Urban Outfitters: "Come work for free! It'll be fun!"

[Swift]

As the email, obtained by Gawker, explained, "October will be the busiest month yet for the center, and we need additional helping hands to ensure the timely shipment of orders."

URBN pitched the idea, which would see staff members working side by side on weekends with people who are actually paid to be there, as an opportunity to "experience our fulfillment operations first hand" and "help pick, pack and ship orders."

The message encouraged employees to "Get your co-workers together for a team building activity!"

http://www.cbc.ca/news/trending/urba...work-1.3263760

And apparently some idiots have agreed to it. Must be in fear of losing their job if they don't, that's the only explanation I can come up with.

[ComixZone]

I think it's a bit mean to call a slave an idiot.

Welcome to the North American job market.

[Looch City]

Does it count under "volunteering hours"?

[Erick Estrada]

Any salaried employees working on projects downtown have likely worked weekends or extra hours on jobs with deadlines so this isn't exactly unheard of. That said typically these kind of jobs pay pretty well so working a weekend isn't a big deal and the employee typically gets compensated with time in lieu. I don't think the average person working at Urban Outfitters get paid enough to cover working a full day or days for free as IMO this is taking advantage of employees. Also you can see a scenario of fear that employees that don't volunteer are the first to get their shifts cut back when things slow down.

[Locke]

Slavery: Gets things done!

Its impressive what you can accomplish when you just dont give a crap about a specific group of people.

Who needs a $15/hr minimum wage when people will work for free? Now theres a Moral Business Practice!

[Table 5]

Urban Outfitters is a pretty shady company from what I've heard. They have a reputation of luring designers/illustrators with the promise of a working relationship, and then just stealing their style without any compensation. They contacted me once about working with them, but I heard way too many bad-client stories about their practises to take them on.

[GGG]

If you read the article they rejected any of their hourly employees. It appears to be targeted at their corporate staff.

Still a scam but not quite as bad

[peter12]

Probably not unprecedented in human history, but also probably a sign of the increasing devaluation of low-skill work in the modern global competitive economy.