We REALLY need to stop supporting this company.

[Geekydad]

I am not defending them as a whole, but don't most jobs now require you to sign an arbitration agreement before starting work?

I think I have signed them at my last 2-3 jobs, but they're "corporate" jobs and we don't have those pesky union employees.

This!

Being a crappy employee because you are paid a low (yet reasonable for retail) wage is complete BS, and self defeating for the employee.

I was hired at a bicycle shop at a crap wage as I needed supplemental income (I was trying to make a living as an audio engineer) and was passionate about bikes. It only took six months before I was an assistant manager, and about nine more months later I was a manager. I was making $38,000/year with benefits at the age of 23, 1988, BTW.

I having reached a plateau there, and not wanting to get into being a sales rep for a national company, I jumped ship to the telecoms biz. Was able to utilize the skills I learned in retail management to help me work my way into a management position in telecom. (Side note - I eventually left telecom and run my own business now.)

All this after being a solid C-/D student/stoner in high school, and never even applying to college.

We write our own ticket people, period.

Hey, great for you! And I'm sure you're fair with your employees as well. But that was 25 years ago- things have changed and the job market is tougher; a lot of people have a lot less hope for their prospects in careers. Tough to write your own ticket when you're handed a pen that's out of ink.

 

[yakmastermax]

This!

Being a crappy employee because you are paid a low (yet reasonable for retail) wage is complete BS, and self defeating for the employee.

I was hired at a bicycle shop at a crap wage as I needed supplemental income and was passionate about bikes. It only took six months before I was an assistant manager, and about nine more months later I was a manager. I was making $38,000/year with benefits at the age of 23, 1988, BTW.

I having reached a plateau there, and not wanting to get into being a sales rep for a national company, I jumped ship to the telecoms biz. Was able to utilize the skills I learned in retail management to help me work my way into a management position in telecom. (Side note - I eventually left telecom and run my own business now.)

All this after being a solid C-/D student/stoner in high school, and never even applying to college.

We write our own ticket people, period.

With all do respect Sir I implore you to reconsider your perspective within the context that your experience regarding "working up the ladder" is from 1988, 28 years ago.

The type of opportunity you're describing, while certainly a part of the American history I'm most proud of, is simply not modern reality. Managerial positions and the ability to "move up" have been drastically reducing since the 80's and 90's. In addition real wages have gone down, and your experience is a perfect example.

Your $38,000 manager position in 1988 equates to $77,000 in 2016. Today Guitar Center managers make around $50,000. Bike store managers certainly make less.

Source: Calculate the value of $38000 in 1988 - Inflation on 38000 dollars - DollarTimes.com

 

[JMacBass65]

Probably because at $10 an hour they are making $20,000 a year at 40 hours a week and 50 work weeks per year.
Try buying a car, home, or college education for you children with that. They have no future and in the meantime are working retail. I'd be pissed too.

So I gotta ask - are you in a gigging band?? Do you get paid the same crappy $100 (or less) per band member that most of us here do??

If so - how do you approach your gigs? Do you guys half a$$ it with a bad attitude because of the crap wage?

How well does that work out?

I think most of us here realize that regardless of compensation, if we want to get anywhere, we need to BRING IT, consistently, every time.

Be it on stage, or on the sales floor of Walmart or Guitar Center, we will improve our situation in life only by meet g and /or exceeding expectations.

 

[FerruleCat]

I recently made my first purchase through Reverb, which hooked me up with Harbor Music in Redondo Beach, CA. Reverb is an interesting marketplace that way - a gateway to all kinds of vendors you never would have known about.

 

[Planespotter]

I worked at GC back in '00-'05. The wages were always bad, but once upon a time upper management really understood the culture of the biz and almost everybody that worked there was a legit player. Sadly that's not the case anymore.

 

[TheCrimsonKing]

Ah, America...

 

[-Asdfgh-]

I also am required to pay union dues which averages out to about $60 a month. ... I can opt out of the union, but I'd have to pay an agency fee that is the same amount of money.

Very different from European unions.

 

[radioface]

It is G.C's. employee's choices to stay or leave. You think they are the only ones who have crappy low paying jobs? Simple question, what business is it of ours, what goes on at G.C. or any other business? If you don't like it, don't shop there, it's as simple as that. I read the same complaints about WalMart. People need jobs, period! If an employee of G.C. leaves, there will be another to fill his/her position, quickly!

 

[JMacBass65]

Hey, great for you! And I'm sure you're fair with your employees as well. But that was 25 years ago- things have changed and the job market is tougher; a lot of people have a lot less hope for their prospects in careers. Tough to write your own ticket when you're handed a pen that's out of ink.

With all do respect Sir I implore you to reconsider your perspective within the context that your experience regarding "working up the ladder" is from 1988, 28 years ago.

The type of opportunity you're describing, while certainly a part of the American history I'm most proud of, is simply not modern reality. Managerial positions and the ability to "move up" have been drastically reducing since the 80's and 90's. In addition real wages have gone down, and your experience is a perfect example.

Your $38,000 manager position in 1988 equates to $77,000 in 2016. Today Guitar Center managers make around $50,000. Bike store managers certainly make less.

Source: Calculate the value of $38000 in 1988 - Inflation on 38000 dollars - DollarTimes.com

You don't need to tell me thing are tougher now. There were plenty of ups and downs for me, and there continue to be. Not wanting to write out my life story here, I wanted to give a high level view of my situation.

But, since you seem to think it was all rainbows and unicorns for me since it all happened so long ago, I'll fill in the details.

The course I took meant I shelved the idea of being an AE, as that was about as lucrative as being a musician........long odds of success. So, good by dream.

I'll also add that my "leaving telecoms" was due to the fact that I was laid off. This happened, by the way, after I was married, had a mortgage, and two children.

I then spent two years in the wilderness, trying to leverage my background and connections to get another job, to no avail.

So after going nearly broke, I looked at my situation and said, I'll need to make it on my own, I'll get into Real Estate.

While that has worked out for me, it's a long road to build an income. I made $12,000 my first year, for example. That's before expenses.......

In an effort to stay afloat during the unemployment and the beginning of my real estate business, I blew through all of my 401K and eventually racked up $100k in credit card debt. Never paid a single bill late though, not my mortgage, utilities, or the credit card bills.

So please, go on about how easy my road has been.

You'll forgive me if I tell you to eff off.

 

[Bunk McNulty]

As well as Musician's Friend.

Guitar Center Tells Employees To Sign Arbitration Agreements Or Lose Their Jobs

Don't worry. You won't have to shun GC, it's going away all by itself. The fine folks at Bain Capital have about sucked out every bit of money they could, and soon they'll be picking at the corpse.

Invalid Link Removed

"...the symbol of everything dysfunctional about American corporate finance, management, and retail in the modern age."

 

[-Asdfgh-]

Hey, great for you! And I'm sure you're fair with your employees as well. But that was 25 years ago- things have changed and the job market is tougher; a lot of people have a lot less hope for their prospects in careers. Tough to write your own ticket when you're handed a pen that's out of ink.

Also not everyone can be a manager as there are not sufficient managerial positions to go round, so it's not going to work as a career improvement option for everyone, even it can work for some though hard work (such as JMac, and all credit to him). The general concept is, though, that a rising tide should float all boats and improve conditions, on average, for all, which has been the case for about the last 150 years.

 

[OOD]

No, I mean the San Francisco Bay Area. Would I also need to disambiguate "West Coast" or "East Coast"? The point is that we are talking about a region where GC has stores and the absurdity that $10 per hour is a living wage if one simply employs a calculator.

Look dude, you can't just say "the bay area" and expect everybody to know what bay area you are talking about. If you would have said the San Francisco bay area the first time, I wouldn't have asked you what bay area you were talking about in the first place. No reason to get snarky when it's your lack of communications skills that stands in the way of reason. It shouldn't be like pulling teeth to get you to clearly inform me of the specific location you are referring to.

You can't honestly think I meant you can live off of $10 and hour in a place that has a minimum wage of more that $10 an hour. My original claim was wrong and I've already made it pretty clear that I understand why it was wrong. I should have said, "where I live" instead of assuming everybody's cost of living and minimum wage are the same as mine.

The person I originally replied to maid the claim that people who work at GC make $10 an hour. Obviously, places with minimum wage of higher than that could not possibly be in the realm of either of our thoughts since there are no GCs paying less than minimum wage. Because of that, I think it's unlikely that you misunderstood the intent of my statement and more likely that you want to be snarky for the sake of being snarky.

 

[MovingPitchers]

I was at the Seattle GC. Huge store. Very little people and the employees were hounding me about stuff I already knew.

I asked them if they had the USA Geddy Jazz to try out and they directed me to a Squier.

 

[OOD]

I hear you- I've never been to SC but hear it's nice out there. Everything's relative.

Our cost of living has climbed a lot in the last 5-10 years. I have no idea what a gal. of milk costs (don't drink it) but rents have jumped a lot on my side of town. I understand it's getting tougher to find a one bedroom out in the neighborhoods for under a grand. And a new 'luxury studio' I recently read about was $1400/month.

Yeah, you have a much different situation than I do.

 

[Johnny Znuff]

I'll pick up cables and picks and junk from them, but I doubt I'd ever make a major purchase there. I've gotten my last two basses right here on TB, and take my work to a local shop...

 

[Cole Louis Allar]

Personally, I think this is completely not fair. They're basically taking away workers rights. That should be illegal, but then again all that most (not all, there are some exceptions) big cash cow corporations care about is themselves. They don't care about the workers who slave to make The company money. if they did they'd actually pay us decently. Well I do like guitar center as a store, I don't think it makes sense to put a ban on them like some people probably are now because usually when one company does this the others catch up. Soon this is going to be a thing for all companies so then why would it make sense to ban one company when everyone's probably going to end up doing it eventually. That's what I'm predicting

 

[Pimpernel Smith]

The American middle class has been disappearing at a rate in direct proportion to the decline of American unions. The growth of US unions brought us what we think of as the middle class, where a man (or woman) could go out and do a weeks work and support his (her) family in comfortable surroundings. Unions brought us an end to child labor, and gave us the 5 day work week, and paid holidays.

Contrast that with a college grad working at a (fill in the blank) franchise 5 or 6 days a week, and not able to afford his own decent apartment, live comfortably, afford health care, and play reasonable bass gear. Our purchasing power has steadily declined since the mid 1970's, when inflation is calculated in.

Something has to change. I will not support any franchise who abuses and underpays its employees. Wake up, America!

 

[1954bassman]

So is everyone boycotting all companies that do this to their employees, or just GC/MF?

 

[CGremlin]

IANAL, but I suspect that this kind of company coercion is illegal on its face. If so, and it's then implemented, it can't be legally enforced - the key word being "legally". Of course in that situation, it would take a test case lawsuit in order to successfully challenge it. And there's a big part of the rub. Full circle. And a strangely familiar narrative these days.

There have already been plenty of suits over this very thing. As far as I know, they've mostly ended up with the arbitration clause being found unenforceable because the courts generally don't see "employment or continued employment" as sufficient consideration for such a one-sided clause in the employment agreement, although it can vary by state.

Edit - minor changes after researching the case law a little bit more. IANAL, not legal advice, etc.

 

[Biggbass]

Actually, i think employment at GC would be excellent training for those interested in a career as a working musician. Your GC boss/BL is only interested in what they can get out of you and the second someone even a little better comes along, you are history. In the other side of the line, your GC customers/listening audience by and large have zero appreciation for your skills and the sacrifices you made to obtain them. They will like you as long as you can do something for them but when that ends, gone. The pay sucks, forcing you to room up with other musicians in marginal neighborhoods, and you have zero job security. I'm sure there are some points i've mussed, but you get the picture.

Yes, you forgot to mention the valuable cash register skills that can be acquired.