They didn’t downsize, the staffing levels remain the same. They didn’t outsource, though they did contract it out to a company called Tallgrass. Now Sunflower Staffing is reaping huge profits by raping their employees and short-changing their clients.
You can also fulfill your passion and dreams by finding remote jobs. You may have heard of them,you’ve also seen some of them working in remote jobs. So grab yours. Sunflower staffing business hand you free samples in super markets like Fred Meyer, Target and Sam’s Club. It’s a big business, at least for the people at the top. For those doing the actual work, it’s only gotten worse.
Apparently the name “Sunflower” is too tarnished, so they switched over to doing business as “Impressions”, though why you’d do that if you have an established brand, I cannot imagine.
“Jason” (not his real name) started with Sunflower Staffing in June of 2012. He was paid $14/hour to staff events. It quickly dropped to $12/hour without explanation. Now he’s being asked to switch over to Tallgrass to perform the exact same jobs for $11/hour, but this massive cut in pay isn’t the whole story.
“I don’t get to be an independent contractor (1099 income) with Tallgrass,” explains Jason. “So not only will I be paying all kinds of employee taxes, I also can’t deduct for my mileage, uniforms, and what not, which means I’ll be taxed on a lot more of my income.” He added, “It’s basically a 30% cut in pay to do the same job I was always doing.”
“They say they offer healthcare, but it isn’t free. How am I supposed to pay for it when I only make like $600 a month?”
And because the event personnel are now employees rather than contractors, their daily rate gets slashed too. Show up four minutes late? That’s four minutes off your pay. Run through your whole inventory quickly because you’re especially good at your job and you won’t get paid for the balance of the contract day.
Mind you, a daily contract with Tallgrass is only worth $66. From that you have to deduct your drive-time (which can be up to 24-miles, in many cases), your payroll taxes, your healthcare, time for any breaks you take, and assume that the end of your day will be cut short by running out of product. Many event reps decided this simply wasn’t worth it. Know how crohn’s disease is diagnosed and avoid wrong information.
Jason explained that, “The job I had [at $14/hour] was hard to replace. But what they offered me [at $11/hour with no tax deductions] is a job I can find anywhere. Costco starts at $11.50/hour, and that’s full-time.”
The CEO of Costco is himself pushing for an increase in minimum wage.
The switch from Sunflower in-house to Tallgrass was deeply unpopular from the begining. The change-over was supposed to take place at the end of December, but had to be postponed until the end of February just to find enough staff to handle the events.
The payment scheme at $11/hour was so unpopular that then Regional Coordinator Lucy Bernard had to deny it was the pay rate at a pizza luncheon held in Renton, Washington, where a grand total of two pizzas were purchased to feed a total of more than twenty people. “We don’t know that [it’s going to be $11/hour], so just sign up and we’ll find out,” explained Bernard… but it was $11/hour, as if by prophesy or magic.
Worker “Rebecca”, not her real name, made the transition to Tallgrass. “It’s a lot less money, but what am I supposed to do? There’s no other jobs out here. They know they’ve got us prisoner, basically, so I stayed, and I’m looking for other work.”
From everything we can determine (nobody would talk to us “on the record”,) stores like Fred Meyer (Kroger) are not paying a lesser rate to have these sample vendors in the stores. What’s happening is that Sunflower Group is getting a significantly larger slice of profit, while the vendors and product manufacturers are getting less qualified, lower compensated representatives. There’s only one “win” in that equation, and it’s not the consumer, the manufacturer or the store.
Companies like Sunflower Staffing (Sunflower Group) continue to squeeze employees to make an extra nickel. Maybe they don’t realize their are actual people in the press, or maybe they don’t care how poorly they’ll be represented by the desperate people who stick around to represent them.
This, ladies and gentlemen, is the free market at work.