Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, February 22, 1992 TAG: 9202220140
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: A-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: SANDRA BROWN KELLY
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
SEARS OFFERS BUYOUT - FAST
Joyce Bowles has worked at Sears for 39 years. This week, she was given five days in which to decide if she wants to continue.Bowles is one of nine veteran salespeople in Roanoke who have been offered buyouts by Sears Roebuck & Co. She said she'll give the company her answer tonight, minutes before the 9 o'clock deadline.
The buyout offer was made to employees who stand to lose 10 percent or more of their income from commissions under a new compensation plan, said Joe Sears, manager of the Roanoke store at Valley View Mall.
Sears said the proposal applies to full-time employees who have worked at least one year in their current job selling "big ticket" items such as appliances, automotive supplies and electronics.
He said the employees affected were given "protection in pay" when Sears began to change its compensation policies and amounts in recent years. The latest plan to eliminate base pay and change its commission structure eliminates that protection.
Bowles said under the new plan she would lose her $2-an-hour base pay and have to work with new commission levels. But, she said, the income was of less concern than the stress incurred from the buyout offer.
Bowles, 60, said she's not sure she wants to quit working. She said the idea of taking the buyout - which would give her 26 weeks of pay - has brought her "just a lot of trauma and heartbreak."
And she resents that employees were given only five days in which to decide, she said.
Bowles said she considered herself luckier than some other people offered buyouts. She said she had thought about retirement and already had a report on her retirement benefits. The others had to find out what they could in five days.
One irony of the offer is that the store manager said he doesn't want anyone to take it. If the employees leave, he said he will have to hire replacements.
"I'm not trying to encourage them to leave. I said I didn't want them to," he said. Bowles could stay as long as she wants to, Sears said. "She is a very fine sales person."
Sears said none of the nine had decided to leave as of Friday.
When Sears, Roebuck announced the pay changes a week ago, it said the company also would eliminate 600 jobs by mid-April by closing its regional retailing offices and cutting jobs in its Chicago headquarters.
Sears has cut or announced plans to cut 40,000 jobs from its retail operation since 1990.
Manager Sears said no jobs have been cut at his store, but he is evaluating paperwork done by the sales-support staff to determine if it can be centralized.