of it with very little practical experience.
  • Better health insurance options. The company should also pay more than they do and provide plans with lower deductibles and out of pocket costs. Blue-shirts are the cornerstone of the company, and they should feel enabled to seek care and treatment without fear of financial ruin or having to choose between their health and their other needs.
  • Guaranteed sick time (separate from your paid time off) no matter where you work in the country.
  • Staffing levels should be brought back to reasonable levels. So many stores are run on shoe-string labor budgets that lead to one or two people calling out making customers angry and employees burned out. “One direction” has been a colossal failure, we have people coming to talk with expert salespeople and finding out it’s one person who has to know computers, appliances, home theater and mobile. How is this in any way driving “expert service”?
  • Four day workweek for FT (either four 10-hour shifts or eventually four 8-hour shifts at the same rate of pay as 40 hours). PT would have the option to work 1-2 days at 8-10 hours or work shorter shifts if they choose to.
  • Paid lunches. How many times do you go to relax in the hub just to have someone call for you over the walkie or come to ask you questions while you’re trying to eat? TLC won’t allow you to “end meal” while on your lunch, so your only option is to manually enter time edits later if you even remember. How much unpaid labor is the company getting for free? Just pay for the entire lunch period and shorten employee shifts by half an hour (so 8 hours is actually 8 hours at work and not 8.5).
  • Breaks should be mandatory, not optional as some leadership treats them now. Employees who miss breaks because of low staffing or a busy floor should receive bonus pay. TLC should have buttons for starting and stopping breaks and an audit can be done to confirm the process is followed.
  • A grievance procedure that includes employees. Currently you can challenge termination through HR, but the process is archaic and heavily slanted in favor of the company.
  • Weingarten rights. If you’re brought into the SDR for a discussion that could or is planned to be disciplinary in nature, you should have the right to have someone with you on your side as well to advise you and stand up for you.

What about the employee discount and accommodations?

They’re great programs, but the problem is, it’s not a “benefit” so much for just the employee as it is for the company. Training materials can only teach you so much. But hands on and daily use of a product will often teach you so much more. And the fact that the discount is cost + 5% tells you that they’re still making money off of the transaction, just not as much (potentially) as a retail sale. Remember, margins on products vary wildly. Some products are barely cheaper at all (think laptops and desktop computers, cell phones, etc.), while other products will have huge margins and be quite a bit cheaper (think appliances, home audio and some televisions, cables, etc.). But at the end of the day, the company isn’t losing any significant amount of money doing this and the value gained from hands on experience makes this more than worth it for the company. This is why accommodations exist as well (and have existed since before Best Buy; companies want their sales people to be able to speak to the value and capabilities of their products in ways only an enthusiast can).

Employee pricing is not a substitute for fair wages and working conditions. In the end, it really benefits the company more than the employee because of the training the company can save on.

What's next?

Talk with your co-workers. Ask them if they want to organize and fight for better pay and working conditions. Tell them the benefits of union organizing and representation, like an average of 25% more pay, and free or lower cost health insurance. Better processes that give blue-shirts the means to object to and fight disciplinary action.

When workers stand together they get better treatment from the company and a better quality of life.

Going forward we will add more information including a way to get pins, stickers and buttons to support our work. As well as a way to register and receive updates on our efforts and how you can help.

You're also welcome to join the conversation on Reddit:

Additionally, we have the following resources:

There's also a separate Frequently Asked Questions page that will be updated going forward.

You can also watch some videos on unions, including the types of challenges you might expect from management and what you can do to start your own drive at work (warning: you may need to be off-network to watch these as Best Buy may block some video content):

How do I contact you?

You can e-mail us at contact@bestbuylaborunion.org if you want to get involved or have questions or other feedback.

Not affiliated with nor endorsed by Best Buy Co., Inc.

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