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Subscribe to RSSBlack Friday starts at 8 p.m. on Thanksgiving day and retailers expect to ring up as much as 20 percent of their holiday sales over the Thanksgiving weekend. CNBC's Courtney Reagan reports.
Target employees are seeing red after the retailer announced its stores will open at 9 p.m. on Thanksgiving night, cutting into holiday time for workers. An online petition asking Target to not open on Thanksgiving has over 179,000 signatures, and the number continues to rise.
Thanksgiving, a time for family, togetherness, turkey ... and standing for hours to service the needs of the relentless hordes of shoppers seeking the last Furby and deeply discounted HDTV sets. Indeed, Black Friday, which traditionally started in the pre-dawn hours of Friday, has seen its hours pushed back in recent years so that stores start offering savings on Thanksgiving night itself.
This year, Walmart, Toys R Us, Kmart, and Sears are all opening their doors at 8 pm Thursday. Together with Target, that's two to four hours before they kicked things off last year.
A Target worker started an online petition calling on the retailer to not move Black Friday to Thursday. In a few days the petition gathered nearly 200,000 signatures. NBC's Diana Alvear reports.
Reached for comment, Target spokesperson Molly Snyder told NBC News: "Target’s opening time was carefully evaluated with our guests, team and the business in mind. Across the country, team member preferences were considered in creating our store staffing schedules. Thanksgiving weekend is one of the busiest of the year, and we appreciate our Target team’s flexibility on this weekend and throughout the holiday season."
Synder told NBC News that Target employees always receive time-and-a-half pay for working national holidays. Workers clocking hours during Thanksgiving and Black Friday also receive additional pay bonuses, she said. Only one-third of Target's workforce is scheduled to work on Thanksgiving.
Some employees are "excited" for the chance to work extra hours, she said. "We’ve heard from many stores that they had more team members volunteer to work than they had available shifts," Snyder said.
Not everyone is thrilled about stores being open on Thanksgiving, with Casey St. Clair, a Target employee, and Stacey Widlitz, S.W. Retail Advisors.
But there are a few people out there, almost 200,000, who think that something with "Friday" in the name should actually start on Friday.
The Change.org user who created the petition, "C. Renee," is a self-described six-year employee of Target living in California. In the petition description the user wrote that having to work on Black Friday prevented him or her from visiting their family on the East Coast.
C. Renee wrote, "I currently work two jobs, substitute teaching and work Target at nights and weekends, so having Thanksgiving off really does give me that one day to relax and visit family I otherwise have no time to see." The user did not respond to an NBC News request for additional comment.
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it is already a longer Christmas season this year. Christmas is already everywhere. TOO MUCH! Sales will fall late December after long season.
Both of my kids are in management for retail companies, we already do not get to see them until January becasue of the work demands for this ridiculously long Christmas Push.
If you think you are getting good deals on Black Friday you are not a very informed or smart shopper, except for those One Item blockbusters that get you in their door. A guy at Best Buy told me that they have 12 of the most popular Samsung Tablets at each store in the district and they are running them at 20% off on Black Friday. !2 people will get it, the other hundred hopefuls will buy full retail price! Enjoy everybody, happy Festivus
If they all open later, families win, and stores still do not lose out to other stores.
Shame on Target, Walmart etc for taking away the holiday. Daughter is talking about having T'giving on "another day" to accomodate shoppin
In the 6 years that I worked for Target, the fast, fun, and friendly aspect truely went by the wayside. It' s all about money for them!
I've done the midnight shopping before. Idiot drivers on the icy roads at midnight and early morning is why I don't do it anymore.
There are some things more important than time and a half. This shopping frenzy is absurd!
Thanksgiving....I'm thankful for all the greed!
Friday morning is my opinion, but they are free to epen when they want
This Country has no morals, values, or sense of family anymore! Its just sad.
We need to stop with the greedy behavior and stand up for family values. Thanksgiving is a great holiday.
More specifically between 4-6am. I think that is enough for both sides. Early start for store and lets employees spend time with family.
there is a print circulating on facebook "only in america can we trample people for sales the day after giving thanks for what we have' yea
the employes should be able to spend all day with their families. I am a shopper and not an employee
What fools go shopping in THANKSGIVING!? How pathetic is your life?
Whenever they want, but that doesn't mean I have to shop there.
Unbelievable...they have a job. Do it or go.
They need to unionize if they want to be treated fairly. This rediculousness first requires an employer will to crap on it's employees. But just as importantly it requires other Americans to go shopping on Thursday evening to complete the insult to workers. But that is what we do now, we are canabalizing each other. IT's going to stop until the people get together and decide they've had enough. Expecting gubmint to do it for you is the wrong answer.
I understand the business decision, but do find it tasteless and a tad unamerican to ruin the one holiday where we share love and gratitude
Black Friday has taken a dangerous turn IMO. It is a slippery slope. What's next? Opening at midnight ON thanksgiving itself??
Maybe make the shift really short, like two hours, for stores where there are not enough volunteers?
Why not wait? If you have stuff people want to buy, they will wait until you open.
These poor retail salespeople are already facing raging, obnoxious customers. At least give them their holiday and a decent nights sleep.
I have to work on Thanksgiving. I'm a doctor who has to cover the hospital, because the immoral hospital will not close and allow me to spend the day with my family. Should I cry and complain too? Or do I simply not count, because I am not "labor?" Ah, the dual standards of the New America...
I think you've done enough crying and complaining, thank you very much! Unless you're as old as Methuselah, I've worked more holiday shifts in a hospital than you've seen (Sonny Boy!) Yes, we work holidays, and our families have learned to celebrate with us at the hospital or on alternate days, but it's for a good cause. Our patients need us and appreciate us being there (okay, they appreciate me--you I'm not so sure about) But to work on Thanksgiving so people can shop a few ours earlier?? Are you still grumpy over the election results?
And i'm sure you're working on thanksgiving pro bono, right? Oh wait... no. You're a doctor making a six figure income compared to the regular retail worker that barely scrapes by on less 20k a year. I'm sure you don't mind telling your family to go EF themselves on Thanksgiving since your Ferrari more than makes up for it. Nice try Doctor Joe. If you're even really a " doctor. " Wouldn't be surprised if you're a troll.
@joe p.
Before you became a doctor, you already knew you would have to work on holidays - patient illnesses don't stop just because a holiday shows up. What this article speaks of, is not about life and death situations, but about corporate greed.
As someone already said, if you have what the shoppers need, they will wait until you are open. Yes, it is their store, and they can open whenever they want, however there is also this thing called "humanity" - these corporations aren't showing any of that. In a show of humanity, the stores should wait and not open until Friday.
BTW, I hope you do not show this type of whiny, self-serving bedside manner to your patients.
Your making big bucks doc!! Those retail workers get peanuts compare to you !It's worth it for you, not for them!!
Any time earlier is uncivilized!
if they actually paid a decent wage, you wouldn't have people clamoring for the extra paid holidy shifts